Blizzard: Race to the Pole

by Jasper Rees, Bruce Parry

At the beginning of the last century, reaching the South Pole was the greatest terrestrial journey left to man. By the spring of 1912, the race was over—Robert Falcon Scott was dead and Roald Amundsen, the victor, was on his way home. Ever since, a debate has raged over whether Scott was an arrogant incompetent or whether he was the victim of bad luck. This book attempts to answer the question by re-running the race. Two teams, among the world’s greatest adventurers, will be equipped entirely in the style of the original expeditions. The difference will be that both teams will start at the same time and from points within ten kilometers of each other. Now, for the first time, it will be possible to see whether it was luck or judgment that led Amundsen to victory and Scott to his death.

Genres: Nonfiction, Adventure, Travel

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2006

Reviews

[Chris Steeden · Rating 3 out of 5]

A BBC documentary where they are attempting to reconstruct two expeditions to the South Pole by the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen (got to pole on 14-DEC-1911), and the British Naval Captain, Robert Falcon Scott (got to pole on 17-JAN-1912). On the Norwegian modern team are four Norwegians and one from the US and the British team is made up of 8 Britons. Instead of performing this "race" at the South Pole they ended up doing this in the northern hemisphere on the Greenland Ice Cap between April and July 2005. You are not allowed to bring non-indigenous animals to the South Pole as they wanted.

The story goes that Roald Amundsen was heading north to get the the north pole first and Scott to the south but Amundsen heard that an American, Robert Peary, had made it to the North Pole (did he really or was it Fredrick Cook a year earlier - that is another story altogether) so he turned around and headed south so at first Scott never really knew that he was in a race to the south pole.

The leader of the modern Norwegian team is 33 year old, former Navy Seal, Rune Gjeldnes. The leader of the British team is 36 year old Bruce Parry a former troop commander in the Royal Marines.

Norwegian Team
Inge Solheim, 32, ex-army and an expert skier
Harald Kippens, 31, Navy Seal
Ketil Reitan, 44, professional dog driver
John Huston, 28, dog driver fromt he US

British Team
Nick Akers, former police officer, dog handler but gets injured early and had to leave the expedition.
Mark Anstice, cavalry officer and friend of Bruce Parry
Dave Pearce, ex-Marine
Rory O'Connor, 37, medical officer
Chris van Tulleken, 26, second doctor on team
Rupert Elderkin, 29 year old lawyer
Arthur Jeffes, 27 year old music producer. He is the great grandson of Scott's widow Kathleen who re-married after Scott's death

They will be using the same antiquarian equipment including theodolites and sextants (gives the angle between the sun and the earth) to work out where they are and where they need to go. Chronometers will be used to give time. They actually had to learn astronomical navigation before going on the expedition. Scott and Amundsen were heading for 90 degrees south but as the modern teams have been sent to Greenland they are aiming for another setting although they will be travelling the same distances as their counterparts and over similar terrain.

They will also be eating the same kind of food that they did at the time like pemmican which is a high-energy fatty meat high in protein (sounds revolting by the way).

The book, with a very short foreword from Sir Ranulph Fiennes, mixes the modern expedition with the old so you get a sense of how well the teams are doing and if they are experiencing the same sort of issues encountered nearly one hundred years ago. It is interspersed with diary notes from Parry (expletive laden) and Gjeldnes. Just like the expedition I did find it all a bit of a slog. I felt the concept was a good one but was rather dull on paper. There are a lot of facts about the old expeditions which are fascinating though.

[Mark Hickman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very thin read. Draws too heavily from the accounts of the Scott & Amundsen expeditions which are of little interest to those of us who have read extensively on the subject. Nothing new to read here. All the other historical accounts are better, I fail to see the point of the exercise or the book to accompany the t.v program.

[Myraisaksen]

exciting!!!