The Great Antarctic Explorers Part II: The Animals

Scott's ponies at work.

The unsung heroes of the great era of Antarctic exploration are the animals:  the dogs and horses that carried Amundsen, Shackleton, Scott and others to their goals, and the seals and penguins that fed and warmed them.  And even the cats that comforted the explorers on their ships. Below are some summaries of what the animals endured, using some of the the explorers' own words.

Ponies
Both Shackleton (the Nimrod Expedition) and Scott (the Terra Nova expedition) used Manchurian or Siberian ponies in their efforts to reach the Pole.  Both of their expeditions failed at least in part because they chose to use ponies instead of dogs. Why did they take them?  Because Scott and Shackleton (part of his Scott's crew) struggled with dogs on the earlier Discovery expedition.  The dogs fought with each other, never formed cohesive units, fell sick and into crevasses.

Only twenty dogs were taken with the Discovery and the trouble they gave and their eventual collapse and failure are matters of common knowledge.  

Ernest Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic

 The dogs failed badly: probably the Norwegian stock-fish which had been brought through the tropics to feed them was tainted: at any rate they sickened; and before the journey was done all the dogs had to be killed or had died. 

Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

So neither Shackleton nor Scott trusted dogs and preferred something more familiar like ponies (or motor sledges which also failed on both journeys).
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The choice of ponies was not as dumb as it might sound.  Siberian and Manchurian ponies had hauled supplies in the harshest conditions in northeastern Asia.  They tolerated cold well and each could pull over 1200 pounds.  The best part of taking ponies?  They made good eating.  All of these ponies were destined to carry cargo only so far and then become dinner for humans and any accompanying dogs.

But the explorers didn't take into account three major problems:  ponies didn't do well chained for months on long ship voyages, feeding them would be challenging (imagine taking all that compressed fodder and oiled oats on a sledge), and though they can move swiftly on packed snow, they flounder in deep powder.

Shackleton's ponies soon after arrival and before four of them died.

Of Shackleton's eight ponies, four died within one month of arrival.  Something in the rocky soil they nibbled poisoned them.  The remaining four ponies..

were precious in our eyes and they were watched and guarded with
keen attention....Every one of them seems to possess more cunning and sense than the ordinary broken-in horse at home, and this cunning, when put into practice to gain any end of their own, was a constant source of petty annoyance to us.

Ernest Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic

Annoying or not, the ponies compliantly trudged along on Shackleton's failed march to the Pole and three were summarily shot as they faltered.  The final pony, Socks, fell into a crevasse on the Beardsmore Glacier and disappeared, depriving the explorers of the meat they needed to complete their journey.  In fear of starvation, Shackleton turned the expedition back to base less than 100 miles from the Pole.

Scott's ponies did only marginally better. His dog handler, Meares, who didn't know a thing about horses, purchased them with only one guiding piece of advice from Scott-- "get white ones".  It seems only the dark ponies on Shackleton's expedition died from eating soil, so Scott figured that coat color must be the answer.  (Hmmm).

When he first saw them in New Zealand, Scott's horse handler, Titus Oates, a former British cavalry officer, described the ponies as "the greatest lot of crocks I have ever seen". So much for having a thrifty, color-motivated, dog handler buying your horses. Two ponies died on the extremely rough voyage from New Zealand to Ross Island.  Two died of exhaustion on an early depot journey.  One was attacked by the dogs.  Another died in the stable. Four of the best ponies got stuck on ice floes with their handlers and three of the ponies, frightened by surrounding orcas, fell in the 29° water when they were induced to try to jump from floe to floe.  The men couldn't get them back on the ice and summarily executed them pickaxes to the brain so they wouldn't be eaten alive by the killer whales.

Titus Oates, Scott's horse tender, with some of his [white charges on board the Terra Nova.  Oates was
extremely critical of both  Scott's pony selection and their inadequate diet.  Nevertheless, despite being Scott's harshest critic, Scott gave Oates the honor of joining the final five to the pole. Oates is most famous for his final words.  He could barely walk due to frostbitten, necrotic feet.  Not wanting to burden the team (they insisted on carrying him), he got up and left the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time".  He was never seen again.  He is the epitome of the
British stiff upper lip.

In the end, Scott's expedition started for the Pole with ten ponies. The lack of pony snow shoes--Scott had forgotten them--made each step through deep snow a struggle. As Oates predicted, they weren't fed enough and as the days wore on, they lost weight and faltered.  Six flagging ponies were shot en route.  Said Charles Wright:

Poor Chinaman died tonight of senile decay complicated by the presence of a bullet in the brain.
Poor old devil, he never shirked and was capable of reaching the Beardmore.   Dogs had to
be fed was the trouble.  He was the smallest and oldest of the lot and the first to cross every degree
of latitude.

Finally, six weeks after they left Cape Evans, the remaining four ponies met their end on one bad day.

The ponies still plugged on in the most plucky way though they had to be driven...We camped, thankful to rest, but more thankful still that we need drive those weary ponies no more.  Their rest was near.  It was a horrid business and the place was known as Shambles Camp.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.

Dogs:
All the explorers used dogs at one point or another.  Although they were work animals rather than pets, the explorers loved their dogs nonetheless.

If now and then, one grew a little tired of one's fellow-
men--which, I must admit, seldom happened--there was as a rule, diversion to be found in the society

of animals...In spite of all the trouble and inconvenience to which the transport of the dogs
necessarily gave rise, I am certainly right in saying that these months of sea voyage would
have seemed far more monotonous and tedious if we had been without our passengers.

Amundsen, The South Pole

The presence of the dogs around winter quarters and on our walks was very cheerful and gave a homelike feeling to the place, and our interest in the pups was always fresh, for as they gradually grew up each one developed characteristics and peculiarities of its own.
Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic

Amundsen's dogs at the South Pole.  Amundsen harnessed his dogs in a fan-like structure.  That way,
if one fell in a crevasse,  the other dogs and the sledge wouldn't follow.  Scott used a two dogs
per row structure that was not as well suited for Antarctic exploration.

Amundsen was the king of sledging with dogs.  He had spent years practicing in the Arctic, learning from the Inuit about how to train, feed, and care for Greenland sled dogs.  He was committed to using them as the main form of transport on his trip to the pole and brought over 100 of them with him on his trip.  He goes on to extol how wonderful dogs are for Antarctic travel, their superiority to ponies, and to criticize Scott for failing to recognize their value.  A team of six could travel over 60 miles per day on a good surface dragging 700 pounds.  As Amundsen said,

We had made up our minds not to drive more than twelve to 18 miles a day; but this
proved to be too little, thanks to our strong and willing animals.  

Some of Amundsen's dogs died on depot trips and others were born back at their base on the ice.  Ultimately, 52 dogs went out on the successful polar expedition.  Amundsen returned from the Pole, though, with only 11.  Ten died en route.  Then, as planned, at the "Butcher's Shop" camp, the expedition slaughtered twenty four of them to use as food for the remaining trip.

Twenty-four of our brave companions and faithful helpers were marked out
for death.  It was hard but it had to be so.  We had agreed to shrink from nothing in
order to reach our goal.  Each man was to kill his own dogs to the number that
had been fixed....Shot now followed upon shot--they had an uncanny sound over
the great plain.  A trusty servant lost his life each time....During the last few days before
reaching the Butcher's shop, we all talked and thought about nothing but dog cutlets, 
dog steaks and the like.  But on this first evening, we put a restraint on ourselves; we thought
we could not fall upon our four-footed friends and devour them before they had time to grow cold.

Amundsen, The South Pole

Seven more dogs died on the way back.  Over 75% of the dogs were sacrificed but the humans all survived.  Amundsen ultimately gave all but one of his surviving dogs to Mawson.  All but one of the dogs then died on Mawson's expedition.

Amundsen's route (red) and Scott's route (blue).  Amundsen's was shorter and
avoided the crevasse laden Beardsmore glacier.

Shackleton and Scott also used dogs but didn't rely on them despite witnessing their successes with their own eyes. On his 1907-1909  Nimrod expedition, Shackleton brought a mere nine dogs with him.  Fortunately for him, these nine produced a number of litters over their 18 months on the ship and on Ross Island. Yet,

the dogs, whose numbers had been increased by births until we had a fairly large team,
 were trained, but I did not see much scope for them on the southern journey.  I knew
from past experience that dogs would not travel when low drift was blowing in their faces,
and such drift was to be expected fairly often on the Barrier [the Ice Shelf] surface, even in the summer. 

Some of Shackleton's puppies.  The team once left a litter of puppies in Discovery Hut with a dead seal and dog biscuits
 to nibble on.  Months later, when the explorers returned, they found full grown dogs but no seal; the biscuits remained.

Scott had a good supply of dogs and  his team saw clearly that dogs did better than ponies but they chose to ignore it.

During [the] first blizzard all our ponies were weakened, and two of them became practically useless....It was different for the dogs.  These fairly warm blizzards were only a rest for them.  Snugly curled up in a hole in the snow they allowed themselves to be drifted over.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.

Later, the Northern Party of Scott's team had sailed by Amundsen's base in the Bay of Whales. According to one historian:

Amundsen made a dramatic appearance, rocketing past the British party on a sledge
pulled by dogs.  One Norwegian officer wrote: "English-men were flabbergasted...they had never
dreamt that dogs could run in that way before a sledge, and already they felt contempt
for their dear ponies".

Robert Brears Blog,  Scott's ponies becoming unstuck.

Peary on his prior North Pole expedition raced almost 100 miles in one day with his dogs.  Scott should have paid better attention and learned from this precedent. Dogs were faster, tolerated cold better and were more efficient to feed.

Ultimately, Scott did take two dog teams on the polar expedition, but only to the end of the ice shelf .  The dog teams helped supply the depots and then turned back.  More importantly, Scott ask for dog teams to come out and speed them home when his return was imminent--they didn't want to miss the ship carrying them back to New Zealand.  Though the dog team, led by Cherry-Garrard, was late, it waited as instructed (more or less) at the nearest depot.  Scott never arrived.  At that very moment, he, Wilson, and Bowers were starving and freezing to death a mere 11 miles away.

Scott made many minor, but questionable decisions.  In the harsh climate of Antarctica, there is no leeway for mistakes. 

• He took an extra person to the pole without allowing for extra food or fuel.  This last is particularly bad because heating water for an extra person took a lot of extra time and fuel.
• He didn't account for the size of Lieutenant Evans, a large man who received the same amount of food as men 2/3 his size and was the first to die
• He left too late and encountered much colder temperatures than Amundsen (although the temperatures were definitely unseasonably cold, even for that time of year).
• He chose poor ponies and didn't feed them well enough
• He didn't store his fuel oil well enough.  Both Scott's and Amundsen's teams noted that the cans leaked.  But unlike Amundsen, Scott did not resolder the cans, and those left at the depot were empty of fuel when Scott retrieved them.
• Worst of all, he didn't rely on the dog teams

Perhaps he just had too tender a heart to see dogs suffer.  It was he, after all, who risked his life to extract all the dogs out of a deep crevasse during the Discovery Expedition.  Others on the team wanted to leave them behind.  Scott roped himself and climbed down 100 feet to retrieve every one of them. 

Yet it's hard not to imagine the whole expedition ending differently if he had just relied on the masters of polar travel: sled dogs.

Here's what's left when you don't have ponies or dogs.  Scott did not calculate the amount of calories
needed to manhaul.  They starved to death.  On his dogsled expedition, Amundsen's crew gained weight.

Cats (check out the link)
All the ships had cats on board.  If you're a cat, don't sign up for this gig.

The Endurance's stowaway, Perce Blackborow, with Mrs. Chippy.

Discovery  
Blackwall was killed by dogs.  Poplar was killed by the crew.  "Although everyone liked the animal and admired the way it had come through last winter with only the loss of an ear from frostbite, yet it has alwasy been a dirty cat in its habits and a perfect bugbear to me, so the men decided to do away with it for which I am not sorry."  Lt. Charles Royds (for whom Cape Royds is named).

Morning (Scott's relief ship)
Kitten named Morning and cat named Bobs were lost overboard. Other cats and a litter of kittens seem to have survived.

Terra Nova
The "N word". This was a beloved cat who had his own hammock, blanket and pillow on the Terra Nova. He was swept overboard twice but rescued only once.  From a New Zealand newspaper:

The loss of the ship's black cat was a sad blow to the ship's company.  On the way down N...r had a narrow escape from drowning.  he either fell or was washed overboard and the Terra Nova was stopped to pick him up.  A boat was hastily lowered and after swimming in intensely cold water for about six minutes, N...r was picked up and returned to his rejoicing owners.  Coming home, however, the fates were less kind.  N..r was lost overboard one night, and no trace of him was seen again.  His pleased purr and his plaintive mew were for ever stilled.  

Endurance
The most famous Antarctic animal of all was the beloved male cat, Mrs.Chippy who was on Shackleton's Endurance.  The pet of the carpenter, McNish, Mrs. Chippy was killed with Shackleton's remaining dogs when the crew was finally freed from the ice.  McNish mourned the cat until his death.  A Mrs. Chippy statue adorns McNish's grave.

Legacy
In honor of the animals, five navigational waypoints were recently named for five of Scott's ponies and six of Amundsen's dogs.  In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented a copy of the revised aeronautical map in Christchurch.  She said, "the waypoints have been named after the unsung heroes of Antarctic exploration -- the dogs and ponies that made those early trips possible.  In the story of the Antarctic, the names of the explorers are well known and famous, but now they are joined by the likes of Helge and Snippets and Bones and Nobby".

I've asked the NSF  whether they might dedicate a monument for these animals at McMurdo as they've done in London for animals that died (dogs, horses, pigeons, etc) in military service for England.  They're thinking on it.