The Great Antarctic Explorers part 1: Apsley Cherry-Garrard

"The greatest interest of all is what we human beings, all of us, will do voluntarily for an idea. What will we not do?"  

Apsley Cherry-Garrard

As a child, my favorite place in the Millburn Public library was the biography section.  I'd make a beeline to the those shelves, plop on the floor and read book after book--Amelia Earhart, Clara Barton, Abe Lincoln, Elizabeth Blackwell,  Thomas Edison, Theodore Roosevelt (probably my favorite)... on and on.

When I got to high school, I took AP European History.    My teacher, Mr. Stivers, loved to tell gossipy stories about historical figures.  I mistakenly thought that history was just "biography" writ large.  When I wasn't asked about Napoleon's favorite horse on the AP European History exam but rather about economic and political trends, I was terribly disappointed.

I still love biography. People interest me, not the social forces.  In that respect, Antarctica is a dream because the people are what it's about.

This past week, we've heard two animated (literally and figuratively) lectures from Sarah Airriess.  A former animator for Disney, Sarah heard the BBC radio program based on Apsley Cherry-Garrard's book, The Worst Journey in the World, and became totally hooked on the Scott Polar Expedition.  She quit her job and spent 10 years researching the expedition and particularly the people involved.  Her goal is to make a series of graphic novels entitled, The (Best) Worst Journey in the World.

For those who are unfamiliar with the heroic age of Antarctic Exploration, I thought I might dedicate a few blogs--interspersed with other topics--to brief synopses of individual explorers. I'll try to provide some online and book references so that those who are inspired can read more.  Their stories are more thrilling than any novel--triumphant and tragic with unparalleled bravery, loyalty, and endurance.  Ironically, though, the Endurance trip is one story I won't relate since it occurred on the other side of the continent and everyone knows it already.

In honor of Sarah, I'm going to start with Apsley Cherry-Garrard (ACG). 

Sarah's drawing of ACG.  He was embarrassed to wear his glasses for photographs.

ACG--a British noble, educated at Winchester College and Oxford--was assistant scientist (despite no experience) and, at 24 years of age, one of the youngest members of Scott's Terra Nova expedition (the expeditions are typically named after the explorers' ships).  ACG has two particular claims to fame:  he was one of three explorers on the Winter Expedition (The Worst Journey in the World) and, unfortunately for him, he was chosen to try to reach Scott on his journey back from the pole, falling short of him by 11 miles .

The Royal Geological Society helped to fund Scott's trip and at least six scientists joined them on the expedition, hoping to learn more about biology, geology and meteorology.  Edward (Bill) Wilson, the lead scientist on the Terra Nova, believed that Emperor penguins were a missing evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.  To prove this, he needed to examine a penguin embryo. However, at that time, no one had ever seen an Emperor penguin egg; they are laid in the Austral winter in remote, forbidding locations.

Bowers, Wilson and ACG before the trip.

Wilson was determined and made the collection of eggs a prerequisite for joining the expedition.  He set forth in June of 1911 with two companions, Birdie Bowers and ACG, leaving the cozy snugness of the Cape Evans Terra Nova hut on the western end of Ross Island to travel by man-hauled sledge (think dog sled without dogs) to the penguin rookery at Cape Crozier on the east end of the island, 45 miles away as the crow flies.  You might think that 90 miles round trip is doable on foot in one week, even with a few detours.  You would be wrong. They were travelling in complete darkness on a circuitous route over the ice shelf (you can't get there overland) through terrain covered with both 40 foot high pressure ridges and deep crevasses.  They fell into the crevasses so regularly, that they had to tie themselves together for the entire trip so they could pull each other out.  The temperature was often as low -80°F, never above -27°F, with powerful winds blowing them backwards.  Also, the snow was too soft to pull the two 400-pound sledges as they had planned.  For much of the trip, they had to pull one sledge for one mile, then circle back through the pressure ridges and crevasses to pull the other. After 19 days, ACG wrote: “I did not really care if only I could die without much pain.”

ACG's map of the journey

By the time they got to Cape Crozier--one of the windiest places on earth--they had expended more than 85% of their cooking fuel. They had plans to build a stone shelter (the "igloo") but the rock selection was poor with nothing on site to fill the gaps between the stones.  The wind roared into the shelter despite the team's efforts to stuff the gaps with their socks and to cover the tiny hut with a tarp.  Outside, they erected their Scott tent, which is known to withstand winds of up to 145 miles per hour, to use as a lab.  Better they should have slept there.

Drawings of the shelter by Wilson

On day 21, they rappelled down and then had to climb up a challenging 200 foot cliff (in the dark of course) to bring back their five penguin eggs.  Both of the ones ACG carried broke in the ascent.

The cliffs

When they got back to their shelter, the wind began to blow at horrifying, super-hurricane speeds.  The wind-proof tent--their only protection for their journey home--blew away, the tarp on top of their hut was shredded into confetti, and the entire stone building collapsed on top of them, leaving them bruised, in the throes of a tremendous blizzard at temperatures below -40°F with only their sleeping bags to protect them.  This lasted for two days.  So what did they do?  They sang.  ACG wrote: “I can well believe that neither of my companions gave up hope for an instant. They must have been frightened but they were never disturbed. As for me I never had any hope at all.... Without the tent we were dead men.”

What's left of the igloo

Ultimately, they survived, insulated by piles of snow. Luckily, they also found their tent, wedged like a pancake between two boulders.   On the way back, they took only one sledge with the remaining penguin eggs, their tent, their reindeer sleeping bags (now furry ice cubes) and their food and remaining fuel.  They starved and froze but made it, using Castle Rock and Ob Hill--pictures of which I frequently post on this blog--as their landmarks.  The whole trip took them six horrifying weeks.

The trio on their return (ACG on the right).

Part two of ACG's saga pertains to the last phase of Scott's polar expedition.  Before leaving for the pole, Scott asked that a dog team come out to meet and relieve the polar team on their return journey.  Unfortunately, the experienced dog sled driver was sick and the doctor, also experienced, was caring for him. So they decided to send ACG who was neither good at navigation nor at dog sled driving.  He was instructed to sledge out with a dog handler to "One Ton Depot", 130 miles and 5 days away, and then make a decision--now as a 25 year old-- about whether to go further and try to intercept Scott's team (were they alive or dead?) or to wait for them to show up.  Blizzards stopped him at the depot.  After one week waiting, the persistently perilous weather led him to the only possible decision--to head back to base.  The polar team--Scott and ACG's two companions on the Winter Journey--were to die only 11 miles away from One Ton Depot.  The deaths of his leader and dearest friends remained a psychological weight on ACG's shoulders for the remainder of his life.

Cairn over the tent and bodies of the Scott party.  It is gone now, absorbed by the Ross Ice Shelf.
In 250 years or so, it will float out to sea in an iceberg.

ACG came back from Antarctica only to fight in WWI, suffering injuries and illness.  In 1922, he finally wrote The Worst Journey in the World.  National Geographic calls it the greatest true adventure story ever written.  I'm reading it now and am completely rapt.

ACG died in 1959 and is buried in London.   The shell of one of the Emperor Penguin eggs now rests at London's Natural History Museum, the embryos having failed to prove Wilson's theory.

"Though we achieved a first-rate tragedy, tragedy was not our business."  Apsley Cherry-Garrard

More of Sarah Airriess's work can be found at these sites:
http://gum.co/seaicegb
http://gum.co/WJprologue
http://gum.co/bestjourney