Race to the South Pole

Captain Robert Falcon Scott wanted to be the first person to reach the South Pole. In 1910 he set to go to the South Pole he took ponies a few dogs and a motorized sledge. Eight thousand men wanted to go with him but Scott hand-picked a crew of 36 men to go on board the ship called theTerra Nova. Later on in the year Scott and his crew set off to Antarctica. On the way to Antarctica, Scott and his crew heard some bad news.  A man called Roald Amundsen from Norway had picked a team and wanted to get to the South Pole as well. Amundsen took 52 dogs and more than one sledge with him. Scott relied on motorised sledges but Roald Amundsen relied on dogs.

When Captain Scott arrived at Antarctica he picked some men to go to the South Pole with him. The men he chose to go with him were called Doctor Wilson, Petty officer Evans and Lieut. Bowers. Only 14 miles from the South Pole Scott and his team were shocked to find sledge and dog marks in the snow. The next day Scott and his team arrived at the South Pole where they found a little tent and a Norwegian flag on top. Roald Amundsen and his team had beaten Scott to the South Pole by twenty-one days.  Scott and his team were upset and extremely annoyed. They then turned back and followed Amundsen’s tracks back for as long as they could.  Soon the tracks disappeared.  All of a sudden Edgar Evans collapsed.  He tried to get up but he couldn’t get back onto his feet and later on he died.  Scott and his team buried him in the snow and made a cross out of Edgar Evans skis.  Then they walked on and soon they set up their tent because the weather was so bad.

Then another man became ill.  His name was Captain Lawrence Oates.  When he went to sleep that night he hoped that he wouldn’t wake up in the morning but he did.  He said to the others, “I am going outside.  I may be some time.”  The other three men, (Captain Scott, Lieut. Bowers, Doctor Wilson) waited in the tent for Captain Lawrence Oates to return to the tent but he never returned so Scott closed the tent back up.  Captain Scott planned to get back before the weather got bad again, but Scott and the other two men got stuck in the tent because of a snow blizzard.  The three men were stuck in the tent for eight long days.  They had very bad frostbite on their faces, feet and fingers and their faces were very black.  A few days later the other two men (Lieut. Bowers and Doctor Wilson) died.  On Thursday the twenty-ninth of March in his diary he wrote, “For God’s sake look after my people,” then he passed away.  Eight months later a search party found their bodies lying dead in the tent.  They buried all three men together in the snow and built a cross and carved their names on it.

Eryn