A brief history of conquest “History is written by the victors”

~650 Ui-te-Rangiora Reported sailing to a place of terrible cold where the sea was covered with a white powder and things like great white rocks rose high into the sky. Polynesia (canoes) ~1502--Probable sighting of Georgia Portugal (T. Vespucci) ~1578 Drake: Loose ice sighted 56° S of Magellan Straits 1772-1775: Cook circumnavigates Antarctic continent (but doesn’t know it) Terra Australis (~1800) Conquest, cont. 1819-1821: Bellinghausen (Russia) – Circumnavigates Antarctica and sees snow. 1820-1823: Veale (UK) shipwrecks for 22 months 1837: D’Urville (Fr)-first large party to land on Antarctica 1901-1903: Scott (UK) winters 2 yrs. @present-day McMurdo base 1907-09: Shackleton to within diameter of Moscow of South Pole. Barely survives… HISTORY

Conquest, cont. cont. ● 1911: Amundsen + dogs arrive @Pole (Dec. 14) ● Jan. 11, 1912: Scott + 5 men (no ponies, a few dogs). “Yes, the Pole. But under much different circumstances than we had imagined.”

Scott starting point (preserved) 16 December, 2011

14.12.1911 / 11.01.1912 ● “Yes, the Pole. But under much different circumstances than we had imagined.”

McMurdo & Scott cairn , (picture from first expedition) Expedition ● Dec 5, 1914 - set sail for Antarctica from South Georgia Island ● Jan 18, 1915 - Endurance trapped in pack ice just one day from planned landing site on Antarctic shore. ● Oct 27, 1915 - Ship is crushed by ice after drifting with pack ice. July, 1915

October, 1915 Endurance Expedition ● April 9, 1916 - Launch of 3 lifeboats because ice floes are breaking up. Later they land on . ● April 24, 1916 - Shackleton sets sail in one 22 1/2 foot lifeboat with 5 companions on 800 mile voyage to seek help on South Georgia Island for men left behind. Selects 2 to accompany him for trek across the island.

Endurance Expedition ● May 10, 1916 - arrived South Georgia Island. Had to cross impassable frozen mountain range to reach the whaling station. – 40 km / 36 hours ● http://www.condorjourneys-adventures.com/antarctica_cruise4.asp ● Immediately turned around to rescue remaining crew on Elephant Island - 4 months more to complete rescue. South Georgia Island

Trek from landing site at King Haakon Bay to for rescue Endurance Expedition ● http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/endurance/

That was all of tangible things; but in memories we were rich. We had pierced the veneer of outside things. We had "suffered, starved and triumphed, groveled down yet grasped at glory, grown bigger in the bigness of the whole. We had seen God in His splendours, heard the text that Nature renders." We had reached the naked soul of man. South, published 1919. In this extract, Shackleton was paraphrasing 'The Call of the Wild' by Robert Service, published in 1907.

January January April 1, 2015 Underground tunnel system