Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott

“We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last…Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.” - Robert Falcon Scott

Exploration of Earth’s wilderness areas became an international obsession in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as economically advantaged nations, in particular European powers and the United States were well equipped to mount exhaustive expeditions. From previously inaccessible forests and jungle country to the world’s great mountain ranges, adventurers sought out the greatest extremes of climate and terrain in a race to plant the first flag where humanity struggled to survive. An earlier wave of explorers led to the opening of the New World, and early polar expeditions saw ancient ships of various nations sail along the coastlines of Greenland and within reach of the Arctic and Antarctic continents. Many 19th century figures approached the polar region with an eye to traversing it. Most notable among them was British explorer Sir James Clark Ross, who took the Erebus and the HMS Terror to the southernmost coastlines of the planet. Ross is probably the first explorer to realize that Antarctica was a continent and not just a large chain of islands, and he discovered the section of the shelf that was to become the Victoria Barrier. Asian nations also took part in Antarctic exploration.

More than any other country, Britain staked its national pride on being the first to reach the poles, as they would on penetrating the deep jungles of the Amazon and scaling the highest peaks of the Himalayas. Preservation of the British personality as an intrepid internationalist required such victories, but in the case of Arctic and Antarctic exploration, the empire fell short of the mark.

Nevertheless, some of the explorers who were involved became household names around the world, including British explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Perhaps the one that has become most closely associated with this period is Robert Falcon Scott. Widely referred to as “Scott of the Antarctic,” Captain Scott became an icon of tenacity in the face of incredible adversity, and his final expedition to the South Pole lives on as an example of the nobility of the human spirit, even in the face of utter disaster. A monument to Scott’s persistence still stands at Observation Point, inscribed with the last line of Tennyson’s “Ulysses”: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Inevitably, as time passed, modern historians further removed from the romanticization of the expeditions began to more closely (and objectively) scrutinize the explorers and their missions. However, in the case of Scott, that has only furthered his renown, because historians still have wildly different opinions of him, from his personality and leadership to the results of his missions, especially his ill-fated final one. Likewise, Shackleton’s place in history is not the one he set out to make, but his extraordinary deeds have made his contributions to early exploration of Antarctica indelible. Despite the victor’s wreath eventually going to another, Shackleton’s name is essential to any discussion of Antarctic exploration, based on personal heroism more than logistical triumphs.