Although the idea of a Terra Australis Incognita (Undiscovered Southern Land) was first proposed by the Greco-Roman thinker Ptolemy as early as the first century AD, this land was assumed to be both much larger than it really is and connected to either South America or Australia. In 1773 Captain Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle, proving once and for all that any southern landmass would be a (smallish) continent in its own right.
Less than fifty years later the Russian sailor Fabian von Bellingshausen confirmed the existence of Antarctica when he sighted land, and only a year after that the American sealer John Davis was (supposedly) the first to make landfall. In the 1840s Sir James Clark Ross undertook the first significant exploration of the continent and to this day numerous Antarctic landmarks are named after him.
Shackleton’s expedition had proved that reaching the South Pole was within humans’ reach and a ‘Race to the pole’ between Scott and the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen commenced. Amundsen was a veteran in Arctic conditions who had skied since childhood and had spent years with the Inuits learning how to handle dogs and dogsleds. He planned meticulously for his assault on the pole, and only told Scott of his intentions once he had already sailed from Europe.
Scott and Amundsen’s experiences could not have been more different. Amundsen and his men waltzed their way to the South Pole. They arrived on 14 December 1911, spent three days taking in the sights and left a green tent and a letter for Scott. All the men (but only 11 of the 97 dogs) returned safely to their base just over a month later. For an adventure that was supposed to be the ultimate test of human endurance it was almost too easy.
Since those heady days Antarctic exploration has never been so much in the global consciousness although the first solo expedition to the pole and the first baby born on the continent did both cause ripples. If you think that the White Continent has been tamed, though, you’ve got another thing coming: no-one has even come near to exploring the landmass which lies beneath the ice-caps, and this may well be the next great frontier for modern-day explorers. Satellite imagery has shown that the world’s second biggest lake is in Antarctica, but surely the land beneath the ice will reveal countless other surprises…
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