Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen (10 October 1861 – 13 May 1930) was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth he was a champion skier and ice skater. He led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, traversing the island on cross-country skis. He won international fame after reaching a record northern latitude of 86°14′ during his North Pole expedition of 1893–96. Although he retired from exploration after his return to Norway, his techniques of polar travel and his innovations in equipment and clothing influenced a generation of subsequent Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.
Nansen studied zoology at the Royal Frederick University in Christiania (renamed Oslo in 1925), and later worked as a curator at the Bergen Museum where his research on the central nervous system of lower marine creatures earned him a doctorate and helped establish modern theories of neurology. After 1896 his main scientific interest switched to oceanography; in the course of his research he made many scientific cruises, mainly in the North Atlantic, and contributed to the development of modern oceanographic equipment. As one of his country’s leading citizens, in 1905 Nansen spoke out for the ending of Norway’s union with Sweden, and was instrumental in persuading Prince Carl of Denmark to accept the throne of the newly independent Norway. Between 1906 and 1908 he served as the Norwegian representative in London, where he helped negotiate the Integrity Treaty that guaranteed Norway’s independent status.
In the final decade of his life, Nansen devoted himself primarily to the League of Nations, following his appointment in 1921 as the League’s High Commissioner for Refugees. In 1922 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of the displaced victims of the First World War and related conflicts. Among the initiatives he introduced was the “Nansen passport” for stateless persons, a certificate recognised by more than 50 countries. He worked on behalf of refugees until his sudden death in 1930, after which the League established the Nansen International Office for Refugees to ensure that his work continued. This office received the Nobel Peace Prize for 1938. Nansen was honoured by many nations, and his name is commemorated in numerous geographical features, particularly in the polar regions.
Portrait photograph of Roald Amundsen; ca. 1907
Roald Amundsen led the Antarctic expedition of 1910–12 which was the first to reach the South Pole, on December 14th, 1911.
In 1926, he was the first expedition leader for the air expedition to the North Pole. Amundsen is recognized as the first person, without dispute, as having reached both poles. He is also known as having the first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage (1903–06) in the Arctic.
Captain Francis Crozier – Commander of HMS “Terror”; ca. 1845
Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier was born in 1796 into a wealthy family in the Irish linen town of Banbridge, County Down. His father, George Crozier, was a prominent solicitor who acted for Ireland’s most powerful land-owning families, and he was named after Francis Rawdon, the Earl of Moira.
In 1810, three months before his 14th birthday, Crozier enlisted in the Royal Navy and was immediately thrown into the Napoleonic wars. On one of his earliest voyages, his ship became lost in the Pacific Ocean and unexpectedly arrived at tiny Pitcairn Island, where the crew met the sole surviving mutineer from the Bounty.
After the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, the Admiralty turned to exploration in an attempt to find work for its ranks of idle officers and to expand the British Empire. Arctic discovery was a key ambition during this energetic burst of exploration, which produced men such as Franklin, Parry, the Rosses and Crozier.
Crozier’s first polar expedition came in 1821, when he volunteered to join Parry’s attempt to navigate the Northwest Passage, a feat that had eluded sailors for centuries. They returned after two years without success, but Crozier went north again a year later when Parry took the vessels Fury and Hecla on another vain bid to locate the passage. Disaster was only narrowly averted when Fury was wrecked in Prince Regent Inlet, and the entire party limped home on board Hecla.
In 1827, Crozier joined Parry and James Clark Ross in an arduous slog to reach the North Pole. The party, dragging heavily laden boats, trekked for more than 1,000 kilometres, but advanced only 275 kilometres north because the remorseless drift of the pack ice carried them steadily south. It was akin to walking the wrong way up a fast-moving escalator, and the men survived thanks largely to the depots earlier laid down by the diligent Crozier. But the ‘furthest north’ record of 82° 45’ stood for almost half a century.
On successive journeys, Crozier demonstrated his reliability and an aptitude for the painstaking business of magnetic and astronomic readings. In 1827, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and was elected a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society in 1843. His prominent sponsors included the astronomer Sir John Herschel and Sir Francis Beaufort, creator of the Beaufort scale and one of the co-founders of the Royal Geographical Society.
Crozier’s most accomplished feat was the mammoth four-year journey to Antarctica in Erebus and Terror with James Clark Ross, which arguably ranks as the 19th century’s most outstanding voyage of maritime discovery. He captained Terror and never lost a man – a rare achievement at the time.
Setting out in 1839, the Erebus and Terror expedition was the last great journey made under sail, penetrating the pack ice of the Southern Ocean and discovering vast tracts of the Antarctic continent. It also bequeathed many of the now familiar geographical names to the Heroic Age of Exploration, including Mount Erebus, Ross Island and McMurdo Sound. The Great Ice Barrier, where Scott’s party perished in 1912, was so named because it presented a barrier to Erebus and Terror (it was re-named the Ross Ice Shelf in the 1950s). And Cape Crozier, the windswept headland on Ross Island that was later immortalised by Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s book on Scott’s expedition, The Worst Journey in the World, is now renowned for its emperor penguin colony.
However, the Antarctic journey took a heavy toll on both Crozier and Ross. On their return, witnesses were shocked at the way their hands trembled – the tremors so pronounced that they could hardly hold a glass.
Sadly, Crozier was also suffering from a broken heart. On the voyage south, the ships had stopped at the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), where Crozier fell deeply in love with Sophy Cracroft, the flirty niece of the old explorer Sir John Franklin, who had been appointed the island’s governor. His repeated proposals of marriage were rejected because Cracroft refused to become a captain’s wife. ‘She liked the man, but not the sailor,’ her aunt once confided.
Heartbroken and depressed, Crozier elected to head north again in 1845 when the Admiralty launched a fresh attempt to navigate the Northwest Passage in Erebus and Terror. Although Crozier was the most experienced polar captain still serving, the Admiralty gave command of the expedition to Franklin, an overweight 59-year-old who hadn’t taken a ship into the ice for 27 years. It was a snub that hurt Crozier, and he probably should have chosen that moment to retire from exploration. But in a vain attempt to appeal to Cracroft, Crozier volunteered to travel as Franklin’s deputy and assume command of Terror.
In his last letter home, a melancholic Crozier wrote: ‘In truth I am sadly lonely.’ More pertinently, he was worried that the expedition had sailed too late in the season and also questioned Franklin’s leadership, writing that ‘[Franklin] is very decided in his own views but has not good judgement’.
Erebus and Terror crossed Baffin Bay during the summer of 1845 and entered the treacherous Arctic waterways of Lancaster Sound with 129 officers and men aboard. They were never to return.
Disaster struck in 1847, when the ships became trapped in the ice in Victoria Strait. Shortly after, Franklin died and command of the expedition passed to Crozier. The ships were abandoned in 1848, and it was Crozier who inherited the hopeless task of leading about 100 starving survivors in a forlorn retreat across the ice. Men fell dead in their tracks; years later, examination of their bones revealed that some had resorted to cannibalism in the struggle to survive.
Crozier’s death march ripples with historical significance. At one point, the survivors reached the narrow Simpson Strait that runs between King William Island and mainland Canada. Unknown to Crozier, the strait was the last piece of the jigsaw that – at that point – made up the Northwest Passage. A little over 50 years later, the Norwegian Amundsen navigated the strait during the first navigation of the passage and graciously flew his ship’s colours in salute.
According to native accounts, a few desperate souls from the Franklin expedition clung to life for several years after the ships were abandoned, but none managed to find a route to safety. Crozier, the imperturbable and experienced commander, is thought to have been among the last to succumb.
(Source)
The men left behind on Elephant Island; ca. 1916
After their ship became frozen in ice, 28 men and Ernest Shackleton (the expedition leader) sailed the lifeboat to elephant island, an island no one had ever stepped foot on. Knowing they wouldn’t be rescued, Shackleton took 5 men to sail 800 miles to a whaling station to get help. The remaining men stayed on the island having to create shelter, procure food etc, and hope that the others would be able to send rescue. After four failed attempts because of heavy ice, all the men were finally rescued. The men had spent 4 and a half months stranded on the island.
Most of these men went straight into the meat grinder of WWI. Some were dead over the next few years.
Leonid Rogozov removing his own appendix at a Soviet research station in Antarctica; ca. 1961
From September 1960 until October 1962, Rogozov worked in Antarctica, including his role as the sole doctor in a team of thirteen researchers at the Novolazarevskaya Station, which was established in January 1961.
On the morning of 29 April 1961, Rogozov experienced general weakness, nausea, and moderate fever, and later pain in the lower right portion of the abdomen. All possible conservative treatment measures did not help. By 30 April signs of localized peritonitis became apparent, and his condition worsened considerably by the evening. Mirny, the nearest Soviet research station, was more than 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from Novolazarevskaya. Antarctic research stations of other countries did not have an aircraft. Severe blizzard conditions prevented aircraft landing in any case. Rogozov had no option but to perform the operation on himself.
The operation started at 02:00 local time on 1 May with the help of a driver and meteorologist, who were providing instruments and holding a mirror to observe areas not directly visible, while Rogozov was in a semi-reclining position, half-turned to his left side. A solution of 0.5% novocaine was used for local anesthesia of the abdominal wall. Rogozov made a 10–12 cm incision of the abdominal wall, and while opening the peritoneum he accidentally injured the cecum and had to suture it. Then he proceeded to expose the appendix. According to his report the appendix was found to have a dark stain at its base, and Rogozov estimated it would have burst within a day. The appendix was resected and antibiotics were applied directly into the peritoneal cavity. General weakness and nausea developed about 30–40 minutes after the start of the operation, so that short pauses for rest were repeatedly needed after that. By about 04:00 the operation was complete. (Wikipedia)
Restored color photograph of members of the Antarctic Shackleton Expedition and their dogs; ca. 1915
Spoiler alert: journey did not end well for the dogs.
Antarctica, The crew of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition playing a game of football (or soccer), with the Endurance in the background; ca. 1914-1917)
The Norwegian Arctic exploration ship Fram in ice; ca. 1894
The windmill was actually very practical and a major component of their planning before the trip. It was used to generate electricity to power lighting. Since they were going for so long it helped alleviate the necessity to bring large stocks of oil for lamps especially since space was at a premium.
This ship spent three years 1893-1896 stuck ice trying to get to the North Pole on this expedition. She would later take two additional multi year expeditions into the arctic. She is now a museum ship. She holds the record for getting the furthest north out of any wooden hulled ship. Of course that’s a record that is getting easier and easier to break each year with the receding polar ice caps.
The record of a voyage of exploration of the ship “Fram” 1893-96 (and of a fifteen months’ sleigh journey by Dr. Nansen and Lieut. Johansen):
Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, Everest; ca. 1953
Just to clear up confusion, they are on everest in this picture, but not at the summit. Only Hillary took a picture of Tenzing at the summit, he refused to have his own picture taken.
According to this Swedish source, they are about to start the climb to camp 9, which was their last camp before heading for the summit.
The picture is taken at camp 8, at the South Col, which is at about 8000 meters. The previous summit attempt by Evans and Bourdillon failed, so Hillary and Tenzing wanted to set a higher camp and try to get to the summit from there.
Captain John Franklin’s ill-fated 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
The loss of Franklin and his men was a huge mystery, how could so many men and two state of the art ships just disappear? Search parties scoured the arctic (and in the process charted most of the up til then unexplored regions of the arctic archipeligo, and McClure even technically made it through the passage in his “search” for Franklin) for more than a decade before any real traces of the expedition turned up. Many other expeditions suffered and lost men in the same era of arctic exploration, but none disappeared completely! To this day, there’s a lot we don’t know about how such a well equipped and large expedition could fail so completely and quickly.
Here’s what we’ve found and what we know at this point: The ships spent their first winter at Beechey Island, and all seemed well. The next summer, they travelled south, and were frozen in near King William Island that Fall. They wintered here, and the next summer the ice failed to melt, trapping them for a second winter on King William Island. This alone is not out of the ordinary for arctic expeditions, many ships were frozen in for several years without a great loss of life.
In the summer between the first and second winters at King William Island, in 1847, the crew leave a note in a cairn on King William Island saying “all is well”. After the second winter stuck in the ice, the note is dug up and in the margins someone writes that 24 men have died, including Franklin, and that the crew is abandoning their ships and marching south towards the mainland of North America. It’s important to point out this second note contained several errors, but we’ll get to that.
The crew’s march is a death march, the local eskimo later report seeing dozens of white men dying in their tracks. Some men may have made it all the way to the mainland, but none survive. By the early 1850s it’s likely that all or almost all of the expedition is dead.
McClintock in 1859 finds the note in the cairn on King William Island, a single skeleton, and finally a life boat with two skeletons in it. The contents of the lifeboat add to the mystery- “a large amount of abandoned equipment, including boots, silk handkerchiefs, scented soap, sponges, slippers, hair combs, and many books, among them a copy of The Vicar of Wakefield.” The lifeboat was being man-hauled, but was pointing north, not south. A decade later Hall finds more graves and campsites, all on the King William Island. This is pretty much the extent of the evidence known up until contemporary scientific expeditions.
So, the mysteries- Scurvy, starvation, and cold had killed men on previous and subsequent expeditions, but many expeditions had survived much longer than Franklin’s without anything so catastrophic. In all, the Franklin’s men had spent only three winters in the arctic before abandoning their ships. They were equipped for five.
The mysterious contents of the lifeboat and the inconsistencies in the note point to a deteriorating mental situation. Why would dying men man-haul heavy books and silverware? Why was the boat facing north, were the men trying to return to the abandoned ships?
So, what could the ships tell us?
When scientific autopsies were conducted on the bodies on King William’s Island, it was found that lead poisoning contributed to the deaths of those men. It’s believed the solder on the tins of food was the source, but there are other theories- perhaps the ship’s water system was the source. The men also were suffering from TB and Pneumonia.
Finding the ships could finally help resolve the issue, for instance if there are more bodies on or near the ships then we know some men may have turned around from their march and made it back. Plus finding more bodies would inevitably help our understanding of what killed the men. We could also get more insight into why the men were carrying such strange items in their lifeboat, by seeing the things they chose not to take. And obviously examining more of the food tins, as well as the ship’s water system, might better explain the presence of lead.
More than anything, we don’t know exactly what the ships might tell us, but there’s so little we know as it is, it’d be amazing to find any new bits of evidence.
[*History got a little breaking news this morning that one of the ships of the lost Franklin Expedition has been discovered in the Canadian arctic.]
“Siberian bear-hunting armor” – a surrealist art piece.
Reminds me of my last kidney stone…
This is not “real” bear hunting armor, it was a piece created by an artist in this exhibit. If you go and try to hunt bears with that, you’re going to die.
The last photo of the Far Eastern Party. Two of them would never make it home; ca. 1912
The leading theory as to why the two expedition members died is hypervitaminosis A from eating their own husky sled dog’s livers.
This story reminds me of the time when it was about 30 degrees (F) and I had to walk about three blocks to get some chips. I made it, but on the way back, I actually pulled out liner gloves and put them under my regular gloves, as I had packed them in my coat, along with other provisions. Slipping more than once on the way, I had to bend my knees to keep from falling in the snow that was a record 2 inches deep. Unexpectedly high winds made the last block nearly impassable on the sidewalk and I actually had to revert to walking along the street, which had not yet been cleared — and it wouldn’t be clear for a whole day due to the demands of this unheard of weather phenomenon of 2 inches of snow in early December. When I finally arrived, the I found that many of the chips had been broken from the rigors of the journey. So, I can identify.
Heading out to hunt for German weather stations set up on the coast of Greenland, a member of the ‘Sledge Patrol’ leaves base at Sandodden; ca. 1940’s.
The Weather War
By far one of the least heralded campaigns of World War II was the hunt for Axis weather stations set up in remote parts of Greenland. The United States actually began doing this in 1940 at the behest of the Danish Government following the German occupation of the country. The job fell principally on the shoulders of the Coast Guard at that point, who patrolled with ships and aircraft, looking for German weather ships, or supply boats attempting to reach weather stations the Germans had set up on land.
The reason Greenland was so important in this regard was that a weather station set up on Greenland’s eastern coast – which is immense and hard to patrol – offers an excellent window into the weather fronts as they move towards Northwest Europe. Obviously weather plays a huge part in military planning, and this being before satellites allowed such easy predictions to be made, the extra day of forewarning offered by a station in Greenland was of incredible value to military planners. So Germany wanted to set them up there, and it fell to the United States to protect Danish interests in not allowing this to happen. The first direct combat between Germans and Americans (and by direct I exclude convoy contact with U-Boats) occurred during one of these patrols when a Coast Guard cutter, the USS Northland, boarded and captured the Norwegian flagged ship Buskoe. A landing party went ashore and captured three German soldiers operating the weather station the ship had been resupplying. This all happening three months before America entered the war!
Aside from the Coasties though, the “Sledge Patrol” – a 15 man, mixed force of Norwegians, Danes and local Eskimos, all supported by the US – spent much of the war patrolling the coast hunting Germans as well. Only, doing it on land in subzero arctic weather instead of in a comparatively warm and cozy boat. On dog sleds, 2 and 3 man patrols would head out for a few months at a time and attempt to find German weather stations (As many as four teams were operating in Greenland at a time) in a cat and mouse game. Although the teams were to small to assault the German stations they could radio the positions to the Coast Guard who would send a landing party. Generally, the Germans were the mice and had to pack up their stuff and flee if discovered, but the Germans did strike back and attack the Sledge Patrol’s base-camp at Eskimonaes, killing one member of the team, Eli Knudsen (the only loss they endured).
The last land-based weather station of the Germans was knocked out in October of 1944. Based on Little Koldeway island, the German station was spotted by the USS Eastwind during a coastal patrol. A landing party of Coast Guardsman trained in special raiding tactics by commandos made a nighttime landing and caught the Germans by total surprise, and were able to get most of their documents intact even! No more land-based stations were attempted after that, although off-shore trawlers were still utilized (The USS Eastwind would take the Externsteine as a prize only a week after the raid on Koldeway).
All Photos from Time-Life
Nansen’s ship ‘Fram’, held in ice; March 1894.
“The ship also included a windmill, which ran a generator to provide electric power for lighting by electric arc lamps.”
More information about the expedition:
The idea for the expedition had arisen after items from the American vessel Jeannette, which had sunk off the north coast of Siberia in 1881, were discovered three years later off the south-west coast of Greenland. The wreckage had obviously been carried across the polar ocean, perhaps across the pole itself. Based on this and other debris recovered from the Greenland coast, the meteorologist Henrik Mohn developed a theory of transpolar drift, which led Nansen to believe that a specially designed ship could be frozen in the pack ice and follow the same track as the Jeannette wreckage, thus reaching the vicinity of the pole.
Nansen supervised the construction of a vessel with a rounded hull and other features designed to withstand prolonged pressure from ice. The ship was rarely threatened during her long imprisonment, and emerged unscathed after three years. The scientific observations carried out during this period contributed significantly to the new discipline of oceanography, which subsequently became the main focus of Nansen’s scientific work. Fram’s drift and Nansen’s sledge journey proved conclusively that there were no significant land masses between the Eurasian continents and the North Pole, and confirmed the general character of the north polar region as a deep, ice-covered sea. Although Nansen retired from exploration after this expedition, the methods of travel and survival he developed with Johansen influenced all the polar expeditions, north and south, which followed in the subsequent three decades.
Feeding polar bears from a tank; ca. 1950
“There’s a good bear, now go and maim those Nazis on this other side of this hill.”
This is quite possibly the most Russian photograph ever taken.
Polar bears look really freaking cute, but they’re the only animal that actively predates on humans.
Wolves will give it a long and hard thought about whether they want to attack humans. Polar bears? Nope. If they see you, and you can’t protect yourself or seek shelter, you’re dead.
Gaston Rébuffat atop the aiguille du Roc, Mont Blanc massif, France; ca.1944
This was photo was chosen to be included on the Golden Record on Voyager 1 and 2.
Gaston Rébuffat was actually an instructor at a military school of mountaineering run by the 27th mountain infantry. In any case, the French government clearly appreciated his contribution to history because it awarded him the Légion d’honneur in 1984.
A member of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition playing the bagpipes to an Emperor penguin (1904)
In the next frame the penguin pulled a gun and shot himself.
Some people say there has never been a good song with bagpipes. To them I say, it’s a long way to the top (if you wanna rock n’ roll).
Mountaineers ascending a glacier in the Ortler range, Tirol, ca. 1897
Link to original source from Central Library of Zurich.
“Ascension d’un sérac,” Ascent of a glacial column on Mount Blanc, ca. 1899
Link to original source from the Central Library of Zurich.
Herbert Ponting: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Expedition (1910-1913)
His joy is to reproduce its pictures artistically, his grief is to fail to do so. -Captain Robert Scott, 1911
Mustache encrusted with ice, photographer Herbert Ponting stands on an iceberg near McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, in 1911. Ponting was part of the scientific staff on the 1910-1912 Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole
A stable of Japanese sumo wrestlers, circa 1903
Herbert Ponting began his career in photography relatively late in life. After moving from Salisbury England to California in his early twenties, he dabbled unsuccessfully in mining and fruit-farming before turning to photography. He became correspondent on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, and afterwards continued to travel around Asia, exploring Burma, Korea, Java, China and India. During this time he delivered magnificently created images back to newspapers, periodical and magazines, and in 1910 released his book In Lotus-land Japan.
The Terra Nova, photographed in December 1910
In 1911 Ponting joined Scott’s British Terra Nova Expedition, which set out to collect scientific data about the Antarctic continent, with its main goal to reach the South Pole. Ponting was the first professional photographer on an Antarctic expedition and went on to set other precedents in Antarctica. He took some of the first still color photographs in Antarctica using auto chrome plates, and was one of the first men to use a cinematograph to capture short video sequences on the ice.
Herbert Ponting with his camera
Herbert Ponting photographing a skua
Coining the term to ‘pont’, meaning ‘to pose until nearly frozen, in all sorts of uncomfortable positions’, Ponting thought it imperative to get the picture just right. On the expedition he could often be found rigging up a device to allow himself to suspend from the ship, sometimes creating risky situations for himself and other crew mates.
Herbert Ponting leaving Terra Nova
During his fourteen months at Cape Evans he documented the Antarctic landscape, wildlife and expedition life, and often kept the men entertained by showing lantern slides of his travels through Asia.
Judged too old at the age of forty-two to sustain another grueling year on the ice, Ponting, along with eight other men, was sent home after the first year of the expedition. Back in England he was devastated to learn of the deaths of Scott and the Polar Party. He spent the remainder of his life lecturing on Antarctica and the expedition to ensure that the splendor of Antarctica and the heroism of Scott and his men would not be forgotten. His book The Great White South was published in 1921, and in 1933 his moving footage in full sound version Ninety Degrees South: With Scott to The Antarctic was released.
“The Sleeping Bag” (Herbert Ponting’s poem, outlining preferences on how to orient one’s reindeer-skin sleeping bag):
On the outside grows the furside. On the inside grows the skinside.
So the furside is the outside and the skinside is the inside.
As the skinside is the inside (and the furside is the outside)
One ‘side’ likes the skinside inside and the furside on the outside.
Others like the skinside outside and the furside on the inside
As the skinside is the hard side and the furside is the soft side.
If you turn the skinside outside, thinking you will side with that ‘side’,
Then the soft side furside’s inside, which some argue is the wrong side.
If you turn the furside outside – as you say, it grows on that side,
Then your outside’s next the skinside, which for comfort’s not the right side.
For the skinside is the cold side and your outside’s not your warm side
And the two cold sides coming side-by-side are not the right sides one ‘side’ decides.
If you decide to side with that ‘side’, turn the outside furside inside
Then the hard side, cold side, skinside’s, beyond all question, inside outside.
Some of the Antarctic Photographs of Herbert Ponting:
Sun Across the Ice, Antarctica, by Herbert George Ponting, 1911
Ice Cave near Cape Evans with Terra Nova in Background, circa 1911
Mt. Erebus and a Dome Cloud, Scott Expedition, Antarctica by Herbert George Ponting, 1911
“Dog Chris, listening to the gramophone, Antarctica” – photograph taken in January 1911 by Herbert Ponting, Robert Falcon Scott’s official photographer for the the Terra Nova Expedition
Berg under flashlight, by Herbert George Ponting, 1911
Barne Glacier, Scott Expedition, Antarctica, by Herbert George Ponting 1911
Captain Scott in his den, Scott Expedition, Antarctica, by Herbert George Ponting, 1911
I hope to be remembered for my atrocities! 
