Robert Falcon Scott [1868-1912]

The year was 1900 when a man called Robert Falcon Scott had been chosen to take a British National Antarctic Expedition on the ship Discovery. They started sailing from the town Cowes on the 6 August1901 with a group of 50 men and 19 Greenland Huskies.

They charted 1,200 miles of coastline and biological, geological and meteorological studies were also done. They set out on the 2^nd November having all the dogs harness in to three teams. Around the time they got to 82-15 they had to go back because of illness.

  In 1910 Scott started to organize another trip to Antarctica. They set sail again in June 1910 on the ship Terra Nova. In November 1911, he and four companions started to go south by person-pulled sledges.

 Stopped by bad weather they got to the south geographic pole on January 17^th 1912.  Roald Amundsen had actually got there ahead of them on the on December 14^th 1911. Scott decided to take seven more days during which he collected some different geological samples.

 On their return trip, Captain Oates committed suicide by walking off in a blizzard. Officer Edgar suffered from continuous frostbite and had twice fallen down crevasses from which he struck his head. He died in February 1912.  

By the 21^st of March the men left of Scott’s team were 11 miles from a supply station. They only had two days worth of food left and one day’s worth of fuel. That night a nine-day blizzard blew up. The last time Scott wrote in his logbook was dated March 29th. It reads: ‘‘Every day we have been ready to start heading to the station eleven miles away, but outside it is windy and freezing. It seems a pity but I think I can’t write anymore, as we are growing weaker and iller."

  In November 12^th 1912, a search party found Scott’s tent containing the bodies of Scott, Wilson, and Rowers. A polar research unit was founded in Cambridge in 1920 to honour Scott’s work.

Douglas Mawson

When Douglas Mawson went to Antarctica he was making good progress when disaster struck on December 14^th 1912 when Ninnis and the sledge and tents and food and the six fittest dogs disappeared down a crevasse. They were never found.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton  [1874-1922]

Shackleton, who became a lieutenant, was a deck officer on the ship Discovery which was lead by Scott. When he got to Antarctica he got scurvy and had to be taken back.

  In March 1914 he returned to Antarctica but he had one major problem.  His ship drifted for ten months before getting crushed by a pack ice. Shackleton died on January 5^th, 1922.