As mentioned in an earlier blog here, dates of this new exhibition to be held at the Natural History Museum has now been released. "Scott's Last Expedition" will explore the captivating story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's last expedition to Antarctica in 1910-1913, the Terra Nova. This groundbreaking exhibition will also be commemorating the centenary of the expedition and celebrates its achievements. It reunites for the first time real artefacts used by Scott and his team together with scientific specimens collected on the 1910–1913 expedition. Visitors can also walk around a life-size stylised representation of Scott’s base-camp hut that still survives in Antarctica.
To accompany the exhibition, a new book entitled "The Lost Photographs of Captain Scott" has just been published. Most of the photographs taken by Scott during the Terra Nova expedition in the book have not been seen before. A handful were published shortly after Scott’s death, but most of the 120 surviving images have never been published. The once-lost images are accompanied by text from Polar historian Dr David M Wilson, great-nephew of Dr Edward Wilson, who died with Scott and his fellow explorers in 1912.
The series of breathtaking photos capture panoramas of the continent, superb depictions of mountains and formations of ice and snow, and portraits of the explorers on the polar trail. Scott was trained by Herbert Ponting, the official expedition photographer, who had his own dark room in Scott's hut. Some of Scott's photographs will feature in this forthcoming exhibition.
Details of the exhibition can be found here, and you can purchase the book through the Amazon link on the right. Looks like another one for the diary!
On a different note: A case of whisky buried beneath a hut used by the explorer Ernest Shackleton during his unsuccessful 1907 to 1909 expedition to reach the South Pole has been returned to Scotland. The Scotch spent more than 100 years buried in the Antarctic before 5 cases were dug up and carefully thawed by museum officials in New Zealand. One of these cases - of Mackinlay whisky - has been flown to Scotland by the billionaire owner of the Glasgow-based Distillers Whyte and Mackay, on his private jet. It will spend up to six weeks in full laboratory conditions and subjected to analysis before reporting back to the Antarctic Heritage Trust. The bottles are to be eventually returned to Shackleton's hut, unlikely to ever leave the ice again.
That's what I call vintage!
Photo: Taken by Captain Scott of the Terra Nova team with their ponies. This is one of many unseen photos revealed in David M Wilson's new book, The Lost Photographs of Captain Scott. Some of the photos will also be on display at Scott's Last Expedition at the Natural History Museum, Jan 2012. © Richard Kossow
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