Captain Scott

Amongst the family albums her mother had kept, Margot Dixon found something very curious—Captain Samuel F. Scott’s old scrapbook. Who was this man? And why did her family have his scrapbook? As she read through the book, full of one-of-a-kind documents, she soon realized this intriguing scrapbook was much more than a family curiosity. From the items within the scrapbook and Margot’s own research, a fascinating story emerged, one of a life on the high seas in the late nineteenth century, sailing across some of the most dangerous waters, facing storms, shipwrecks, illness, war, mutiny, and tragedy. Born in New Brunswick, Captain Scott, along with his family, sailed across the world for various shipping companies. While sailing from England to India, his wife and two of his children tragically died. Returning to Canada, he remarried and, with his family in tow, sailed three times across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But, after years at sea and another tragedy, Captain Scott turned to gold mining in British Columbia, then explored business opportunities along the west coast of Canada and the United States before his untimely death. Based on the documents in Captain Scott’s original scrapbook, collected during his lifetime, 1847–1905, and then transcribed by Margot, Captain Scott’s Scrapbook provides an intimate account of one of Canada’s most remarkable post-confederate shipmasters.

Petty Officer Edgar Evans was Captain’s Scott’s ‘giant worker’ and his ‘invaluable assistant’. He went with Scott on both the British Antarctic Expeditions of the early 1900s – the ‘Discovery’ expedition of 1901 and the ‘Terra Nova’ expedition in 1910 – distinguishing himself on both. In 1903, with Scott, Edgar made the first long and arduous sortie onto the Plateau of Victoria Land. The journey highlighted Edgar’s common sense, strength, courage, wit and unflappability. Thus it came as no surprise when, in 1911, Edgar was chosen by Scott to be one of the five men to go on the final attempt at the South Pole.Tragically the ‘Welsh Giant’ was the first to die on the ill-fated return, and posthumously Edgar was blamed in some quarters for causing the deaths of the whole party. It was suggested that his failure was due to his relative lack of education, which made him less able to endure the conditions than his well-educated companions. Isobel Williams repudiates this shameful suggestion and redresses the balance of attention paid to the upper and lower-deck members of Scott's famous expeditions.

The Voyages of Captain Scott retells the stories of the Discovery Expedition and the Terra Nova Expedition of Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions. "The Voyage of the Discovery" is an account of Scott's First Antarctic Expedition, 1901-1904, also known as the Discovery Expedition. This expedition carried out scientific research and geographical exploration in what was then largely an untouched continent. It launched the Antarctic careers of many who would become leading figures in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. "Scott's Last Expedition" is an account of the British Antarctic Expedition which took place between 1910 and 1913, also known as the Terra Nova Expedition. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic in 1901–04. He also wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole. He and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, where they found that the Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott's entire party died on the return journey from the pole; some of their bodies, journals, and photographs were found by a search party eight months later.

The myth of Scott of the Antarctic, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, icon of fortitude and courage who perished with his fellow explorers on their return from the South Pole on March 29th, 1912, is an enduring one, elevated, dismantled and restored during the turbulence of the succeeding century. Until now, the legend of the doomed Terra Nova expedition has been constructed out of Scott's own diaries and those of his companions, the sketches of 'Uncle Bill' Wilson and the celebrated photographs of Herbert Ponting. Yet for the final, fateful months of their journey, the systematic imaging of this extraordinary scientific endeavor was left to Scott himself, trained by Ponting. In the face of extreme climactic conditions and technical challenges at the dawn of photography, Scott achieved an iconic series of images; breathtaking polar panoramas, geographical and geological formations, and action photographs of the explorers and their animals, remarkable for their technical mastery as well as for their poignancy. Lost, fought over, neglected and finally resurrected, Scott's final photographs are here collected, accurately attributed and catalogued for the first time: a new dimension to the last great expedition of the Heroic Age and a humbling testament to the men whose graves still lie unmarked in the vastness of the Great Alone.

One hundred years ago, Captain Scott, naval officer and explorer wanted to be the first person to reach the South Pole. Was he the first to reach it? Discover what happened to him and his men when they went to the coldest place on Earth. * Purple/Band 8 books offer developing readers literary language, with some challenging vocabulary. * Text type: An information book * Curriculum links: Literacy: Information texts.

The South Pole is a book by Roald Amundsen and it represents an interesting first-hand account of the Norwegian expedition's successful attempt to reach the South Pole in 1911. Amundsen spends a great deal of time talking about logistics and placing of depots in preparation for his polar attempt all the way from the preparation leading up to the initial sea voyage, the voyage itself and then the establishing of a camp at the Antarctic. Although they were lucky with the weather, and Amundsen attributed the success of the expedition to "good luck", it is obvious that the Norwegian expedition was well prepared and ready for the troubles ahead; the equipment, the sledges with well-trained dogs, the supply depots with seal meat at regular intervals along the route, the sunglasses to avoid snow blindness; it was all thought of in advance.