The world’s worst journey passed a ‘mysterious island’ in Brazil

The year 2022 is when we celebrate the centennial of the publication of one of the most complete (and terrifying) accounts of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, a period of extreme expeditions to the continent between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The reader has only to start reading the first few pages to conclude that the book’s title, “The Worst Journey in the World,” was no exaggeration.

The work was written by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the 65 crew members of the Newfoundland Expedition (1910-13), led by English explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who was trying to be the first to reach the South Pole.

The freezing hardship would be marked by days of blizzards, hysterical winds blowing tents away, regulated food (how much there was), and trekking through treacherous territory torn by deep crevasses.

Not to mention the southern oceans with ten-meter-high waves. For Garrard, this was the earthly version of hell, where the ship could tilt fifty degrees each way.

However, the worst news, as harsh as spending a winter in Antarctica, would come in the form of a telegram when the experienced Roald Amundsen sent Scott a warning from Australia that the Norwegian was also heading south.

Leader Scott was unmoved by the concurrence and suggested that the crew proceed “without fear or panic as if nothing had happened.”

But it did happen. And it was no small thing. The trip became known as Scott’s last expedition.

A PASSAGE THROUGH BRAZIL

Aboard the Terra Nova, a slow wooden whaling ship that traveled by sail or steam, part of the crew left London on June 1, 1910, and headed for the Atlantic Ocean, passing the islands of the Madeira and Cape Verde archipelagos near the coast of Africa.

One of the scientific stops of the delegation was an “uninhabited, unknown and mysterious” island in Brazil.

Trindade is the country’s most remote inhabited Brazilian destination, a rocky fortress of complex landing emerging from the sea, 1,140 kilometers from Vitória, Espírito Santo state capital.

On this island of volcanic origin, the crew, which also had scientific objectives in geology and biology, collected some species of birds, spiders, and insects for the British Museum’s collection.

Formerly a British domain and a strategic base for Brazil in both World Wars, Trindade was dominated in Scott’s time by the dreaded land crabs, “a nightmare” that spied with interest and bit the boots of the landers.

But Antarctica was still a long way off, and there was no time to waste.

From there, the crew headed to South Africa, where Scott met with the group after sorting out expedition bureaucracy, and then on to Australia and New Zealand, where tons of provisions such as food, motorized sleds, dogs, and the 19 ponies that would transport the cargo would be shipped.

In fact, the latter is considered to be one of the mistakes of the expedition, as it did not seem a good idea to take this type of animal on such a journey.

PERILS

Even today, tourist trips to Antarctica are full of hardships; what to say about that beginning of the century?

Divided into other mini expeditions with different purposes, the polar crossing was many trips in one, like the Spring Expedition, “a joyful picnic” under freezing temperatures.

But the worst of them, the one that inspired the title of Garrard’s book, was the Winter Expedition, “the worst in the world,” when a small group left carrying 114 kilos each to research life in a colony of emperor penguins, as he relates in the following excerpt:

“And so we set out to undertake the strangest expedition to search for birds’ nests that has ever been or will ever be heard of.”

For him, dying was easy. What was hard was to keep going.

When the Winter Expedition returned to Cape Evans, his clothes were so frozen they had to be cut off. Cherry-Garrard recalled in her diaries that some were so hard they could stand upright.

By midday, the thermometer was reading -60.5° C, and when the temperature rose to -48° C, Garrard thought that “things were getting better.

They weren’t.

On a continent where day and night are blurred and noon seems like midnight during the winter, the explorers could not see an inch ahead of them as they moved about.

Seals and penguins, when they appeared, served as food; the fresh water available was rain; and the sea baths, “saltwater soap,” as one of the travelers put it.

Between one camp and another, huts were set up to shelter the explorers, whose isolation was made with seaweed and even garbage left by previous Antarctic expeditions.

On the rare dinners with more abundance, the menu included crumbling beef jerky, crystallized ginger, and pony meat sacrificed to feed the humans and dogs.

As far as possible, the expedition was recorded by the photographer Herbert Ponting, who had a darkroom in one of the expedition camps.

One of the most dramatic moments recorded on Ross Island was when this Englishman was surrounded by a group of orca whales and had to leave by jumping over ice sheets to avoid being devoured by these strategic animals.

Ponting would become known as the first to use a hand-held camera in Antarctica.

HEADING FOR THE SOUTH POLE

The expedition’s main journey to the South Pole began on October 24, 1911, and was led by Scott, accompanied by dogs and four other men.

Shortly afterward, the ponies carrying supplies would have to be put down due to weakening from lack of food and overwork. The motorized sleds would also be abandoned, probably due to the evaporation of fuel.

Still, Scott would write in his journal a hopeful:

“I think it’s going to be okay.”

Unfortunately, at that time, the leader was wrong.

Scott and his men reached the South Pole on January 17, 1912, to find that the Norwegian Amundsen had reached the southernmost point of the planet on December 14 of the previous year.

Furthermore, the small entourage of the Polar Expedition, consisting of Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, and seaman Evans, would be surprised by fatigue, hunger, and the fury of the Antarctic climate.

The three frozen bodies would only be found by the Search Expedition inside a tent less than a year later, almost 11 miles (about 18 kilometers) away from one of the campsites.

Evans, who had fallen into a coma at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, and Oates, who had taken a “step out” onto the ice to disappear forever, were never found.

The expedition’s rescue ship arrived in New Zealand in February 1913. Before leaving, however, the survivors erected a cross made from eucalyptus wood at the top of Observation Hill near the Ross Sea.

“For God’s sake, look after our people” would have been Scott’s last words.

After him, Antarctica would only see the feat repeated almost half a century later, in October 1958.

“AMUNDSEN, THE EXPLORER”

The Norwegian production dramatizing the life of Roald Amundsen, an explorer who reached the South Pole days before Scott, is available on HBO Max.

With information from UOL