Australian History/Conservation and the Environment
Book Details

The Coldest March

Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition

Susan Solomon

The tragic story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his British team who trekked across the snows of Antarctica, striving to be the ¹rst to reach the South Pole.

Opinion

"An inspiring chronicle of Antarctic scientific exploration at its most heroic. Good science, good history, and gripping read."
J.W. Zillman, president of the World Meteorological Organization

"[P]ersuasive. . . This thorough account. . . will be useful to anyone interested in polar matters."
Sara Wheeler, New York Times Book Review

“Susan Solomon has written a masterpiece. It is a tale of vision, courage, endurance, patriotism, loyalty and all the strengths and frailties of the human spirit. Above all, it is good science, good history and gripping reading.”
John Zillman, Director, The Australian Bureau of Meteorology

About this Title

This is a very well balanced and meticulously researched book. It shows beyond doubt how false and shallow have been the many malicious and blinkered books and ¹lms in their bland condemnation of Captain Scott as a bumbler and inept leader. Quite the opposite was actually true, and The Coldest March goes a long way to putting polar history right and thereby to killing off the vicious myth about one of Britain’s great explorers. 
—Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale.
—Robert Falcon Scott, written after travelling for weeks in daily temperatures below -35° F.

The Coldest March tells the tragic story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his British team who in November 1911 began a trek across the snows of Antarctica, striving to be the ¹rst to reach the South Pole. After marching and skiing more than nine hundred miles, the men reached the Pole in January 1912, only to suffer the terrible realisation that a group of ¹ve Norwegians had been there about a month earlier. Scott and his four companions died on the return journey. Whether they were courageous heroes or tragic incompetents has been debated ever since.

Susan Solomon brings a scienti¹c perspective to her understanding of the men of the expedition, their agonising struggle, and the reasons for their deaths. Drawing on extensive meteorological data and on her personal knowledge of the Antarctic, she depicts in detail the sights, sounds, legends and ferocious weather of that singular place.

She reaches the startling conclusion that the polar party was struck down by exceptionally frigid weather—a rare misfortune that confounded the men’s meticulous predictions of what to expect.

This poignant and beautifully written book restores Scott and his men to the place of honour they deserve.

Table of Contents

List of Maps
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments

Prologue: The Hut at the Bottom of the World
1 Into the Pack
2 Of Dogs and Men
3 The Return
4 The Safety of Supplies
5 The Start of a 'Coreless' Winter
6 For the Love of Science
7 In the Footsteps of Shankleton
8 Beyond the H of Hell
9 This Awful Place
10 Sunset on the Barrier
11 The Anguish of Helplessness
12 In Search of Explanations
13 A Chillingly Unusual Month
14 The Winds of Chance and Choice
Epliogue: The Worst Weather in the World
Appendix One: The Men of the Mission
Appendix Two: A Timeline of Interconnected Lives

Notes
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Susan Solomon is a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado. The leader of the National Ozone Expedition, she was honoured with the U.S. National Medal of Science for her insights in explaining the Antarctic ozone hole. Among her many other distinctions is an Antarctic glacier named in her honour. To find out more about the author visit the Coldest March website - www.coldestmarch.com

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978-0-522-85023-9