Track No04

[00:01.77] lesson 4

[00:03.56] Robert Scott: A Race

[00:05.40] to the South Pole

[00:08.31] The first person

[00:09.07] to reach the South Pole

[00:10.82] was Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian.

[00:13.65] Robert Scott, who was English,

[00:16.39] arrived at the South Pole

[00:17.90] a month after Amundsen and

[00:19.90] died on the return journey

[00:21.65] to his ship.

[00:23.40] Yet, strangely enough,

[00:24.90] Scott became a hero,

[00:26.90] but Amundsen did not.

[00:29.65] Captain Robert Scott (1868-1912)

[00:34.14] was an officer

[00:35.16] in the English navy.

[00:36.90] From 1901 to 1904,

[00:39.91] he led an expedition to Antarctica

[00:42.28] for a British scientific

[00:43.31] organization called

[00:44.55] the Royal Geographical Society.

[00:47.80] His group traveled farther south

[00:49.81] than anyone else had ever done.

[00:52.68] He gathered information on rocks,

[00:54.68] weather,and climate,

[00:56.43] and he made maps.

[00:58.18] When he returned to England,

[00:59.69] he was a national hero.

[01:02.44] A few years later,

[01:03.68] Scott decided to organize another expedition.

[01:07.31] He said that he wanted

[01:08.14] to make a complete

[01:09.39] scientific study of Antarctica,

[01:11.63] but his real goal was to be

[01:13.48] the first person at the South Pole.

[01:16.52] He took three doctors,

[01:18.27] several scientists,

[01:19.76] and a number of other men with him.

[01:22.38] Scott's group sailed on a ship

[01:24.14] named the Terra Nova

[01:26.14] in June 1910.

[01:28.68] When they reached Australia,

[01:30.52] they learned

[01:31.26] that Amundsen was also

[01:32.51] on his way to the Pole.

[01:34.89] Amundsen and Scott were

[01:36.14] very different from each other,

[01:38.39] and they made very different plans.

[01:41.23] Amundsen planned everything very carefully.

[01:44.42] He took sleds and dog teams,

[01:46.76] as the great Arctic explorers did.

[01:49.51] Scott took ponies (small horses)

[01:52.26] and a few dogs,

[01:54.26] but he planned to

[01:55.31] have his men pull the sleds themselves

[01:57.13] for most of the trip.

[01:59.51] On earlier expeditions,

[02:00.76] as some dogs became weak

[02:02.77] the men killed them for food

[02:04.63] for themselves and the other dogs

[02:07.26] . Amundsen did this too,

[02:09.02] and it helped him reach the Pole,

[02:11.77] but later people called

[02:12.76] him "dog eater."

[02:15.40] Scott would not eat his dogs,

[02:17.77] and this was one reason he

[02:18.77] died on this expedition.

[02:21.96] There were other differences

[02:23.02] between the two expeditions.

[02:25.77] Amundsen sailed 100 kilometers

[02:27.76] closer to the Pole than Scott did.

[02:30.76] Scott also had the bad luck of having

[02:32.77] extremely bad weather-days

[02:35.01] of blizzards and strong winds.

[02:37.76] It was often -40°C

[02:39.73] (minus 40 degrees Celsius).

[02:41.60] Scott and his men built

[02:43.43] a base camp near the ocean's

[02:44.93] edge and spent the winter there.

[02:48.18] They used sleds and

[02:49.16] ponies to carry a ton of supplies

[02:51.74] farther inland to a place that

[02:53.07] they named the One Ton Depot.

[02:57.02] When spring came,

[02:58.57] a few of the men started ahead

[03:00.07] of the others with

[03:01.29] motorized sleds to leave supplies

[03:03.78] along the way.

[03:05.59] However,

[03:06.39] after only a few days,

[03:08.16] the motorized sleds

[03:09.41] broke down,

[03:10.66] and the men had to pull them.

[03:13.15] A few days later,

[03:14.22] Scott started for the South Pole

[03:16.29] with a few men.

[03:18.28] The whole journey was very difficult.

[03:20.53] Scott and his men either

[03:22.29] walked through deep snow or

[03:24.04] skied over ice and uneven ground.

[03:27.78] The climate was too difficult for the ponies,

[03:30.39] and they all died.

[03:32.73] There were frequent snowstorms.

[03:34.84] Sometimes the men couldn't leave

[03:36.68] their tents for several days

[03:38.37] because of blizzards.

[03:40.94] When Scott was 260 kilometers

[03:43.47] from the Pole,

[03:44.72] he sent all but four men

[03:46.72] back to the base camp.

[03:48.97] This was probably his most serious mistake.

[03:52.66] His tent was big enough for only four people,

[03:55.42] and he had only enough food

[03:56.92] and fuel for four.

[03:58.67] Somehow he had to provide for

[04:00.41] four people plus himself.

[04:02.92] Also, one man had left his skis

[04:05.67] behind with some of the supplies.

[04:08.66] He had to walk in the snow,

[04:10.42] and this slowed down the whole group.

[04:13.41] On January 17, 1912,

[04:16.66] Scott and his men reached the Pole,

[04:19.41] only to find a tent and the Norwegian flag.

[04:23.06] They were not the first people

[04:24.38] to reach the South Pole.

[04:26.42] They had lost the race.

[04:28.91] The next day,

[04:30.17] they started the 1,300-kilometer

[04:32.66] journey back to their base camp,

[04:35.16] pulling their heavy

[04:35.91] sleds full of supplies.

[04:38.66] The trip back was worse than

[04:39.91] the trip to the Pole.

[04:41.66] They became weak from hunger.

[04:44.53] At times, the whiteness everywhere

[04:46.91] made them blind.

[04:48.42] Their fingers and toes began to freeze,

[04:51.41] and two of the men fell and

[04:52.66] injured themselves.

[04:54.91] They didn't have enough fuel

[04:56.16] to keep warm in their tent.

[04:58.13] They became exhausted and had

[04:59.87] more and more difficulty

[05:01.15] pulling their sleds.

[05:03.27] Finally, one man died.

[05:06.13] Then another became so weak

[05:08.21] that he knew he was endangering

[05:09.53] the lives of the others.

[05:11.38] One night,

[05:12.63] he left the tent and never returned.

[05:15.63] He walked out into the blizzard

[05:17.13] to die instead of

[05:18.12] holding back the other three.

[05:21.13] Every day, Scott described the terrible journey

[05:23.63] in his diary.

[05:25.38] On March 21,

[05:26.88] the three remaining men

[05:27.88] were only twenty kilometers

[05:29.63] from the One Ton Depot,

[05:31.63] but another blizzard kept them in their tent.

[05:35.20] On March 29, they were still unable

[05:37.81] to leave their tent.

[05:39.88] On that day,

[05:41.12] Scott wrote

[05:41.91] his last words in his diary

[05:44.94] A search party found

[05:45.94] the three bodies eight months later.

[05:48.94] They also found Scott's diary,

[05:50.94] excellent photographs of

[05:52.19] the expedition,

[05:53.44] and letters to take back to England.

[05:56.44] The search party left the frozen bodies

[05:58.44] where they found them

[06:00.19] Today, the base camp building is still there.

[06:03.44] Inside are supplies,

[06:04.94] furniture,

[06:05.94] and the men's belongings.

[06:08.03] They have been left just

[06:09.14] the way they were when Scott's

[06:10.39] expedition was there.

[06:12.89] New Zealand takes care of the

[06:13.86] building and its contents.

[06:17.12] Robert Scott's name lives

[06:18.61] on in stories of his trip to Antarctica,

[06:21.78] the last part of

[06:22.52] the Earth that people explored.

[06:25.27] He was not the first

[06:26.28] to reach the South Pole,

[06:28.04] but he is remembered as one

[06:29.38] of the great heroes of exploration.