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The Longest Winter: Scott's Other Heroes
Through the eyes of the men involved, Meredith Hooper recounts one of the greatest tales of adventure and endurance, which has often been overshadowed by the tragedy that befell Scott.
Their tents were torn, their food was nearly finished, and the ship had failed to pick them up as planned. Gale-force winds blew, bitter with the cold of approaching winter. Stranded and desperate, Lieutenant Victor Campbell and his five companions faced disaster. They burrowed inside a snowdrift, digging an ice-cave with no room to stand upright, but space for six sleeping bags on the floor—the three officers on one side, the tree seamen on the other. Circumstances forced them closer together, their roles blurred, and a shared sense of reality emerged. This mutual suffering made them indivisible and somehow they made it through the longest winter.
To the south, the men waiting at headquarters knew that Scott and his Polar party must be dead and hoped that another six lives would not be added to the death toll. Working from diaries, journals, and letters written by expedition members, Meredith Hooper tells the intensely human story of Scott’s other expedition.
Their tents were torn, their food was nearly finished, and the ship had failed to pick them up as planned. Gale-force winds blew, bitter with the cold of approaching winter. Stranded and desperate, Lieutenant Victor Campbell and his five companions faced disaster. They burrowed inside a snowdrift, digging an ice-cave with no room to stand upright, but space for six sleeping bags on the floor—the three officers on one side, the tree seamen on the other. Circumstances forced them closer together, their roles blurred, and a shared sense of reality emerged. This mutual suffering made them indivisible and somehow they made it through the longest winter.
To the south, the men waiting at headquarters knew that Scott and his Polar party must be dead and hoped that another six lives would not be added to the death toll. Working from diaries, journals, and letters written by expedition members, Meredith Hooper tells the intensely human story of Scott’s other expedition.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
39 people are currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
Meredith Hooper
104 books6 followersMeredith Hooper uses the storybook form in Who Built the Pyramid? to make the latest research accessible for a young audience. Meredith Hooper is an historian by training and the author of many books, ranging in subject from Antarctica to aviation, from the history of water to the history of inventions.
Hooper, born in 1939, graduated in history from the University of Adelaide, then studied imperial history at Oxford.
Hooper, born in 1939, graduated in history from the University of Adelaide, then studied imperial history at Oxford.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 27, 2023
This is a bit mistitled. It is not about "Scott's Other Heroes" as much as it is about everything that happened at that time in Antarctica, including the Japanese expedition, Amundsen and Scott himself. The back cover talks about living in the ice cave for the winter, and this starts to happen 200 pages in, for the last third of the book. My favourite feature of these narratives is often the short blurbs on each of the people, outlining what happened next after their big polar adventure. Many went on their various fates in WW1. Here, the story ends when they leave Ross Island. Hooper, sadly, does not tell us more about the six characters central to the title story.
A couple of errors or puzzling bits. The Canadian, Wright, is described as having "polar experience" because he worked on a ranch in Canada! This may qualify as experience in the harshness of winter, but is nowhere near polar experience. And when Amundsen names the peak jutting from the ice as "Scott's Nunatak," nunatak is described by Hooper as a Scandinavian word. In fact nunatek is derived from the Inuit, meaning a mountain peak surrounded by glacial ice. Amundsen would have picked up this word during his travels in the Canadian north.
A couple of errors or puzzling bits. The Canadian, Wright, is described as having "polar experience" because he worked on a ranch in Canada! This may qualify as experience in the harshness of winter, but is nowhere near polar experience. And when Amundsen names the peak jutting from the ice as "Scott's Nunatak," nunatak is described by Hooper as a Scandinavian word. In fact nunatek is derived from the Inuit, meaning a mountain peak surrounded by glacial ice. Amundsen would have picked up this word during his travels in the Canadian north.
June 18, 2025
This seems like a strangely appropriate book to read in these times of social distancing and cocooning; a story of six men confined for a year to a hut in the middle of an Antarctic wilderness, and then living in a squalid ice cave for the best part of another year. It is also a fascinating, almost unbelievable, story of endurance and survival. I have been interested in Antarctic exploration in general, and Robert Falcon Scott in particular, for a long time and it was delightful to read a book on an aspect of his Terra Nova expedition that I was relatively unfamiliar with, and which drew on accounts and sources that were, for me, much less well trodden.
Meridith Hooper is surely right when she comments, very insightfully, that our understanding of Captain Scott has become one where the "story focused on the single narrative that ended in tragedy and heroism. It became a drama with a central cast, a one-track setting, a reduced timeline...The expedition became known as 'Scott's Last Expedition', the finality of that title all-defining, casting its shadow backwards, gripping events, narrowing and sharpening the plot. Accounts of what happened shifted to take account of what was to happen. Writing, and thinking, accreted 'hindsight bias': understandable, unavoidable but insidious. No one wished to challenge the overriding narrative, to dislodge the tone and beat of the powerful and moving story that had swept into the imagination of a world audience. At the heart of Scott's expedition is a tragedy. But alongside it there is also positive, life-affirming success"
While the six men of the Northern (or Eastern) party ultimately survived, I'm not sure I'd call them successful. Their story is also tinged by tragedy, or at least disappointment. First, Scott himself didn't care about their plans. He was manically focused on the pole, and understandably so, but the result was a neglect of the parts of his expedition that weren't serving that central end. Second, when Campbell and his five companions did set off, they were frustrated in every attempt to land on or near Edward VII land, as originally planned, and then in their attempts to land somewhere further North that would allow them to explore a previously unknown region. In the end, they are forced to land near Borchgrevink's old hut from his 1898 expedition. Establishing themselves ashore, they hit the same problems as Borchgrevink did and are unable to venture far, break new ground, or even complete much meaningful scientific work. In the end, their crowning achievement was mere survival.
And what a journey they had to survive. In their first year, the greatest enemy was boredom, but this part of the story was anything but boring. It was fascinating to explore how these six men interacted and learned to live together in unnaturally close conditions, and the context of rigid and stratified naval discipline. As ever with accounts of this era, it is much easier to get a sense of the character and inner life of the officers. Hooper does a great job of using their diaries and others' observations to bring Campbell, Levick and Priestley to life with all their complexities and flaws. The men, on the other hand, are much more one-dimensional and are primarily seen as stolid, competent, and obedient. Abbott is somewhat fleshed out, but Dickason and Browning are completely interchangeable and quite anonymous, which strikes me as quite sad given what they experienced.
In their second year, the enemy was everything that Antarctica could throw at them. Transported down the coast by the Terra Nova, away from the relative safety of their hut, and in the hope of achieving their first real work of exploration, disaster strikes when the ship is unable to collect them, and they are forced to winter with only what they carried on their two sledges. This involved digging a bare shelter in a snow drift and subsisting on seal and penguin in conditions of almost indescribable squalor and discomfort. Hooper doesn't varnish this at all, and the description of how their sudden change in diet led to severe diarrhoea and urinary incontinence is particularly humiliating and degrading. But they do survive, stay united, and improve their miserable conditions as much as they can. Their final triumph is to effect their own rescue, and to stride back into the main expedition narrative like six blubber-soaked scarecrows.
I enjoyed this book immensely, my one criticism being that the author adopts a quasi-literary style that I found quite jarring. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy clever and well-structured writing, but I found that at times this got in the way of the story she was telling, and telling so well. That said, I noticed this less and less as the book went on, so either she dropped it or I got used to it. In the end, the almost unbelievable account of what these six men endured and survived swept me along, and I am glad I read this and expanded my understanding of and perspective on Scott's last expedition.
Meridith Hooper is surely right when she comments, very insightfully, that our understanding of Captain Scott has become one where the "story focused on the single narrative that ended in tragedy and heroism. It became a drama with a central cast, a one-track setting, a reduced timeline...The expedition became known as 'Scott's Last Expedition', the finality of that title all-defining, casting its shadow backwards, gripping events, narrowing and sharpening the plot. Accounts of what happened shifted to take account of what was to happen. Writing, and thinking, accreted 'hindsight bias': understandable, unavoidable but insidious. No one wished to challenge the overriding narrative, to dislodge the tone and beat of the powerful and moving story that had swept into the imagination of a world audience. At the heart of Scott's expedition is a tragedy. But alongside it there is also positive, life-affirming success"
While the six men of the Northern (or Eastern) party ultimately survived, I'm not sure I'd call them successful. Their story is also tinged by tragedy, or at least disappointment. First, Scott himself didn't care about their plans. He was manically focused on the pole, and understandably so, but the result was a neglect of the parts of his expedition that weren't serving that central end. Second, when Campbell and his five companions did set off, they were frustrated in every attempt to land on or near Edward VII land, as originally planned, and then in their attempts to land somewhere further North that would allow them to explore a previously unknown region. In the end, they are forced to land near Borchgrevink's old hut from his 1898 expedition. Establishing themselves ashore, they hit the same problems as Borchgrevink did and are unable to venture far, break new ground, or even complete much meaningful scientific work. In the end, their crowning achievement was mere survival.
And what a journey they had to survive. In their first year, the greatest enemy was boredom, but this part of the story was anything but boring. It was fascinating to explore how these six men interacted and learned to live together in unnaturally close conditions, and the context of rigid and stratified naval discipline. As ever with accounts of this era, it is much easier to get a sense of the character and inner life of the officers. Hooper does a great job of using their diaries and others' observations to bring Campbell, Levick and Priestley to life with all their complexities and flaws. The men, on the other hand, are much more one-dimensional and are primarily seen as stolid, competent, and obedient. Abbott is somewhat fleshed out, but Dickason and Browning are completely interchangeable and quite anonymous, which strikes me as quite sad given what they experienced.
In their second year, the enemy was everything that Antarctica could throw at them. Transported down the coast by the Terra Nova, away from the relative safety of their hut, and in the hope of achieving their first real work of exploration, disaster strikes when the ship is unable to collect them, and they are forced to winter with only what they carried on their two sledges. This involved digging a bare shelter in a snow drift and subsisting on seal and penguin in conditions of almost indescribable squalor and discomfort. Hooper doesn't varnish this at all, and the description of how their sudden change in diet led to severe diarrhoea and urinary incontinence is particularly humiliating and degrading. But they do survive, stay united, and improve their miserable conditions as much as they can. Their final triumph is to effect their own rescue, and to stride back into the main expedition narrative like six blubber-soaked scarecrows.
I enjoyed this book immensely, my one criticism being that the author adopts a quasi-literary style that I found quite jarring. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy clever and well-structured writing, but I found that at times this got in the way of the story she was telling, and telling so well. That said, I noticed this less and less as the book went on, so either she dropped it or I got used to it. In the end, the almost unbelievable account of what these six men endured and survived swept me along, and I am glad I read this and expanded my understanding of and perspective on Scott's last expedition.
March 12, 2018
This could have been a lot better and a lot shorter. First 100 pages just waiting for book to begin, next 100 pages not very interesting first year of cohabitation of the 6 party members. The last 100 pages actually interesting, although a bit repetitive. The last 6 pages just about tolerable. Soo... I enjoyed it, yet I did not. Not very much. It was OK. I wanted to read about people surviving in bad conditions in the Antarctic, and that's more-or-less what I got. I just got a lot of unwanted extra in the first 100-200 pages... Still, rather glad I picked this up, as it broadened my horizons, I now think I know a tiny bit of the Antarctic a little better and will definitely look for other books dealing with Antarctic exploration.
July 4, 2013
the story is good on its own. the writing sucks, though, by trying to be literary and failing, even sometimes descending into nonsense and disorganized thought. I'll find some examples. it's worth knowing the story, but if I were writing it, I would have felt so much was owed to the story that I'd have wanted to get myself out of the way as much as possible.
February 2, 2020
Intense!
I have enjoyed all the stories about early Antarctic exploration and this one is no exception. Impeccably researched and empathetically written, it is the untold tale of Scott's Northern Party of six who were trapped for the winter when their ship was unable to rescue them. Imagine living in a dark ice cave tightly with five other men with little but seal and penguin meat to eat, minimal fresh water, horrific blizzards, fear of running out of food and oil to light their tiny lamps, primitive sanitation facilities (two cans), a temperamental stove, inability to stand upright, wet sleeping bags, filth and rotting meat bits, urinary and digestive problems to name a few...for a long, dark, freezing winter. Your clothes and shoes are rotting, you can't exercise..It would drive many lesser people crazy. Then picture yourself having to man haul your two weighty sledges 250 miles plus back to base camp in the spring through bad weather, little food, rough terrain with fear of running out of food entirely or falling through the unknowable sea ice...and all this with everyone in various stages of illness and lack of endurance. It beggars belief that they survived when Scott and his group on rheir journey back from the Pole did not. The tension was palpable from one chapter to the next and I had to take frequent breaks from reading this, as it was portrayed in riveting, gruesome detail. Good adventure stuff!!! Kudos to the author for her brilliant foray into this less well known side journey which also needing telling.
I have enjoyed all the stories about early Antarctic exploration and this one is no exception. Impeccably researched and empathetically written, it is the untold tale of Scott's Northern Party of six who were trapped for the winter when their ship was unable to rescue them. Imagine living in a dark ice cave tightly with five other men with little but seal and penguin meat to eat, minimal fresh water, horrific blizzards, fear of running out of food and oil to light their tiny lamps, primitive sanitation facilities (two cans), a temperamental stove, inability to stand upright, wet sleeping bags, filth and rotting meat bits, urinary and digestive problems to name a few...for a long, dark, freezing winter. Your clothes and shoes are rotting, you can't exercise..It would drive many lesser people crazy. Then picture yourself having to man haul your two weighty sledges 250 miles plus back to base camp in the spring through bad weather, little food, rough terrain with fear of running out of food entirely or falling through the unknowable sea ice...and all this with everyone in various stages of illness and lack of endurance. It beggars belief that they survived when Scott and his group on rheir journey back from the Pole did not. The tension was palpable from one chapter to the next and I had to take frequent breaks from reading this, as it was portrayed in riveting, gruesome detail. Good adventure stuff!!! Kudos to the author for her brilliant foray into this less well known side journey which also needing telling.
March 10, 2021
I congratulate Meredith Hooper on a thoroughly researched and heart-wrenching account of six men who must not be forgotten. We all know of the Scott saga, and Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s worst journey, but how many of us know Victor Campbell’s struggle? Every word was important, no padding in this tale. I particularly liked the way Meredith told the whole story, skilfully interweaving the different teams on the same expedition, each one dependant upon the other.
This has been my second reading. It needed that to totally absorb the details.
A must read for anyone with an interest in Antarctic history. I just wish I had read it before sailing into the Ross Sea.
Dale Lorna Jacobsen.
This has been my second reading. It needed that to totally absorb the details.
A must read for anyone with an interest in Antarctic history. I just wish I had read it before sailing into the Ross Sea.
Dale Lorna Jacobsen.
November 15, 2024
I tend to agree with many other reviewers that this book is a bit of a slog. Roughly the final third is about the winter spent in an ice cave, the fight for survival against the elements and the long trip over Antarctica to reach the rest of the expedition. The events leading up to that are a slow burn and I struggled through them.
Having said that, the book is very well researched, and by using primary sources and the words of the men who were there it captures a real sense of what it must have been like. The will to survive in the harshest of conditions is remarkable.
Overall an interesting read, but it takes a long time to reach the titled Longest Winter.
Having said that, the book is very well researched, and by using primary sources and the words of the men who were there it captures a real sense of what it must have been like. The will to survive in the harshest of conditions is remarkable.
Overall an interesting read, but it takes a long time to reach the titled Longest Winter.
February 26, 2025
The chapters on Scott ,Admanson,Shackleton were interesting 🤔 the rest not so much....
April 14, 2014
I had a hard time putting down this book while reading the final 125 pages...tremendously engrossing and "on the edge of your seat" reading.
Late in 1910 Robert Falcon Scott, embarked on his final expedition to the Antarctic in a all out effort to be the first to reach the South Pole. Unfortunately Amundsen beat him there (but Scott did make it) and Scott and his polar team died before making it back to their coastal base at Cape Evans. In order to get financing for the expedition Scott had to guarantee that a good deal of science and exploration of new regions would also be accomplished. A good deal of this science and exploration was to be carried out by the "Eastern Team". Not much is written about this group of six because most of the history of this trip revolves around Scott. However, the Eastern Team endured amazing hardships during their time in the Antarctic and very nearly all perished themselves. This is a riveting story about survival in incredibly hard conditions and of the discipline and mental strength of the six men in the party. The final 125 pages were absolutely amazing reading about their second winter on short rations, crammed in a small room they had dug into a snow drift, enduring months of seemingly never ending gales and snow, wasting away, fighting disease but still keeping their spirits up and caring for each other. Then after this almost unsurvivable period, when they were weak and starving, they sledged 250 miles over almost impassable terrain to reach safety
at the expedition's base camp..
If you like stories about human endurance and survival under conditions that would kill most of us, then read this book. Meredith Hooper has written a very exciting and entertaining history that reads like the best of adventure novels.
Late in 1910 Robert Falcon Scott, embarked on his final expedition to the Antarctic in a all out effort to be the first to reach the South Pole. Unfortunately Amundsen beat him there (but Scott did make it) and Scott and his polar team died before making it back to their coastal base at Cape Evans. In order to get financing for the expedition Scott had to guarantee that a good deal of science and exploration of new regions would also be accomplished. A good deal of this science and exploration was to be carried out by the "Eastern Team". Not much is written about this group of six because most of the history of this trip revolves around Scott. However, the Eastern Team endured amazing hardships during their time in the Antarctic and very nearly all perished themselves. This is a riveting story about survival in incredibly hard conditions and of the discipline and mental strength of the six men in the party. The final 125 pages were absolutely amazing reading about their second winter on short rations, crammed in a small room they had dug into a snow drift, enduring months of seemingly never ending gales and snow, wasting away, fighting disease but still keeping their spirits up and caring for each other. Then after this almost unsurvivable period, when they were weak and starving, they sledged 250 miles over almost impassable terrain to reach safety
at the expedition's base camp..
If you like stories about human endurance and survival under conditions that would kill most of us, then read this book. Meredith Hooper has written a very exciting and entertaining history that reads like the best of adventure novels.
December 16, 2014
Wow! Another great book about Antarctic explorers not named Scott or Shackleton. I'd never heard the story of the "Eastern Party" along on Scott's 1911 return to Antarctica. They were dumped off not where they wanted to be (a common feature in Antarctic stories, where weather and the ice pack combine to thwart explorers) and left to get through a winter on their own in an ice cave.
It takes quite a time to get to that part of the story, but if you like this genre (and I do), the backstories and sidebars are also of interest.
Great read. I would have loved some maps, but Google Earth stood in pretty well.
It takes quite a time to get to that part of the story, but if you like this genre (and I do), the backstories and sidebars are also of interest.
Great read. I would have loved some maps, but Google Earth stood in pretty well.
August 25, 2012
A fascintating account of one of the strangely lesser-known aspects of Scott's famous expedition, the story of the Eastern Party who managed to survive the Antarctic winter in an ice cave, then walk, unaided, to Cape Evans. It's an interesting attempt to tell the story, as Hooper doesn't pass judgement on any of the men, or their actions, but that means that, as a historical book, it does lack a certain something. But still, a really interesting account that at least tells this story, long after it should have been celebrated for the feat of survival it was.
April 8, 2012
A very interesting account of part of the Scott expedition that is rarely mentioned. I have read a lot about Scott, but did not know about this party until visiting the Scott Exhibition at the Natural History Museum, where I saw this book. Straightforwardly written, it benefits from not including hindsight, thereby avoiding maudlin contrasts with how the party might have felt if they had known what had happened to Scott's party. Well worth reading for anyone interested in polar exploration.
June 7, 2016
After reading "Endurance" last year chronicling Shackleton's journey I wanted to read an account on Scott's misfortunate journey. Much the same, yet this work was not as interesting as "Endurance" Very repetitive...
February 15, 2013
Really great book. You feel like you really know all of the men, she includes all their little fights and despairings and problems. Truly unbelievable story of survival.
March 10, 2021
Read again March 2021. Incredibly story of survival
December 20, 2013
Excellent. The unsung story of Scott's Eastern Party who survived two Antarctic winters.
July 24, 2015
Book was ok. First and last third were good. The one thing this book does is show how strong and durable the human body can be when we have the right mind set.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews