Capt Scott & his Antarctic team

20th explorers on their way to Antarctica, incl­uding Ernest Shackle­ton, often vis­it­ed NZ. They used local ports and quar­antine islands, and grate­ful­ly accepted other offers of assistance. They also took on New Zeal­ander crew with them, to take part in the Antarctic trips.

 Capt Robert Falcon Scott 

1905, Wiki

Capt Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) was born in Devon to a sea far­ing family. He joined his first ship when he was 13, then becom­ing an off­ic­er in the Royal Navy. Later he became one of the first Brit­ish explorers to extensive­ly explore Antarctica in the ear­ly 1900s.

Scott’s plan was to explore the part of Antarctica around the Ross Sea, originally discovered back in 1841 by Sir James Clark Ross. Scott led 2 expeditions to the Antarctic. His first expedition on the Discovery took place between 1901–04, partially Govern­ment funded. Discovery was specially built for the voyage, as a re­search ship to go through icy seas.

Clarence Hare, 1902

ABC News

New Zealander Clarence Hare (1880-1967) began his career as a clerk in N.Z and Fiji. While working in a Lyttelton grocery in Nov 1901 he met the Discovery's stores off­ic­er as they were preparing for their initial voyage south. The exp­edition's steward had been dis­missed at Lyttel­ton and 20-year-old Hare was taken on as the replacement steward. He was the youngest crew member on board.

As steward, Hare was in day-to-day contact with Capt Scott and the other officers on board. He carefully kept a diary which has been widely quoted in accounts of the expedition and biog­raphies of Sc­ott. Hare's name is still recalled in most accounts of the exped­it­ion, for the observations he wrote about and for his mir­ac­ulous story of life and death.

Note this was the first time Antarctic land had been expl­ored extensively, zoologically and geologically. Dr Edward Wilson, for ex­ample, was a keen zoologist on both of Scott's exp­ed­it­ions. Hare's grand-daughter Vir­g­inia Basset agreed. She said grandpa’s personal diary reveal­ed the lengths the crew went to for research, which claimed multiple lives onboard. They went out and collected penguins, seals, shells, whatever samples they could find to take back to England for scien­t­ific experiments. And they had to take part in collecting big ice blocks for the water supply.

Oates. Bowers, Scott, Wilson, and Evans at the South Pole.

UNSW

In March 1902, they wanted to leave directions to the expedition's winter quarters for the relief ship Morning. But after painfully slow progress, Hare's party led by 2nd Lieut Michael Barne was sent back to the ship with most of the men from the other party. During their return jour­ney they struck a blizzard a few kms from the ship. They tried to camp but soon decided to continued on foot. c10 minut­es later Hare was reported missing. Most of the party eventual­ly made it back to the Discovery, or were subsequently discovered by search parties. But Hare and George Vince, who had fal­len into the sea from a cliff edge, were given up as lost. 48 hours later Hare reappeared back at the ship unharmed! Vince's body was never found.

In 1910, Scott sailed on another scientific voyage in the whaler Terra Nova. With Royal Navy Officer E Evans (1876–1912) 2nd in charge, Scott determined to be the 1st explorer to reach the South Pole, but he faced stiff completion from Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Scott achieved his dream and reached the South Pole in Jan 1912, then he discovered that Amundsen had got there first. The 800-mile journey back to their base camp was hideous, and all 5 of Scott’s party died from cold and hunger. A search party was sent out from McMurdo Sound in late 1912 and found the bodies. 

In Feb1913, the world woke to the headline “Death of Captain Scott. Lost with four comrades. The Pole reached”. The keenly anticipated, privately funded scientific venture off the map had turned to tragedy. When news of the tragedy reached Britain, a huge mem­orial ser­vice with King George V was held in St Paul's Cathedral.

Where was the detailed diary in which he documented the 2 years he spent with the navy crew, scientists and civil­ians in the Antarctic? Hare had donated his diary to the Alexander Turnbull Lib­rary in Wel­l­ington in the 1960s, avail­able for reading only on spec­ial request. And see the whistle he kept blowing while lost in a blizzard for 46 hours.

The diary from Scott's Antarctic voyage was published in 2022. 

and edited by Maureen Lee

In 1961-2 the N.Z Geological Survey Antarctic Expedit­ion named a peak after Hare in Antar­ctica, at the end of a ridge on the Leigh Hunt Glacier. This was approved by the N.Z Geog­r­aphic Board in 1962. Clarence Hare retired to fruit farm on the Sunshine Coast, dying in 1967. But now the diary has been published for the first time as A Young Man's Antarctic Discovery, Maureen Lee ed. 55 years after his death!! 

Capt Scott's memorial statue, Christchurch

erected 1916

Was Scott of the Antarctic sabotaged by his angry deputy, Officer E Evans? No the final cause of death in each man's case was hypothermia, but dying was a long, slow process with a number of factors: Insufficient food, frost bite and failed protection. Nonetheless read UNSW Newsroom for a conspiracy theory that I had not heard of before.