If you like to read about explorers and famous expeditions I suggest “The Last Place on Earth” by Roland Huntford, a book which details the fascinating race to the South Pole between the British and the Norwegians in 1910-1911.
I don’t know about you but cold affects me like salt on a snail’s tail. I will search desperately for any loose BTU rumored to be lurking in the vicinity and even snow in the forecast alerts my teeth to start chattering. I liked Huntford’s book but only vicariously.
This legendary story, by the way, was depicted in a PBS mini series by the same name in 1985 and it could make you cold even watching it during a heat wave in July. Which I did. The expedition took place in December, which is summertime at the South Pole, when temperatures average a toasty 20 degrees below zero. Extremely well done and starkly realistic, it is the true tale of an intense, year-long competition between two famous explorers, both hell-bent on getting there first.
You probably heard little or nothing about it during all your years in school. I didn’t, either.
There were a few critical differences between the two expeditions but those differences determined the success of Roald Amundsen and the failure of Commander Scott.
Perhaps most important was the use of dogs by Amundsen and the use of motor sleds and ponies by Scott. Neither ponies nor sleds couldn’t take the extreme cold and brutal terrain. Dogs could.
Secondly, each expedition had a different approach to nutrition in arctic conditions. Amundsen, an experienced polar explorer, who was familiar with the foods of Inuit people in far north latitudes, understood the need for foods rich in fiber, fats and rare meat. Scott lacked this background and selected foods such as white bread and over-cooked meat.
Both expeditions carried similar foods, among them a dried, compacted mix of meat and fat known as pemmican. A critical difference was that Amundsen included peas and oats in his recipe, boosting the nutritional value. Both expeditions featured seal meat but Amundsen left his meats under-cooked to keep the vitamin C intact and fed it to his men each day. At the time, nobody had heard of vitamin C (it wasn’t developed until 1932) but people understood that there was something in raw meat that kept you from getting scurvy. Scott’s team didn’t have meat every day and when they did it was overcooked.
Why didn’t these expeditions didn’t simply take a Vitamin C supplement? Well, nobody knew about vitamins in 1911 so there weren’t any supplements. All Amundsen knew was that if you ate raw or nearly raw meat as the Inuit people did you wouldn’t get scurvy.
These may seem to be small differences but in a climate as harsh and as unforgiving as Antarctica they made the difference between failure and success. The average December HIGH temperature for Antarctica is 20 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit! I start to get hypothermia just thinking about that.
Amundsen had known from the beginning that during the grueling trip across the ice they would have to slaughter and eat some of the dogs in order to push on. He and his men had grown very close to these loyal animals and killing them was a terribly sad and awful thing. Four of the weakest animals were selected.
“There went the first shot,” Amundsen wrote. “It sounded gruesome over the wastes. A faithful servant lost his life for each shot. The festive mood which should have reigned in the tent that evening, the first on the plateau, did not come. There was something oppressive, miserable in the air. We had grown so fond of our dogs. The place was called ‘The Butcher Shop.’”
Such a thing is horrible to contemplate but Amundsen and his crew, a thousand miles out across barren ice and snow with diminished rations, had no choice. It was a necessity. These men made it across the last place on Earth all the way to the pole before anybody else. Thanks in large measure to their dogs, most of whom were allowed to survive and make it back.
You should know that those survivor dogs, by the way, were pampered and treated like royalty for the rest of their lives. Their humans knew they deserved it and awarded it unreservedly.
Such a thing reminds us that these expeditions were no walks in the park but rather involved human and animal lives being pushed to an extremity which most of us can hardly imagine.
Scott’s difficulties seem to have resulted from his lack of experience in the sub-freezing regions of the planet, whereas Amundsen had by then accumulated years of familiarity surviving in the Arctic. He had learned much from the native peoples of the far north.
One of the most important of these was to use any raw meat available in the climate of the arctic. This includes seals and penguins. Humans don’t have the ability to produce vitamin C but animals do. Amundsen had learned this during an earlier expedition when his ship became trapped in ice for an entire year! They ate raw penguin meat and none of them got scurvy
Robert Scott and his men probably didn’t know this tactic. They survived on traditional British foods such as oat cakes, stewed beef, peas, various cheeses and tinned vegetables which, due to cooking and canning, were already low in vitamin C.
One thing the Brits likely enjoyed before setting off from base camp on their motor sleds, was a traditional steak and kidney pie. Most Americans are not familiar with this dish and some find it revolting but it is a much-loved tradition in Britain.
Steak and Kidney Pie
You Can Do This:
Slice one-pound of beef, pork or lamb kidney (you’ll need to ask a cooperative butcher or specialty meat shop for this) into halves and soak in lightly salted water for 4 hours (or overnight in the refrigerator). Cut out much of the white tissue and discard it. (Scissors might help). Then pat dry and cut into small cubes.
Cut 2 pounds of round steak into small cubes, combine with the kidney then season with salt & black pepper. Brown the meats in hot oil in a large skillet for 10 to 12 minutes then simmer on low for about an hour. Add a little water as needed to avoid sticking or burning.
Fry a diced onion and a diced carrot with half of a diced turnip in a mix of oil and butter for about 8 minutes in a stew pot, then add the browned meat and sprinkle on a tablespoon of flour with salt and black pepper to taste, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 2 cups diced potatoes and meat stock to cover. (You can buy meat stock in cartons from your supermarket shelf).
Cook for a half-hour or until the diced potatoes are tender.
Add some water as needed and cook until thickened. Taste a sample for seasoning.
Pour into a 3-quart casserole dish or into a deep dish frozen pie shell which has been thawed.
Place a sheet of store-bought pie dough or puff pastry over this and vent with a few slits. Brush on an egg wash.
Bake at 400 F (204 C) for about 30 minutes. Allow to sit for 15 minutes before serving.
I have purchased this in a flat, round tin at a specialty market (with the cooked pastry included) so something similar to that may well have been in the food provisions of Scott’s expedition. Best to make your own, though.
In its own way, that race for the South Pole was a precursor to the American success at putting a man on the surface of the moon. For its time it was an astounding accomplishment.
And now, the irony: Amundsen led his men brilliantly to success but it was Scott who was made the hero … for failing!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m gonna go put on another sweater.
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