Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Tale of Daring

In New York, an exhibition on the race to the South Pole:

The Norwegians set up camp 70 miles closer to the pole and set out first, on Sept. 8, 1911, with a five-man team on four sleds pulled by four teams of 13 dogs each. By contrast, the British set off on Oct. 24 with 16 men, 12 sledges and two experimental motorized sledges. They had just 22 dogs and 10 ponies. Three ponies had already died of cold and hunger during the winter. Two others fell through the ice and were eaten by killer whales. Scott, in fact, wrote in his diary that he was concerned about the Norwegians' superior dog handling. He was right.

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