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OHYAT: Boys Will Be Boys
Feb. 22nd, 2011 10:55 amONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY
Scott, Meares, Wilson, and Cherry arrived safely back at the Discovery Hut at Hut Point (near what is now McMurdo Station), where Tom Crean and Dr Atkinson had been camped out since the latter was removed from the Depot Journey for the sake of his injured heel. There were two discoveries upon the dog teams' arrival:
1. Crean and Atkinson had cleared the hut of the solid block of ice and snow that had built up when Shackleton's party had left a window open on their visit a few years earlier. The hut was now habitable, and served as a useful second base for the rest of the expedition.
2. Campbell and the former Eastern Party had stopped by with news of their encounter with Amundsen on the other side of the Ross Sea, and left details of their outfit, and the large number of dogs they had.
There was general outrage at this news. Cherry writes:
*I've read so many journals and records in the last year I honestly can't recall; it's not in Bill's biography or Cherry's foreword to it, nor is it in Worst Journey as far as I can find.
Yes, the centenary events are flying thick and fast lately, but fear not: after this there's a long stretch of waiting at Hut Point for the sea ice to be solid enough to cross, punctuated only by explosive experiments with acetylene. Good times!
Scott, Meares, Wilson, and Cherry arrived safely back at the Discovery Hut at Hut Point (near what is now McMurdo Station), where Tom Crean and Dr Atkinson had been camped out since the latter was removed from the Depot Journey for the sake of his injured heel. There were two discoveries upon the dog teams' arrival:
1. Crean and Atkinson had cleared the hut of the solid block of ice and snow that had built up when Shackleton's party had left a window open on their visit a few years earlier. The hut was now habitable, and served as a useful second base for the rest of the expedition.
2. Campbell and the former Eastern Party had stopped by with news of their encounter with Amundsen on the other side of the Ross Sea, and left details of their outfit, and the large number of dogs they had.
There was general outrage at this news. Cherry writes:
For an hour or so we were furiously angry, and were possessed with an insane sense that we must go straight to the Bay of Whales and have it out with Amundsen and his men in some undefined fashion or other there and then. Such a mood could not and did not bear a moment’s reflection; but it was natural enough. We had just paid the first instalment of the heart-breaking labour of making a path to the Pole; and we felt, however unreasonably, that we had earned the first right of way. Our sense of co-operation and solidarity had been wrought up to an extraordinary pitch; and we had so completely forgotten the spirit of competition that its sudden intrusion jarred frightfully.I remember reading somewhere* that Wilson was more or less the sole voice of reason at this point; he was the one who, over the course of the day, talked the furious men down from a full armed invasion of the Norwegian camp. Have I mentioned lately that Bill was the most wonderful person who ever lived?
*I've read so many journals and records in the last year I honestly can't recall; it's not in Bill's biography or Cherry's foreword to it, nor is it in Worst Journey as far as I can find.
Yes, the centenary events are flying thick and fast lately, but fear not: after this there's a long stretch of waiting at Hut Point for the sea ice to be solid enough to cross, punctuated only by explosive experiments with acetylene. Good times!
