The lab in Scott’s Hut at Cape Royds, Antarctica
In 1910–1913, Captain Robert Falcon Scott made his second attempt to reach the South Pole during the Terra Nova Expedition — and never returned. The party did, however, get a good bit of science done under (by today’s standards) extremely primitive conditions.
What the entertainment was when they were not working? Well, probably singing and playing music, talking, card games, and…
Can you read the title?
Scott’s Hut and its contents are currently undergoing restoration under the lead of the Antarctic Heritage Trust, which is responsible for the hut, in collaboration with the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London. The staff involved in this project are currently in Antarctica and have a blog about it on the NHM site.
Was it something in the paper?
While I was working on this and started playing this video (5:25, ignore the slightly nauseating music) on the work being done on Shackleton’s hut , my husband piped up. Apparently, he and many others that have seen Scott’s Hut over the course of many seasons in the Antarctic feel very passionate about this project — they are not so happy with it. He says that many down there feel that maybe the hut should be left to degrade peacefully until it falls apart. It made me think: what is it being preserved for — hordes of tourists that may come to the Antarctic to look at it one day? Oh, wait: that is actually happening already.
And here’s the plankton net! Told you this blog is about marine stuff.
I don’t know. I’d still like to see the hut, but when am I ever in Antarctica?
Last year I did a blog post about (pictures from) the continent (and the people there) on my other blog
I like the closing statement on your post, Eva!
Apparently – once upon a time – my husband asked Sandwich girl for her name so he could e-mail her about something… he had to ask three times before she stopped saying ‘Sandwich girl’ and gave it.
Great post and pictures Steffi – I share your reservations about encouraging tourism to Antarctica. There should be a good case for imposing a hefty preservation tax on visitors…!
Well, the tourism is regulated as much as possible. For example, the cruise ship operators meet once a year to hash out who goes down, and they are restricted to certain areas and sites. Thankfully, the Antarctic environment alone still imposes enough of a barrier for most people.. but apparently not for everyone. And (not having ‘served as much time’ in the Antarctic as my husband with the strong opinions) I don’t know whether it’s fair to keep everyone away, either.
Having said that, the numbers of tourists to the Antarctic are growing tremendously, the British Antarctic Survey has a short write-up of that and how they deal with it.
It was really weird when I was at Palmer Station – one of the places tour operators go regularly – and the tourists came through. (Only the small ships get their passengers on land at Palmer, the big ones with thousands of people just sit offshore and a boat goes out with people to give a couple of talks). The cruise ship passengers had been banned from the labs ages ago (it kind of interrupts science, especially when people insist on touching your stuff..), but walk all over the station. Two ships a week during the entire summer season – and that was 8 years ago..!
Funny, I started this post with the idea of contrasting science now and then, but the conservation project kind of took it in an entirely different direction.
Funny, I started this post with the idea of contrasting science now and then, but the conservation project kind of took it in an entirely different direction.
I suggest you just go with the floe…
N_ice_ comment, Stephen! A chill sense of humour.
And, agreed, lovely post (as usual), Steffi. I especially like those books.
Huh, my italic did not work.
N ice is what I tried to write.
When Stephen left that comment, I frantically started looking for a picture of an ice floe with seals or penguins on it, but couldn’t find one right away. I’m just not as quick as Cath with her cat pictures :)
@Maxine
N ice should be avoided, especially when N = 9
I was beginning to think my pun had sunk…!
I’d never heard of Ice-nine Brian, but your comment brought to mind Project Habbakuk which, amazingly, was not a work of fiction. I came across it because two celebrated crystallographers, JD Bernal and Max Perutz, had worked on it during WWII.
Stephen – I was beginning to think my pun had sunk I thought it was floating rather nicely.
..and now that I’ve had a chance to follow your links: nice one, Brian.
Stephen: I like the last reason on Mountbatten’s list for ‘Project Habbakuk’ losing priority:
The American preference for conventional aircraft carriers.
I say. Instead of a gigantic construct of woodpulp and ice? How unimaginative..
@Steffi – I liked the story about Mountbatten demonstrating the strength of the pykrete by pulling out his revolver, shooting at it and nearly killing some of his staff from the ricochet…
@Stephen – When I was a post-doc in the Engineering Department at Cambridge, one of the lecturers was Ken Pascoe, who took part in project Habbakuk as a junior research worker. He was the person who carried the sawdust reinforced ice samples to demonstrate their strength to Churchill by the simple experiment of hitting them with a hammer. I think he said the demonstration was actually carried out in Downing Street.
By a spooky coincidence, Ken Pascoe was acknowledged in a recent Nature Futures article, also with an arctic theme!
@Brian – that’s fascinating – what a small world! I see Pascoe is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on the fortified ice
…and, while I’m riffing on guns and erstwhile colleagues of Max Perutz, let me tell you about a paper by Michael Rossmann on methods for collecting x-ray diffraction data from crystals that are so sensitive to radiation, they only last for a few exposures in the beam. This means that it is not practicable to take preliminary shots to determine the crystal orientation before turning them to the correct alignment for data collection. Instead the crystal was positioned randomly and data collection started. The new method allowed the orientation to be worked out afterwards. The authors dubbed this the ‘American Method’ because you shoot first and ask questions later…!
In the paper they put it slightly more stiffly:
Oh my – first cars , now guns…
Sssshhh – the Richards will hear you!
Thanks, Brian – nice one.
Richards – plural – help! One is bad enough.
Update: a friend drew my attention to an interesting article in the Economist on tourism in Antarctica. According to that, the number of tourists has quadrupled over the last decade and is expected to reach a whopping 39,000 this season. The worry is about who is going to run the rescue operation
ifwhen the next cruise ship sinks.Unfortunately, the online version doesn’t have the photo the print edition does: tourists on the sea ice next to a cruise ship, taking pictures of an emperor penguin. Caption: One of these two species is stupid