The story of the historic race to the South Pole — a remarkable tale of heroic achievement and tragedy — is even better now that it includes Victoria sub-plots, says an American museum curator.
Ross MacPhee from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, curator of Race to the End of the Earth, said archival material and artifacts from the Royal B.C. Museum have enhanced what was already a fascinating show.
The exhibition, which opened Friday for a five-month run, is a tribute to the 1911-12 race to be first to reach the South Pole. Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen won the race and returned home. British Naval Capt.
Robert Scott and four others were a month behind, and died on the trip back.
Long before the show opened at the Royal B.C. Museum, archivists and curators found evidence and artifacts revealing local sub-plots to the original early 20th-century story, which occurred thousands of kilometres away
“It gives people an emotional connection,” MacPhee said at the show’s Friday opening. “Otherwise, it’s just an American museum production of a foreign country.”
B.C. additions include letters dating back to 1881-1891 linking Scott, then a British naval lieutenant in his early 20s who was visiting Esquimalt with his ship, and Kathleen O’Reilly, a beautiful and prominent young woman of 19th-century Victoria society.
No direct evidence of a romance exists. Scott later married another woman, also named Kathleen, and Victoria’s O’Reilly remained single for the remainder of her life.
Another Royal B.C. artifact is a sled pennant, a hand-sewn flag used by expedition member Cecil Meares, a veteran of British army, navy and flying corps service, several wars, espionage service and Tibetan treks.
Despite his adventurous life, Meares ended up retiring to Victoria to live quietly until his 1937 death. For local gardeners, it’s believed he introduced the Himalayan poppy to B.C. flower beds.
Other Victoria connections include Times Colonist cartoonist Adrian Raeside, whose great-grandfather and two great-uncles were expedition members on Scott’s team. They all stayed at the base camp and survived.
Visitors to Race to the End of the Earth can see other artifacts connected to historic Antarctic exploration. Amundsen’s binoculars, shotgun and sledge, and timekeeping chronometer (used in navigation to locate the South Pole) are there. On view are re-creations of Scott’s base camp and wooden hut, and Amundsen’s base, with its below-surface network of tunnels and room dug out of the snow.
The exhibition is open until Oct. 14.
