The Historic Huts

Last night (Saturday 6 June) I went to a charity film screening of 90 Degrees South, a 1933 remaking and reconfiguration of Herbert Ponting's film footage of Scott's Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica. The proceeds of the evening, held at Otago Museum, went to the Antarctic Heritage Trust's international conservation project to restore and maintain the historic expedition huts of the Ross Sea area. Nigel Watson, the executive director of the Trust introduced the evening and showed us slides of the restoration process so far, of the before and after of the two Scott expedition huts, the Discovery hut at Hut Point, and the Terra Nova hut at Cape Evans, as well as the Shackleton hut at Cape Royds of the Nimrod expedition. Having just seen most of the huts in their mostly restored condition it was really interesting to see what it was like before. The Trust has a magnificent website outlining their work, the restoration and conservation project with photos of all the huts, both historical and current. The work consisted not only of repairing the structure of the huts, but also ensuring the future conservation by removing tons of snow, installing snow break equipment, and drying out the huts. This included lifting the linoleum (very carefully rolling it onto a giant roll) and lifting every floorboard. After draining and drying the underfloor area every board (carefully labelled) was put back where it belonged. They also lifted every object, cleaned and restored it before putting it back exactly where it had been found. Having just been there, I can vouch for the success of the operation. It was very dry and clean and an amazing living museum.

Because there are so many books and websites with photos of the historic huts (see here for example, Freezeframe, the site of the Scott Polar Research Institute) I don't really want to bore my blog readers with mine. On the other hand, I do want to tell you "I was there!". So here are some photos of the three huts we saw. We visited them in reverse historical order: first Scott's Cape Evans hut (1920-1913), then Shackleton's Cape Royd's hut (1907-1909) and finally the hut of the British Southern Cross Expedition 1898-1900), led by Carsten Borchgrevink from Norway. We did not get to see the hut of Scott's first expedition on the Discovery (1901-1904), which stands at Hut Point and could not be reached because the sea was frozen. Here are the pictures in historical order. First Borchgrevink's wonderful lockwood Norwegian hut at Cape Adare put up in 1899, which still stands strong (although it was restored, mainly by putting on a new roof). This is the smallest hut. Borchgrevink's group was the very first to winter over in Antarctica.It must have been pretty awful! Not only the cold and the wind, but also the stench and noise of the hundreds of thousands of adelie penguins. When we were there there were only a few hundred, but it was clear to see where the penguins would normally be: on the miles and miles of brown guana. What a smell!

The expedition consisted almost totally of Norwegians, but was funded by an Englishman and is therefore known as a British expedition.
Note remnants of the English flag. Also the name of the expedition and of the sponsor as well as the expedition leader on the case behind the table.

To get to Shackleton's hut we had to walk about 40 minutes across the scoria along the coast of Ross Island. This was informative, because Shackleton also had trouble finding a good landing place and after the initial off-loading of supplies the Nimrod moved away and could only get to a bay further along. I could imagine the ponies having to struggle on those stones, although it may have been covered in snow then. This is taken from the top of the final descent into the little valley where the hut stands, among adelie colonies. Click to enlarge the picture for a better view. The other picture shows the famous 'Mrs Sam's Stove', which burned anthracite coal and could operate 24 hours a day. It radiated enough heat to keep the temperature of the hut to a steady 16 to 21 degrees C. Of course they had to offload and transport tons of coal for the purpose.


Finally, Scott's Cape Evans hut. As you can see, the hut was now snow free, after the removal of tons and tons of snow by the Antarctic Heritage Trust's work.If you click on the picture to enlarge, you can just make out the snow barriers. Large triangles on poles on the left, one just behind the person in orange (that's actually my cabin mate). Don't ask me how this snow barrier system works. They are 'vortex generators' and there are five of them. If you are particularly interested I'm sure the Heritage Trust site will tell you more, or you can look on Wikipedia.

Of course I took some photos of the famous table in Scott's hut. The first is taken from the entrance, the same direction as Ponting's famous birthday photo, which is the fourth in the series this links takes you to. At the very back of my first picture you can see the doorway into Herbert Ponting's darkroom. The second picture is taken from that position, looking back at the entrance. On the left at the back is the kitchen. That part was (famously) shielded off from the backroom, to separate men from officers.

Notice in particular the brand names on boxes, for example Fry's Cocoa. This cocoa was provided by Cadbury's Chocolates in Dunedin who merged with Fry. Scott was a pioneer in the development of sponsorship deals with food manufacturers of the day. The shelves in the hut are still filled with packaged food, all provided free to the expedition in exchange for advertising rights and publicity photographs, showing the growing power of food brands in the Edwardian era (according to a BBC 4 program on the Edwardian larder). In fact, this brand promotion is still going on. Cadbury had provided packets of Jaffa's for last night's film showing. (Jaffa's are orange coated chocolte balls and a traditional film viewing snack in New Zealand.) In the interval they also served dairy products from Anchor, who provided butter for Scott. And there was Typhoo tea, extra strength. This special blend was apparently originally a waste product, but became a best-seller because it was drunk by Scott's men at Cape Evans, a freebie from Typhoo. Apparently Tesco and Typhoo have issued this blend anew, in commemorative boxes with Scott's name on it. Part of the proceeds of the sale of this tea will go to the Antarctic Heritage Trust.

When Herbert Ponting came home from the Scott expedition he was horrified to discover that Scott had sold all the rights to his photos to help pay for the expedition. Later Ponting bought back the rights to the film footage and created the film we saw last night. The original silent footage had been augmented with an introduction by Captain Evans and Ponting himself. The film images were accompanied by music and Ponting's very amusing and informative commentary. To make a full story, a number of stills from his photo collection were edited in. I found the film extremely moving and it beautifully completed for me the experience of my own expedition to Antarctica. First I had read some of the books, such as Apsley Cherry-Gerrard's amazing book The Worst Journey in the World and a book about the Nimrod expedition. Then actually being there put it all into perspective. For example how, after depot laying expeditions, they sometimes found it difficult to find the way back to the hut in a blizzard and might get onto Tent Island or Inaccessible Island instead. I took a picture of these islands from the beach at the Terra Nova hut. This was now a beach with water between it and the islands, but during the depot laying journeys this was all frozen and indistinguishable from land.


Seeing Ponting's film last night gave me excited pangs of recognition. So very little has changed in the hundred years since the expedition and I kept thinking: yes, that's how it looks, yes, I've seen that, stood there. There are very few historic sites in the world where so little has changed. Normally a monument ends up swamped in other buildings, roads, traffic, people and rarely do you get the chance to stand there, soak in the moment in silence and imagine the past. Really wonderful.