https://www.npolar.no/en/ The icebreaker Kronprins Haakon, delivered in 2018 is used in both the Arctic and Antarctic. After wintering on Ross Island, Ernest Shakelton and a team of three others sledged within 97 nautical miles (155 km) of the South Geographic Pole. 1909. 1905-7 – International Geophysical Congress, meeting in London, decides to make Antarctica the main target of future exploration. It took seventeen days in a freezing hurricane to reach South Georgia. They were now less than 80 miles from the finish line, but a single question still loomed over their progress: would they be the first group of men in history to reach the South Pole, or the second? Robert F. Scott and two of his four companions set out for the South Pole pulling a sled. 1911. He was almost successful, falling just 97 miles short. Roald Amundsen was a 39-year-old Norwegian who had spent most of his life venturing to the far corners of the globe. However, the next overland expedition to the South Pole was not made until 1958, more than 40 years after Amundsen and Scott's deadly race. Scott employed a combination of sled dogs, Manchurian ponies and even a few motorized tractors. 1965 – Antarctica tourism for the public begins. The British team had reached their destination late in the Antarctic summer, and temperatures were dropping rapidly. Sian Flynn reveals how the race for Antarctic glory was run. The oil slick is believed to have wiped out the blue-eyed shag population in the area. “Great God!” Scott wrote in his diary. It read simply: “Beg leave to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic. With nothing but snow and ice as far as the eye can see, standing on the polar plateau can feel both mind opening and mind numbing at the same time. Mawson became very ill of Vitamin A poisoning from eating husky dog livers. Despite being a featureless flat bit of ice and snow surrounded by identical looking featureless ice and snow for hundreds of miles (at least) in all directions, the South Pole was a very sought after geographical prize, after several attempt to reach it, Norwegian Roald Amundsen arrived there first as part of a team of 5 men with 18 dogs pulling sledges on the 14th of December 1911. Amundsen and Scott relied on vastly different forms of transport during their journeys. READ MORE: When Hitler Sent a Secret Expedition to Antarctica in a Hunt for Margarine Fat. Scott used ponies as well as dogs. Two years later, he died in a plane crash while searching for a missing explorer over Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. 1907-1909 Ernest Shackleton leads the second British Antarctic Expedition on the Nimrod. Shakelton establishes British Antarctic Expedition base on Ross Island from the Nimrod. Antarctica is the biggest wilderness on earth and still the least visited of all the continents. Amundsen leaves a letter for Scott and returns to his base at the Bay of Whales without mishap and heads his crew to Australia. Scott’s five-man party had already endured brushes with blizzards and frostbite during their trek. Learn more about Amundsen in this article. 1831 – The North Magnetic Pole had been discovered. Finally, on October 20, 1911, conditions improved enough for his five-man team to begin their dash to the Pole. 1492 – Map makers have a mythical continent on the map described as “Terra Australis Incognita” (The Unknown Southern Land) placed exactly where Antarctica is today. The History of Antarctic Exploration The Beginnings The history of Antarctic exploration includes national and international politics, social change, ... With the South pole 'conquered' the next challenge became to traverse Antarctica, from one coast to the other across the icecap. Landing on the wrong side of the island, they were forced to cross the mountainous island on foot. In the early 1910s, explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott engaged in a frantic, and ultimately tragic, race to be the first man to reach the South Pole. After a third attempt, with a Chilean steamer, Yelcho, the whole team was eventually rescued. 1940 – Little America III base is set up at the Bay of Whales under Richard Bryd. They become the first to fly over both poles in an airplane. Large areas of coastline and hinterland are mapped. Not a single life was lost. The ship carried tourists and scientists, and was evacuated before it sank. Amundsen, meanwhile, relied solely on skis and sled dogs to cross the tundra. Erebus carrying 257 people onboard that included tourist and crew. Their ship the Belgica became ice-bound off the Antarctic Peninsula, and they were forced to spend 13 months drifting in pack ice. In 1911, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen both aimed to be the first to reach the South Pole. “This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have labored to it without the reward of priority.”. 1905-7 – International Geophysical Congress, meeting in London, decides to make Antarctica the main target of future exploration. This expeditionary party was whalers looking for Southern Right Whales. In 1910, British adventurer Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) set out for the South Pole. All Rights Reserved. In 1992, Bancroft visited the South Pole for the first time, becoming the first woman in history to travel to both Poles. Two polar adventurers are attempting the same South Pole journey that claimed the lives of British explorer Captain Robert Scott and his men in 1911-1912. Shakelton immediately set off in a Norwegian whaler to rescue his crew from Elephant Island. 1912: On January 18, Robert F. Scott, Edward Wilson, Edgar Evans and Lawrence Oates reach the South Pole.Unfortunately, Amundsen had already been there and left a flag marking the spot. 2004. Norwegian Polar Institute - 1928 - present. Fuch’s team met up with Hillary’s Team and continues on to the Ross Sea. He was able to chart unknown territory, including the giant ice shelf the size of Texas that is currently named after him. 1899 – Cape Adare in Victoria Land had the first men to winter in pre-fabricated huts on the continent under Carsten Borchgrevink and a member of the Southern Cross expedition. The dogs helped his men save their strength, and the explorers later killed the weakest of the animals to supplement their food supply. After numerous attempts to walk and haul their lifeboats to open water the 28 men of the Endurance are forced to camp on floating ice for five months eventually made camp and waited until the pack ice broke up in the spring before taking the boats to Elephant Island. Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer who was the first to reach the South Pole, the first to make a ship voyage through the Northwest Passage, and one of the first to cross the Arctic by air. “We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far,” Scott wrote in his last diary entry. The rest of the party struggled on, but was eventually pinned down for eight days by bad weather, ironically just 11 miles (18 km) from their “one-ton” supply depot. 1902 – Robert Scott, Edward Wilson, and Ernest Shakelton leave McMurdo Sound for the first real attempt to reach the South Pole. 530 BC -. His 34-man shore party was tasked with conducting scientific research and collecting wildlife and rock samples, but Scott, who had previously led an Antarctic mission in 1902, was also determined to make a run at the Pole. 1773 – The Antarctic Circle was crossed for the first time by Captain James Cook in the ships Resolution and Adventure. 1908 – While Ernest Shakelton, Frank Wild, Eric Marshall, and Jameson Adams begin their attempt to reach the geographic south pole, others members of the same expedition including Australian Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David, and a Scottish doctor Alistair McKay, set out from the winter quarters on Ross Island on their journey of over 1200 miles on foot, without animal support to reach the geomagnetic south pole. Dr. Frederick Cook, and 12 made it back geomagnetic South Pole first and planting a Flag was 39-year-old. 1909, Amundsen was focused only on reaching the South Magnetic Pole but was to. 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