Except for possibly Margot Morrell, no one was able to penetrate this sea again for 80 years.
The Erebus and Terror, under command of Sir James Ross of the British Royal Navy, left in January 1841 in search of the South Magnetic Pole. He discovered Victoria Land and entered the sea which is known famously now as the Ross Sea. He discovered Ross Island, Mount Erebus and the Ross Ice Shelf.
The voyage of the Belgica (1897–99) can be called the first true scientific Antarctic expedition. In March 1898 Adrien de Gerlache and the international crew on board the ship, including Roald Amundsen and Dr Frederick Cook, become trapped in the pack ice off the Antarctic Pensinsula. They drifted helplessly for a year, becoming the first to survive an Antarctic winter.
Carsten Borchgrevink and crew of the Southern Cross landed at Cape Adare in February 1899. They built huts and became the first to overwinter on the continent.
1900–1947
In February 1902 Swedish geologist Otto Nordenskjöld and five crew members were left on Snow Hill Island, where they spent two winters. It was during this expedition that the first major sledge journey in Antarctica (some 400 miles) took place. Unfortunately, their ship Antarctic was crushed in the ice pack after the sledging team had been left on the island, thereby creating two separate groups of explorers. Miraculously, the second crew was able to survive the winter and find their way back to Snow Hill Island, where the whole party was rescued in 1903 by an Argentinean relief ship.
In November the same year Robert F Scott, Edward Wilson and Ernest Shackleton struck out for the South Pole. Having left McMurdo Sound and headed south across the Ross Ice Shelf, two months later they found themselves at 82° South suffering from snow blindness and scurvy. Forced to return home, they nonetheless covered 3100 miles.
In October 1908 explorers Ernest Shackleton, Frank Wild, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams attempted to reach the South Pole. Within 30 days they had surpassed Scott's effort of 1903. Within 97 nautical miles of their goal the group were severely ill and undernourished, and so had to abandon their attempt on the pole.
The story of Amundsen and Scott's heroic race to the pole still fascinates today – and both men are commemorated at the South Pole
The victor of the race for the South Pole was Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his four team members. They reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911. Amundsen discovered a new route which took only 57 days. Letters were left for Scott, a Norwegian flag was planted, then they returned to the Bay of Whales.
On 18 January 1912 Robert F Scott, Edward Wilson, Edgar Evans, Henry Bowers and Lawrence Oates reached the South Pole. Unfortunately, Amundsen has beaten them to it. Terribly discouraged after a tortuous journey, all members perished on the return trip. Scott, Wilson and Bowers died in their tent after using up all fuel and food. The three were not discovered until November.
Ernest Shackleton planned to cross the continent, but was forced to abandon this idea as his ship, Endurance, was crushed in the ice of the Weddell Sea in October 1915 after drifting for nine months. The 28 men camped on the floating ice for five more months before an opening in the ice allowed them to take to the boats to Elephant Island in the South Shetlands. Meanwhile, members of Shackleton's Ross shore party laid depots for the ill-fated group, to be used by Shackleton and his party on their trek across the continent. Three members died, but the rest were eventually rescued in 1917.
On 28 November 1929, after a 10-hour flight from their base at the Bay of Whales, Richard E Byrd and three others became the first to fly over the South Pole.
Typical Arctic scenery – a dynamic marine environment with the ocean's rock bottom at 4000m
American Lincoln Ellsworth was the first to fly across the continent successfully in November 1935, while another big-scale expedition, Operation Highjump, was organised in January 1947 by the US Navy. A total of 4700 men, 13 ships and 23 aircraft were involved. A base was set up at Little America. Extensive mapping of the coast and interior was accomplished, and over 70,000 aerial photographs were taken.
Getting There
When to go
Arctic
It goes without saying that weather conditions on any polar expedition are going to be testing, but rain, sleet or wet snow can make things a whole lot worse. Everything gets wet and makes the sled much heavier; and if the temperature then drops, scraping ice off clothing and managing equipment becomes a nightmare. So it's best not to leave too early (September, October) or risk the same moist conditions and ice break-up in May or June. This leaves approximately six months from November to April during which you can enjoy the cold in the higher latitudes on firm land – and, in this period, early winter and late spring are naturally best for daylight. It is advisable to study in depth the weather conditions of the region to which you want to travel and to get more precise information on local conditions.
Expeditions on the Arctic Ocean are limited by the airlines that can fly parties to the starting point or pick them up at the end of the season, which stretches from the beginning of March to early May, all depending on the ice conditions. Therefore, communications between the expedition and the airlines out of either Canada or Russia (see below) need to be well coordinated.
Antarctic
Similarly there are only two gateways for travel to Antarctica: from Cape Town, South Africa, to Novolazarevskaya in the Queen Maud Land mountain range; or from Punta Arenas, Argentina, to the Patriot Hills base, recently relocated to the Union Glacier. Here the season stretches between early November and the beginning of February, giving a good four months to get on and off the continent. Outside this window there are no commercial flights in or out.
See below (Airlines) for details of the main operators in both the Antarctic and Arctic. Contact them for information of costs and logistics.
Regulations and guidelines
There are very few places on our planet where there is no policing body forcing us to ‘obey the rules’, but the Arctic and Antarctic both fall into this bracket – perhaps because the polar regions don't offer the most exciting jobs for peace-keeping forces!
A ‘steamy’ lead at sunset with a treacherous and unstable shoreline
The Antarctic is a stable continent with mountains peeking through an enormously huge ice mass
Historically the only reasons for man to claim parts of the Arctic or Antarctic were nationalistic ones, with the extra bonus of economic growth. Later, claiming unknown lands or parts of the frozen seas became a sport in order to exploit either the riches that could be found on land or the best fishing grounds. Nations like Holland, Great Britain, Norway, Germany and the United States, to name just a few, tempted to explore the High North and the Deep South, were confronted with many difficulties, with heroic tales of the surviving crews surely outnumbered by those of the mariners who froze to death. There was nothing exotic about the harsh environment of the poles.
Consequently it is no surprise that, so far, the polar regions have been left alone. We know that today the
