Save The Huts: "Once lost, they are gone forever."

 

Despite the fact that the publicity campaign for the historic Ross Sea huts aims to give the impression that the huts are time capsules ('as if Captain Scott had just walked out of it') and are to be preserved as such, the current Conservation Reports make no such pretence.

The majority of the Ross Sea huts are not actually time capsules from the period of their foundation, or first use. Most of them were also used by subsequent expeditions; the last Heroic Age explorers to use the huts were members of the Aurora party of Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-1917. So the time capsule quality of the huts truly dates from 1917. The New Zealanders ‘unfroze’ them during the 1950s and subsequently the huts have sustained some damage; however, the huts by and large remained as time capsules until quite recently, if slowly being eroded away by the elements. The history of each of the huts is therefore multi-layered. Part of the joy of visiting the Ross Sea huts is precisely the complex layering of Antarctic history that they represent, even if each hut has one great and original significance.

Ironically, it is the damage that has been done to the sites as time capsules since the New Zealanders first started interfering with the sites in the 1950s that is providing one excuse for further intervention by the Antarctic Heritage Trust. One of the truths about the historic Antarctic huts is that they are being destroyed by meddling - and have been for fifty years - or as the Natural History Museum website puts it:

"Visitors to the huts are fascinated by finding the legendary explorers' belongings preserved as though they had just walked out... Much conservation work has, however, already been done over many years to create this impression."

What is new this time around is the scale of the interference. No mention of time capsules and the huts looking 'just like the day' the great explorers left them in these justifications for the current project. The arrangement of artefacts at Shackleton’s hut at Cape Royds, for example, is claimed by the Management Plans to have “little historical authenticity”, being the product of recent interventions. The Trust therefore thinks that it is a good idea to intervene further and has ended up with circular logic - justifying its intervention on the grounds of earlier intervention. Somehow, the intervention this time around will be 'more authentic' and leave the huts looking more like the day that the great explorers left them.

However, beyond the circular reasoning, if the damage to the time capsule elements of the huts by earlier recent interventions are so serious as to justify substantial new interference, then it undermines the sole justification for the huts’ conservation, as they would no longer, in fact, be historic time capsules and the reason for their preservation evaporates.

It is this self defeating reasoning that is being used to justify substantial interference to Shackleton’s hut at Cape Royds (1908-1909). The hut was later used by members of Captain Scott’s British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition (1910-1913) and by members of the Aurora party of Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917). They all left their traces on the hut, in particular considerable re-arrangement of the furniture and artefacts. More recent parties also left their traces upon the hut, once it was unfrozen in the 1950s. However, this history is to be removed by the Trust as ‘confusing’ and ‘insignificant’ and the hut is to be “returned” to its purported state in 1909, when Shackleton’s men first abandoned it. This removal of historical layering is historical censorship of the worst kind.

The entire Management Plan for Cape Royds is based upon this clumsy hermeneutics. The Plan claims that the Cape Royds hut is currently in a state that is not authentic based upon the premise that the hut only had ‘historical authenticity’ at a precise date in past time - which is incoherent. The hut exists in historic time, is mediated by its historical process and is perfectly genuine and well documented - its’ current condition is therefore historically authentic - although naturally mediated from its origins; that is history. However, the historic importance of the huts is that they are relatively little mediated from their origins, particularly since 1917 - and that is why they are considered to be important time capsules worthy of conserving. What the Trust appears to be wanting to make is a value judgement suggesting that the hut’s history has led to an arrangement that is currently undesirable in their eyes.

It is therefore the Trust’s value judgement that the hut is in a state that is undesirable to it. It is passing judgement upon the hut’s history; and now it intends to impose its own version upon the site. By claiming that “that the importance of the site relates to its occupation in 1907-1909” it is able to conclude that it should be “returned” to that state. However, it is blindingly obvious that without the use of a tardis, it cannot be returned to its 1909 state. The report makes widespread use of language such as “… help recreate the 1909 interpretation of the hut” (p72:36) or “return the hut to a 1909 interpretation”. This is nonsense. It will create a 21st Century interpretation of the hut based on current presumptions as to its 1909 status and the Trust’s claims to be doing otherwise are blatantly misleading. The hut, as abandoned in 1909, was a total mess with artefacts strewn everywhere, and dead pony carcasses surrounding it - the Trust is not intending to replicate this. Indeed, it is cleaning and tidying the site. It is, however, intending to rebuild the stables and garage, derelict since 1911 and to substantially modify the site with re-organisation and replication of artefacts, using a large number of replicated packing cases, in particular. The hut will be changed to the Trust's version of its' history - not to any 'authentic' 1909 state.

This muddle-headed project will do great damage to Cape Royds as an historic site. By definition it will no longer be Shackleton's hut once it is reconstructed, for it will be a replica rebuilt by the Antarctic Heritage Trust. It will no longer be the authentic historic artefact but Shackleton's hut as reconstructed. It is, despite the Trust’s protestations to the contrary, a "Disneyfication" of an important historical site and a "forgery" - that is a replica that is being presented as original. Of course, the irony is that this forgery then becomes a new historical layer, but one which removes it yet further from its true Shackleton origins.

If you were lucky enough to visit the Antarctic huts, would you want to walk into an untouched time capsule and touch the face of history; or into a hut, set out for you by Museum experts - that is nevertheless being marketed to you by your tourist company and the Antarctic Heritage Trust as a time capsule? Once the Trust has completed its plans, you will not be walking into a time capsule but a museumised creation of the Antarctic Heritage Trust.