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The Coldest March
The Coldest March is the outcome of Solomon's interest in her hobby. It is, in essence, a history of Captain Scott's voyages to the Antarctic, a story which has been told many times in the decades since Scott's death. Yet, never before has the history been focused through the lens of true science. Science was held in high esteem by these Edwardian explorers and is the continuing basis for human occupation of the Antarctic. Solomon's close attention to the meteorological record becomes genuinely interesting as it is possible to make an intelligent comparison between the historical data and the automated data collection of recent decades. The modern route to the Pole from McMurdo Sound is close to that used by the British explorers 90 to 100 years ago. Whilst few attempt the journey on the ground, automated weather stations are vital for US Antarctic Research Program flights in the region. This data, collected every ten minutes since 1984, provides a statistically significant basis for investigation.
The technical substance of what Solomon has to say in this book first reached publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in a paper co-authored with Charles R. Stearns. Those few dense pages form a scientific data quality check and comparison, with the conclusion that the March of 1912 was significantly colder than the average, that Scott's weather forecasters had collected sufficient data to have a good idea of what that average was and that the unexpected cold was a primary factor in the deaths of the party returning from the Pole. These cold facts have been expanded into a solidly researched history of Scott's Antarctic career, with a strong focus on the collection and interpretation of weather data.
The basic point of this book should prove within the grasp of anyone capable of interpreting a graph. The historical issues, however, require a larger context. The book approaches the debate on Scott through the clever technique of "the visitor". At the start of each chapter, there is a vignette offering a view of the modern Antarctic experience which parallels the main subject of the chapter. In this space, Solomon can provide informal commentary and bind the historical discussion with description of the achievements and misunderstandings that are still possible after over 40 years of continuous human occupation of the continent. The visitor provides an access for the modern reader to a well known story. Scott's Pole party arrived at the South Pole in January 1912, five weeks after Amundsen. He and his four companions died on the return journey, Scott, Wilson and Bowers only 11 miles from a supply depot. At the time this tragedy quickly became a heroic example; some modern writers have considered Scott's whole Antarctic experience closer to farce. The heritage of the expedition often turns on the perceived reputation of Scott himself; this book reflects positively on Scott and his colleagues, principally because of the primacy of doing good science in their work. Nevertheless, it acknowledges the mistakes made by both Scott and his rival and recognises the strengths of each party. It is a decent account of the so-called "Race to the Pole", providing a setting in which the relevance of the weather thesis to Scott's death can be fully developed and strongly argued. By dredging bare facts to the surface, The Coldest March has rendered almost every published history of the period out of date.
Each generation seems to find its own vision of Scott. Solomon sees him as a frustrated scientist and, at its centre, this book is a celebration of scientific method. It is tempting to think that the author has seen most strongly the elements of Scott that a modern scientific mindset might wish to find -- as earlier generations have praised him as a heroic exemplar of the British Empire or damned him as a middle class bumbler. Countering this are the words of members of Scott's own scientific party, many of whom relished his ability to ask the right question. Coming from such an original perspective, and providing genuinely new information, this is as significant a book as Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World, published 80 years ago. The Coldest March is a wonderful (re-)introduction to the Matter of Scott.
You can The Coldest March at Fatbrain. If this review interests you, perhaps you'll enjoy the Coldest March website. More information, incuding sample chapters from the book, are available at Yale University Press.
I want to get that in e-book so i can read on my wearables when i make the first weara... damn.
.cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
I can imagine doing that. It would, after all, be the longest day of the year there. You would have total daylight. The champagne might freeze, though.
"with the conclusion that the March of 1912 was significantly colder than the average, that Scott's weather forecasters had collected sufficient data to have a good idea of what that average was and that the unexpected cold was a primary factor in the deaths of the party returning from the Pole."
I find it almost impossible to believe that they didn't PLAN for severe weather. Granted, hindsight is 20/20, but I figure if you are going to an extremely cold area, you plan for extremely cold weather. Seems like a major blunder in an otherwise profitable journey.
Sent from your iPad.
Are 6 months long. The "day" startsin September, at the spring equinox and ends in March, at their autumnal equinox.
Reminds me of a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs Bunny ends up at the South Pole for his vacation, and is upset until the penguin(!) points out this fact.
Other people claim Scott died because he used modern tools: tinned meat. However the tins where welded with lead. By travelling to the pole and eating the meat they got a decent lead poising. Amundsen didn't use any tins, he used more tarditional means of food.
If you liked this book, you will LOVE Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage. Some sample pages are here. From the jacket blurbs:
In October 1915 the ship Endurance was crushed by Anarctic ice, and the crew became castaways in one of the harshest regions of the world. Their adventures make one of the most intense, gripping stories ever written.
Description from The Reader's Catalog
The story of polar explorer Shackleton's survival for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctic seas. "One of the most gripping, suspenseful, intense stories anyone will ever read"--Chicago Tribune
From the Publisher
In August 1914, explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew set sail from England for Antarctica, where Shackleton hoped to be the first man to cross the uncharted continent on foot. Five months later, the Endurance - just a day's sail short of its destination - became locked in an island of ice, and its destiny and men became locked in history. For ten months the ice-moored Endurance drifted until it was finally crushed, and Shackleton and his crew made an 850-mile journey in a 20-foot craft through the South Atlantic's worst seas to reach an outpost of civilization. Inspired by the ordeal that Time magazine said "defined heroism," author Alfred Lansing conducted interviews with the crew's surviving members and pored over diaries and personal accounts to create his best-selling book on the miraculous voyage. In Audio Partners' abridged recording of Endurance, reader Patrick Malahide renders a masterful portrayal of these courageous men.
The amazing thing about Scott's expedition is how close it came to succeeding, in spite of a fundamentally _stupid_ plan and the bad luck of apparently hitting the worst weather in a century. Scott didn't get along with sled-dogs for some reason, so he tried a tractor (broke down immediately -- in 1912 that was no surprise), and ponies from somewhere north of England (Antartica was too cold for them, and they ate too much). Finally he decided to just pull the sledges by manpower. That didn't allow enough food per man. Still, they almost made it.
Amundsen adopted a plan that made it much easier to get the food up the glaciers, although it the English professed to be shocked when they heard about it. He surveyed a route that went several hundred miles on sea ice, then up a glacier, then a long, nearly flat run to the pole. He started with heavily loaded sleds and enormous dog teams. By the time they reached the glaciers, the sleds were lighter, so the dogs didn't have much trouble pulling them uphill. At the top, Amundsen got out a pistol, shot the extra dogs, and loaded up the sleds with fresh meat.
And you probably thought "dog eat dog" was just an expression.
the epic tale of an early and tragic polar expedition [...] (Imagine spending New Year's en route to the southern ice.)
Oh yeah, I'm sure that missing New Year's eve was this guy's biggest concern.
A great read. Susan Solomon superbly combines the human tradegedy of Scott's doomed expedition with new scientific insight. The story is gripping throughout for those analyticaly minded and for those wanting to understand the personalities involved. How fitting that the reputation of Scott, who was himself scientifically minded, should be restored by an accomplished scientist.
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... you're sure to love this adaptation in which Scott battles a giant electric penguin with glowing eyes and tentacles and... oh, sorry, wrong film. Those who were responsible for this mistake have been sacked.
Denver Museum of Science, Monday Feb 4, 7PM. There is an admission fee.
So I guess it was this extra cold weather that kept the icebergs from melting further south in the Atlantic, and which ultimately saw the end of Titanic?
I'd always wondered why it was no longer a problem for modern ships on the same route...
The fascinating thing about this book is that is shows that, even in 1912, Scott had an excellent idea of what _normal_ weather was.
Who would believe in penguins,unless he had seen them? Conor O Brien - Across Three Oceans
You are absolutely correct, the photos taken by the photographer during the Shackleton voyage were a monumental historical, artistic and technical achievement. They would be remarkable today...but in 1912, they were utterly dumbfounding. There is an IMAX movie about this, too...
...they'd be dumbfounding in 1912, alright, since they were taken in 1914-1916....I seem to have Titanic on the brain here....
I just finished reading "Endurance" and it is an incredible story. Any ONE of the many trials they went through would have been an amazing story of survival. It just kept going and going from one epic trial to the next
Oh hell, I might as well plug my own Amazon link too. Here is Shakletons own telling of the story South : A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
Here is Alfred Lansing's classic book - It does have a few of photos but there are only a few and they are printed rather small Endurance : Shackleton's Incredible Adventure (this is the one I just finished reading)
And here is Caroline Alexander's in hardcover with much better photography The Endurance : Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
In the spirit of this quote, those "in the know" among Norwegian mountaineers and expeditionists will not wish each other good luck. Luck isn't a part of it for these people. If you want to express support, you'll say something like "I am confident that you will successfully achieve your goals".
Amundsen was a cold-hearted man, but he had a few good points.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Whether or not the summer of 1911-12 featured record lows, there is no doubting the fact that Scott was an incompetent bungler whose arrogance killed his companion.
Read Huntford's Scott & Amundsen for the real story, see how while Amundsen spent the previous winter improving his equipment (he was still working on the ski bindings just hours before departing for the pole) while Scott was busy producing the "Sout Polar Times"
Scott wouldn't take dogs because it would be "cruel", although taking ponies, who were totally ill-suited to the Antactric conditions, apparently wasn't.
Moreover he wouldn't allow Captain Oates to pick the ponies, even though, as a cavalary officer, he'd been chosen for the expedition to take care of them. Instead he sent a man who knew nothing about horses to Siberia to buy them. Needless to say he got ripped off and lumbered with a bunch of animals more fit for the knacker's yard.
But surely the biggest screwup, and this has nothing at all to do with the weather, was Scott's change of plan on the polar plateau.
Instead of diving his party of 8 into two, with four going on to the pole and four returning the McMurdo, he decided to take 5 to the pole. This meant that poor "Birdie" Bowers a) didn't have skis for the final push, whereas his 4 companions did b) had to unpack and repack all the supplies which had originaly been packed for four-men teams.
Also the tents were designed for four.
Finally, Huntford shows by an analysis of their own diaries, that Amundsen actually had *worse* weather than Scott, but he and his party were often moving forward on their skis in weather that kept Scott inside in his tent.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is pretty much what we here in Norway hear. Scott is portrayed as rather stupid, failing to heed advices from expeditionists much more experienced than himself, not testing his equipment, and had very little experience to foresee what would await him. Amundsen OTOH was a very cold-hearted man, but extremely efficient and a logistical genius.
One of the stories is that during some of the preliminary expeditions in Antartica, one of the teams got in serious trouble. The leader of the group successfully saved the life on one of members of the team, who had come to the brink of exhaustion. Amundsen did not like this act, it was his clearly stated opinion that everyone who signs up to one of his expeditions must be able to support himself and not delay the expedition in any way. If he is unable to follow, he must be prepared to be left to die. When the team leader did not follow this policy, Amundsen punished him by not allowing him to be on the party that went for the pole.
When I read foreign texts, it is interesting to note that Scott is portrayed as a great hero, who suffered the ultimate hardships. In Norwegian literature, there is nothing glorious about getting yourself killed. He failed, miserably. Besides, he made so many mistakes, for example, leaving the dog-sleds behind, there is really no wonder he failed. Another thing is Scott's spirituality. He put his faith in God's hands. When you're in Antarctica, this is a fatal mistake. There are no hands there but your own. Unless you realize that it is only what you can do that decides whether or not you'll live, you're doomed.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
They didn't know about vitamins & minerals in 1912. The English diet contained a lot of processed wheat, fat, and meat. The Norwegian's included buckwheat and preserved berries. By the end, Scott & his team had starved to death. Read all about it in Roland Huntford's "Scott and Amundsen". (unfortunately, out of print)
In 1908 the Tunguska event threw so much debris and ash into the atmosphere it caused the Northern hemisphere winters to be colder than average until 1914, but effect peaking in 1909-10. The dust from this event took years to reach the southern hemisphere, where the peak of the effect would roughly be March 1912. The cold weather was not solely cause by this, but certainly was effected by it.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Thai food, Kahlua and cream, rock music - you guys really suffered. I made it down to the tip of the continent in Jan. '95 accompanying the first Antarctica Marathon. Looks like Thom still has a couple of spots open for this year's run. (I didn't run; I stood around and watched.) At least around the edges, Antarctica isn't so bad in January. Everyone jumped in the sea just to say they had done it (well, it was in a spot where a hot spring vents into the ocean near the beach). I remember seeing thousands upon thousands of penguins. Apparently they have a 50% fat content; you can use them for both food and fuel if you're desperate. I felt a little guilty enjoying hot meals and a heated cabin on the trip, thinking about how those early explorers suffered. Shackleton's Valiant Voyage a/k/a Endurance was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. Too bad Scott didn't take Shackleton along - they might have got out alive.
There have been discussions about the weather findings. Not surprisingly, Huntford largely dismisses them as a complication Scott should have been more prepared for. Let's itemize some of the things Scott did wrong. (1) He didn't have his team learn to ski; (2) He didn't believe in dogs; (3) He sent someone who didn't know horses to get them, and left behind someone who did (poor Oates); (4) He didn't lay adequate supplies -- His "one ton depot" was half the size of Amundsen's, and was to support larger parties; (4) He chose to bring an unqualified crony in P.O Evans, who should have been discharged for drunkeness.; (5) He brought along physically unqualified Cpt. Oates (war injury) to keep "the army" involved; (6) He broght along Bowers at the last minute, complicating the distribution of provisions; (7) His final party had 4 on skis, and Bowers on foot, having had Bowers leave his skis the day before; (8) he did not mark his depots well, and lost time looking for them; (9) He didn't supervise unloading of his motor sledges, and two of three fell into the ocean when non-qualified people didn't recognize the weak ice; (10) he left behind the motor sledge development engineer, so they had little expertise when the last one broke down. (11) Dragged 50 punds of rocks around when his party was in desparate straights.
On the positive side, he wrote a beautiful diary blaming it all on the weather, not the plan, execution or personnel decisions he had made. This made him the poster child of the "noble failure" for 60 years, and the very model of the upright Englishman who would walk into the trenches of WWI.
Bah. Proving he did have bad luck with the weather doesn't excuse the other suicidal decisions he made.
-dB
ObBias, My great-great-uncle Charlie liked Amundsen, and had some credentials from which to form an opinion.
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Captain Cook carried citrus fruit on his long voyages in the 1700s. I guess this is what the berries may have been for.
That's what they used to call British sailors. They'd bring limes on their sailing ships to provide vitamins and stave off scurvy. And they'd been doing it for centuries by the time of Scott's expedition. They may not have known the limes had vitamins as such, but they damn well knew they had *something* people needed to stay healthy.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Scott killed his crew in the worst way: he starved them to death. More particularly, he killed them with scurvy. Scurvy had been understood for a century at the time of his expedition, so there could be no excuse.
Even if he had brought fruit, they still would have died, frozen. He didn't bother sealing his fuel cans properly, so when he came back to them, three quarters of the fuel was gone. The method of sealing fuel cans for arctic conditions was also well-known at the time, to anyone who cared to know.
He brought horses to haul supply caches because he couldn't be bothered to learn to handle dogs. (They froze.) He brought the first three snow tractors ever built, and left behind the mechanic who could have kept them working. He dropped one of them through the ice just from impatience. He marked his supply caches poorly, so missed them on the way back. He brought skis, but didn't even try them until after he got there, and discarded them barely tried. (Skis might have make it look too easy.) That they died of scurvy was an accidental choice; they might have died from any number of idiocies.
Scott's failure was as much a British failure as a personal one. British society at the time valued pluck and endurance over everything, including intelligence and care. Thorough preparation was considered cheating; you had to plan on suffering if you expected to be hailed as a hero. Your men had to die to demonstrate suffering. The British thought they were great because they were good at suffering.
Scott remains a national disgrace; his failure was an essentially British failure. No mere weather report can change that. It took Shackleton to teach the British a lesson in true heroism. None of his men died for his reputation.
The documentary by the same name is playing around the country. Featuring the motion picture film shot on the voyage, and some stunning new photography, you get a vivid feel for the conditions the crew had to endure and the heroic feat of leadership Shackleton displayed by saving his entire crew. When it would have been possible to despair he found a way.
I saw this film on Saturday. Almost needed a parka when it was over - damn it was cold.
Coupled with The American Experience: Return with Honor about the American Vietnam POWs the two films provide ample evidence of what resources human beings have at their disposal with which to survive.
Shackleton had two parties. The Ross sea party suffered three casualties. For some reason this is rarely mentioned, but a quick google search will verify this.
One of my favorite SF writers, Kim Stanley Robinson, has written a great novel about Antarctica. Called, reasonably enough, _Antarctica_, it covers a little of the same sort of political ground that he uses in his _Mars_ trilogy, but in a more, um, terrestrial setting.
He also goes over the history of some of the early South Pole expeditions; while all opinions are expressed by the characters, not the author, it's clear he has considerable sympathy for the "Scott wasn't a *complete* screwup" point of view.
Check it out.
While reading another comment that highly recommended a book about Shackletons famous Endurance journey, I remembered a comparison of the three explorers which I found in the book: Shackleton's Way - Leadership Lessons.
The first page of chapter eight contains the following quote from Frank Wild, crew member on three of Shackleton's expeditions.
Actually, if the subtitle might turn you off, don't worry. The book is really worthwile reading. It's not literature just for simpleminded MBA's. NB: I just earned such a degree too, but I'm more proud about an earlier M.Sc. in physics).
--Explore and serve
Her book is basically pro-Scott, with qualification "mistakes were made".
My first introduction to this topic was about a decade ago with the PBS special "Race to the Pole". This documentary essentially blasted Scott as being ignorant and bureaucratic- thus costing his life.
Susie calls Scott the careful and scientific one and Amundson a gambler (who succeeded). Scotts expedition compiled very accurate weather temperature profiles - similar to current results. However they hit the "1 in 20" bad year when winter starts a month early than normal. Scott was "on plan" until winter arrived early. Its was so cold that sleds and skis would not slide. Slipperness is caused by thin frictional melt beneath the skis.
Amudson built his base camp on the ice shelf edge which breaks off every year. He set up a minimum of food depots, compared to Scott's abundance. Shakleton's earlier expedition that ran out of food was the motivation for Scott's extra depots. The Brits had bad luck with dogs and good results with Siberian ponies. Amundson knew to how to get good and fast fast results out of the dogs.