Our Daily Bill: Furthest South

[tealin]

One day, as the Antarctic summer bloomed, Scott, Wilson, and Shackleton went for a stroll.

The object was to push as far into the interior of the continent as they could – previous expeditions had only explored the periphery, and there were many hundreds of questions unanswered. While knowledge of the geography was accepted as nil, knowledge of sledging and everything that went with it wasn't much better, and accounts of the journey read like a long string of learning things the hard way. All the dogs died. Everyone was repeatedly struck with snowblindness. When they finally pulled in to home, all three were raddled with scurvy, Shackleton so badly he'd been hauled on the sledge by the other two and had to be sent home with the relief ship. Besides gaining all sorts of practical knowledge about Antarctic field work which would come into play on the Terra Nova Expedition (for better or worse), they discovered the Barrier extended quite a long way into the continent, and was ringed by mountains which were duly charted.

Wilson is the most indefatigable person. When it is fine and clear at the end of our fatiguing days he will spend two or three hours seated at the door of the tent, sketching every detail of the splendid mountainous coastline to the west. His sketches are most astonishingly accurate: I have tested his proportions by actual angular measurement and found them correct. ... But these long hours in the glare are very bad for the eyes; we have all suffered a good deal from snow-blindness of late, though we generally march with goggles, but Wilson gets the worst bouts, and I fear it is mainly due to his sketching.

– R.F. Scott (Seaver, 112)

The snowblindness (sunburn of the eyes) meant that Wilson spent much of his time skiing blindfolded, which resulted in some fantastic turns of the imagination:

I had the strangest thoughts or daydreams as I went along. Sometimes I was in beech-woods; sometimes in fir-woods; sometimes in Birdlip woods – all connected in my mind with the hot sun; and the swish-swish of the ski was as though brushing through dead leaves, or cranberry undergrowth, or heather, or juicy bluebells – could almost see and smell them. It was delightful.

– E.A. Wilson (Seaver, 112)

On the return journey, with Shakleton too ill to pull the sledge and therefore out of psychological earshot of the remaining two men in the traces, Wilson 'had it out' with Scott. No one knows quite all that was discussed* but it went on for a few days, and by the end, they'd forged a deep and lasting friendship.

Only three know the inner history of the Southern Sledge Journey, but it was pretty broadly whispered that Wilson was the backbone of that trip which but for him would have been briefer. … Whatever he conceived to be his duty was first and foremost, and always done regardless of cost to himself. … I think he was more or less the confidant of us all. … I have never met with a man so universally admired and respected in every way.

– T. Hogdson, expedition biologist (Seaver, 126)

And it was remarked of Scott how that ever after this journey, on meeting Wilson or when his name was mentioned, his face would light up with that spontaneous radiant smile that always bespoke his happiness and his deep affection.

– George Seaver, Edward Wilson of the Antarctic, pg 126

*this may be a euphemism; tempers were short, patience low, tension high, and there was at least one blow-up recorded anecdotally