The Independent Website That Asks The Awkward Questions
Whether The Weather
No Amount Of Money Can Defeat The Weather of Antarctica.
It should not escape anyone’s notice that Captain Scott was already alarmed about the vulnerable position of his hut back in 1911.
“[Since] the breaking of the Glacier Tongue I could not rid myself of the fear that misfortune was in the air and that some abnormal swell had swept the beach; gloomy thoughts of the havoc that might have been wrought by such an event would arise… a moment later [we] turned a small headland and brought the hut in full view. It was intact - stables, outhouses and all; evidently the sea had left it undisturbed…” (Scott’s Last Expedition, Chapter VIII, April 13th 1911)
It is not simply a swell from a collapsing glacier that continually threatens the huts, nor the rising sea levels that are slowly eroding the beaches. The Antarctic Heritage Trust has been issuing a litany of media appeals for the huts (and in particular the hut at Cape Evans) founded on weather-based threats; as if these were new and somehow surprising...
“A fierce Antarctic storm has damaged an historic hut used by explorers Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, it was reported yesterday. Antarctic Heritage Trust executive Nigel Watson said 250km/h winds in last week's blizzard had forced snow into the hut near Scott base, damaging valuable artefacts. The damaged hut cannot be inspected until sunlight returns in August.” (27 May 2004, Northern Territory News)
“Lou Sanson, chief executive of Antarctica New Zealand, said the main worry about Scott's hut at Cape Evans was an encroaching glacier. "We know what glaciers do," he said. "They'll just carve out the hut - if it keeps building up then it may take the hut." (27 November 2004, TV New Zealand News)
“Captain Scott's historic Terra Nova Hut in Antarctica has been badly hit by floods, says the trust working to conserve the largest of the "heroic era" huts on the frozen continent… Antarctic Heritage Trust chairman Nigel Watson said flood water had seeped inside the hut and had frozen: "It was a major shock to us. There was significant evidence of flooding." (7 February 2005, New Zealand Herald)
“Attempts to preserve an historic Antarctic hut have been dealt a cruel blow. Scott Hut has been almost buried in snow, a year after another storm caused major structural damage. Four conservationists have spent the last week shovelling about 85 tonnes of snow that had engulfed the hut at Cape Evans used by British early 20th century explorer Robert Falcon Scott. The unprecedented conditions are threatening the future of all the huts in Antarctica.” (28 November 2006, TV New Zealand News)
“The Antarctic base occupied by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole on foot early last century has been included on a list of the world's 100 most endangered sites… The WMF identified climate change as the biggest threat to the hut, built in 1911 at Cape Evans by Captain Scott's British Antarctic expedition. The hut is wooden but for decades was permanently frozen. With the ice melting, the timbers have become waterlogged and are rotting.” (8 June 2007, The Guardian)