A sledging party cross the frozen sea-surface on their way to Scott’s ship, Terra Nova. The sledges were called 'pulks.' © Herbert Ponting.
Some of “the most evocative images ever taken” of the Antarctic are on display at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge until March 31 2006.
Drawn from Captain Scott’s fated Polar expedition, the photographs by Herbert Ponting capture the team at work in one of the most extraordinary environments on the planet.
Scott’s final journey to the Antarctic ended in tragedy when, having reached the South Pole, the team ran out of resources and perished in the snow.
Herbert G. Ponting and cinematograph on the ice in Antarctica, January 1912. © Herbert Ponting.
The exhibition is a graphic record of the extreme conditions that the scientists experienced. Ponting, who returned home safely, produced a vast collection of images of the Polar landscape and the men who died studying it.
The Institute was able to purchase this unique collection of glass plate negatives with a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £530,000. The photographs on display have been newly produced from the negatives and give a dazzling sense of the sheer scale of the Antarctic.
Grotto in iceberg, Terra Nova in distance. T. Griffith Taylor – Geologist & Charles S. Wright – Physicist (interior), January 5 1911. © Herbert Ponting.
As Director Julian Dowdswell observes, the collection also stands as a testament to the scientific work carried out by the team, discoveries that “remain important today in the context of climate change in a warming world.”
Capt. Robert Falcon Scott CVO, RN in his den, October 7 1911. © Herbert Ponting.
The Scott Polar Research Institute was established in 1920 as a memorial to Captain Falcon Scott. It has a dual role, acting as a research centre on climate change and museum for British Polar history.
As well as the entire collection of over 1000 of Ponting’s photographic plates, still in the original boxes that he carried them home in, the Institute houses an unrivalled collection of artefacts from Arctic and Antarctic expeditions. These include the letters and diaries that have provided such a powerful record of the drive and determination that fuelled the ‘heroic age’ of Polar exploration.
