26 November 1902 Robert Falcon Scott left Christchurch on the Terra Nova. Few could have predicted what would befall his expedition to the South Pole or that it would continue to fascinate 110 years later.
“These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale” reads Scott’s last journal entry, but Scott’s Last Expedition, the major international touring exhibition now showing at Canterbury Museum, uses so much more.
It’s a tale we think we know; endurance, bravery, fortitude in the face of certain death. I well remember a print of Captain Oates walking away from the tent into a blizzard hanging on the wall of my girls’ school (wouldn’t Edith Cavell facing the firing squad have been more inspiring to the girls?) but I don’t remember ever thinking much about why the expedition was trying to get to the South Pole.
Scott’s Last Expedition answers the questions I never thought to ask, by bringing the scientific specimens gathered at such cost together with the artefacts familiar from the photographs of the expedition and of the huts that still stand.
Edward Wilson, who died in the tent along with Henry Bowers and Scott, struggled through advanced frost bite to bring back specimens that included a grey rock . He didn’t make it back but the rock did and it’s in the exhibition. It might not seem that exciting at first sight, until you notice the red lines of fossilised seed ferns that helped to prove the theories of continental drift.
There’s something here for everyone; the irremediably trivial like me, transfixed by the sled flags, and those who can appreciate the sheer scope of the science. Also a very nice line in merchandise.
You will have a chance to see the statue that stood on the banks of the Avon until 22 February 2011 at closer quarters than you are ever likely to experience again.
And if you want to know more, there is lots of stuff in the library.
- Books by Scott
- Books about Scott
- Books about Antarctica
- A page on Christchurch connections with the Antarctic
- Two letters from Robert Falcon Scott to the Town Clerk of Christchurch, thanking the city for various gifts to the Antarctic expeditions.
Christchurch City Libraries Blog 