The Worst Journey in the World
Encyclopedia
The Worst Journey in the World is a memoir of the 1910–1913 British Antarctic Expedition
led by Robert Falcon Scott
. It was written and published in 1922 by a survivor of the expedition, Apsley Cherry-Garrard
, and has earned wide praise for its frank treatment of the difficulties of the expedition, the causes of its disastrous outcome, and the meaning (if any) of human suffering under extreme conditions.
, from Cardiff to McMurdo Sound
, Antarctica. 'Cherry' was teased at first by some of the other members of this expedition because of his lack of Antarctic experience, his lack of specialised credentials for the position of 'assistant zoologist' to which he had been named, and persistent suspicions among some of his comrades that he had in fact bought his way on board by contributing £1,000 to the expedition's troubled funds.
Cherry-Garrard responded to these taunts with modesty, a self-sacrificial ability to work hard, and acute observational skills. He was also, according to novelist, biographer and socialite Nancy Mitford
, the only intellectual amongst the crew. These traits were to serve him well when it came time for him to write down his memories of the expedition. They also caught the eye of the expedition's second-in-command, Dr Edward 'Bill' Wilson
, who adopted Cherry-Garrard as a protégé.
Dr Wilson's personal goal in Antarctica was to recover eggs of the Emperor penguin
for scientific study. It was thought at the time that the flightless (and "primitive") penguin might shed light on an evolutionary link between reptiles and birds through its embryo. As the bird nests during the Antarctic winter, it was necessary to mount a special expedition in July 1911 from the expedition's base at Cape Evans
to the penguins' rookery at Cape Crozier
. Wilson chose Cherry-Garrard to accompany him and 'Birdie' Bowers across the Ross Ice Shelf
under conditions of complete darkness and temperatures of −40°C and below. It was this "Winter Journey", not the later expedition to the South Pole
, that Cherry-Garrard later described as The Worst Journey in the World.
Scott's game plan called for a large body of men to start out southward from their base, man-hauling food and fuel on sledges. It was mathematically impossible for all of them to reach the South Pole, and as the party progressed southward, the leader was forced to issue repeated orders to subgroups within the expedition to take their empty sledges and head back northward.
Cherry-Garrard accompanied this southward party across the Ross Ice Shelf and up the Beardmore Glacier
, an ice tongue that discharges ice from the Antarctic Plateau
down onto the shelf. At the edge of the polar plateau he was told by Scott that he would have to return northward.
The men not chosen to go on to the Pole reassembled at the base camp at Cape Evans and waited there through 1912 for Scott and four companions to rejoin them, but the expedition's leader never returned. In 1912–1913 Cherry-Garrard and other survivors once again marched southward, this time to try to find traces of their lost comrades. Cherry-Garrard's description of the frozen tent that contained three of them is one of the most dramatic sections of the book. Inside the tent were the remains of Scott and Cherry-Garrard's two companions on the Worst Journey, Bowers and Wilson.
Cherry-Garrard's description of the closing scenes of the expedition, based on lengthy excerpts from his own journal, transitions first into a gentle and empathetic description of Scott's mistakes, and then into a written meditation on the themes of self-sacrifice and heroism.
Although The Worst Journey in the World was published only nine years after the end of the Scott expedition, that short length of time had made clear that new technology, particularly caterpillar-tread vehicles and "aeroplanes", would revolutionise future work in the Antarctic and make much of the suffering endured by Scott and his men unnecessary. The next visitors to the South Pole ice surface would arrive and depart by airplane.
The Worst Journey in the World asks, but does not answer, the question of whether this suffering was futile, or whether it would inspire future human beings facing very different challenges.
in scientific methodology can devalue data that had begun to be gathered before the shift. At the time the Terra Nova expedition sailed, many biologists believed in recapitulation theory
. They believed that examining the embryos of key species, such as the Emperor penguin, would show how the species—and, by extension, how the family of bird
s as a whole—had evolved. The expedition's scientists determined to try to collect specimens based upon this theory.
As the survivors of the Terra Nova returned to England several years later, recapitulation theory had begun to be discredited. The egg specimens were turned over to embryologists at London's Natural History Museum
, who were largely uninterested in the donation. Cherry-Garrard describes how he was told that the retrieved eggs had added little to their knowledge of penguin
embryology
, nor to scientific knowledge as a whole.
.
The July/August 2001 issue of National Geographic Adventure
listed the "The 100 Best Adventure Books of All Time", with The Worst Journey in the World named first.
, written by and starring Mark Gatiss
, was broadcast on BBC Four
in April 2007.
The book was also adapted by Stef Penney for the BBC as a two-part radio drama in the Classic Serial
strand – it was first broadcast on 21 and 28 September 2008 and directed by Kate McAll
. It featured specially-composed music written by Will Gregory
, orchestrated by Ian Gardiner and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
under Grant Llewellyn
. Cherry-Garrard was played by Matt Green
and Scott by John McAndrew, with Carl Prekopp
playing Dr Atkinson, Mark Meadows
as Captain Oates and Peter Callaghan as Lieutenant Bowers. Other cast included Simon Lee Phillips (Charles Wright), Richard Mitchley (Dr Edward Wilson), Jack Reynolds
(PO Tom Crean) and Huw Davies (Taff Evans).
Terra Nova Expedition
The Terra Nova Expedition , officially the British Antarctic Expedition 1910, was led by Robert Falcon Scott with the objective of being the first to reach the geographical South Pole. Scott and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, to find that a Norwegian team led by Roald...
led by Robert Falcon Scott
Robert Falcon Scott
Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13...
. It was written and published in 1922 by a survivor of the expedition, Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard was an English explorer of Antarctica. He was a survivor of the Terra Nova Expedition and is acclaimed for his historical account of this expedition, The Worst Journey in the World....
, and has earned wide praise for its frank treatment of the difficulties of the expedition, the causes of its disastrous outcome, and the meaning (if any) of human suffering under extreme conditions.
Preparations and the Worst Journey
In 1910, Cherry-Garrard and his fellow explorers travelled by sailing vessel, the Terra NovaTerra Nova (ship)
The Terra Nova was built in 1884 for the Dundee whaling and sealing fleet. She worked for 10 years in the annual seal fishery in the Labrador Sea, proving her worth for many years before she was called upon for expedition work.Terra Nova was ideally suited to the polar regions...
, from Cardiff to McMurdo Sound
McMurdo Sound
The ice-clogged waters of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound extend about 55 km long and wide. The sound opens into the Ross Sea to the north. The Royal Society Range rises from sea level to 13,205 feet on the western shoreline. The nearby McMurdo Ice Shelf scribes McMurdo Sound's southern boundary...
, Antarctica. 'Cherry' was teased at first by some of the other members of this expedition because of his lack of Antarctic experience, his lack of specialised credentials for the position of 'assistant zoologist' to which he had been named, and persistent suspicions among some of his comrades that he had in fact bought his way on board by contributing £1,000 to the expedition's troubled funds.
Cherry-Garrard responded to these taunts with modesty, a self-sacrificial ability to work hard, and acute observational skills. He was also, according to novelist, biographer and socialite Nancy Mitford
Nancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
, the only intellectual amongst the crew. These traits were to serve him well when it came time for him to write down his memories of the expedition. They also caught the eye of the expedition's second-in-command, Dr Edward 'Bill' Wilson
Edward Adrian Wilson
Edward Adrian Wilson was a notable English polar explorer, physician, naturalist, painter and ornithologist.-Early life:...
, who adopted Cherry-Garrard as a protégé.
Dr Wilson's personal goal in Antarctica was to recover eggs of the Emperor penguin
Emperor Penguin
The Emperor Penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching in height and weighing anywhere from . The dorsal side and head are black and sharply delineated from the white belly,...
for scientific study. It was thought at the time that the flightless (and "primitive") penguin might shed light on an evolutionary link between reptiles and birds through its embryo. As the bird nests during the Antarctic winter, it was necessary to mount a special expedition in July 1911 from the expedition's base at Cape Evans
Cape Evans
Cape Evans is a rocky cape on the west side of Ross Island, forming the north side of the entrance to Erebus Bay.The cape was discovered by the Discovery expedition under Robert Falcon Scott, who named it the Skuary. Scott's second expedition, the British Antarctic Expedition , built its...
to the penguins' rookery at Cape Crozier
Cape Crozier
Cape Crozier is the most easterly point of Ross Island in Antarctica. It was discovered in 1841 during James Clark Ross's expedition with HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was named after Francis Crozier, captain of HMS Terror...
. Wilson chose Cherry-Garrard to accompany him and 'Birdie' Bowers across the Ross Ice Shelf
Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica . It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 600 km long, and between 15 and 50 metres high above the water surface...
under conditions of complete darkness and temperatures of −40°C and below. It was this "Winter Journey", not the later expedition to the South Pole
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...
, that Cherry-Garrard later described as The Worst Journey in the World.
Later: the tragedy and the book
All three men, barely alive, returned from Cape Crozier with their egg specimens, which were stored as the expedition swung into preparations for a march from Cape Evans to the as-yet-undiscovered South Pole. This second and much longer march, in contrast with the Worst Journey, was to be done during the Antarctic summer in 1911–1912.Scott's game plan called for a large body of men to start out southward from their base, man-hauling food and fuel on sledges. It was mathematically impossible for all of them to reach the South Pole, and as the party progressed southward, the leader was forced to issue repeated orders to subgroups within the expedition to take their empty sledges and head back northward.
Cherry-Garrard accompanied this southward party across the Ross Ice Shelf and up the Beardmore Glacier
Beardmore Glacier
The Beardmore Glacier in Antarctica is one of the largest glaciers in the world, with a length exceeding 160 km . The glacier is one of the main passages from the Ross Ice Shelf through the Queen Alexandra and Commonwealth ranges of the Transantarctic Mountains to the Antarctic Plateau, and was one...
, an ice tongue that discharges ice from the Antarctic Plateau
Antarctic Plateau
The Antarctic Plateau is a large area of Central Antarctica, which extends over a diameter of about , and which includes the region of the South Pole and the Amundsen-Scott Station...
down onto the shelf. At the edge of the polar plateau he was told by Scott that he would have to return northward.
The men not chosen to go on to the Pole reassembled at the base camp at Cape Evans and waited there through 1912 for Scott and four companions to rejoin them, but the expedition's leader never returned. In 1912–1913 Cherry-Garrard and other survivors once again marched southward, this time to try to find traces of their lost comrades. Cherry-Garrard's description of the frozen tent that contained three of them is one of the most dramatic sections of the book. Inside the tent were the remains of Scott and Cherry-Garrard's two companions on the Worst Journey, Bowers and Wilson.
Cherry-Garrard's description of the closing scenes of the expedition, based on lengthy excerpts from his own journal, transitions first into a gentle and empathetic description of Scott's mistakes, and then into a written meditation on the themes of self-sacrifice and heroism.
Although The Worst Journey in the World was published only nine years after the end of the Scott expedition, that short length of time had made clear that new technology, particularly caterpillar-tread vehicles and "aeroplanes", would revolutionise future work in the Antarctic and make much of the suffering endured by Scott and his men unnecessary. The next visitors to the South Pole ice surface would arrive and depart by airplane.
The Worst Journey in the World asks, but does not answer, the question of whether this suffering was futile, or whether it would inspire future human beings facing very different challenges.
An epilogue
The Winter Journey eventually became a case study on how a paradigm shiftParadigm shift
A Paradigm shift is, according to Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science...
in scientific methodology can devalue data that had begun to be gathered before the shift. At the time the Terra Nova expedition sailed, many biologists believed in recapitulation theory
Recapitulation theory
The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism—and often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"—is a disproven hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages...
. They believed that examining the embryos of key species, such as the Emperor penguin, would show how the species—and, by extension, how the family of bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s as a whole—had evolved. The expedition's scientists determined to try to collect specimens based upon this theory.
As the survivors of the Terra Nova returned to England several years later, recapitulation theory had begun to be discredited. The egg specimens were turned over to embryologists at London's Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
, who were largely uninterested in the donation. Cherry-Garrard describes how he was told that the retrieved eggs had added little to their knowledge of penguin
Penguin
Penguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers...
embryology
Embryology
Embryology is a science which is about the development of an embryo from the fertilization of the ovum to the fetus stage...
, nor to scientific knowledge as a whole.
Honours
In 1994 The Worst Journey in the World was published as the first numerical entry in the Picador Travel ClassicsPicador Travel Classics
Picador Travel Classics is a series of 17 hard-cover books published by Picador during the 1990s. All of the titles are re-prints of what the publishers thought of as "classic" travel literature...
.
The July/August 2001 issue of National Geographic Adventure
National Geographic Adventure
National Geographic Adventure, formerly known as Adventure One but now commonly known as Nat Geo Adventure, is a subscription TV channel part of National Geographic Channels International and News Corporation...
listed the "The 100 Best Adventure Books of All Time", with The Worst Journey in the World named first.
Adaptations
A drama documentary, also entitled The Worst Journey In The WorldThe Worst Journey in the World (docudrama)
The Worst Journey in the World is a 2007 BBC Television docudrama based on the memoir of the same name by polar explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard.-Synopsis:...
, written by and starring Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss is an English actor, screenwriter and novelist. He is best known as a member of the comedy team The League of Gentlemen, and has both written for and acted in the TV series Doctor Who and Sherlock....
, was broadcast on BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
in April 2007.
The book was also adapted by Stef Penney for the BBC as a two-part radio drama in the Classic Serial
Classic Serial
The Classic Serial is a strand on BBC Radio 4 in which classics of English literature are adapted into series of one-hour dramas. It is broadcast twice weekly on BBC Radio 4, first from 3:00-4:00pm on Sunday, then repeated on 9:00-10:00pm the next Saturday....
strand – it was first broadcast on 21 and 28 September 2008 and directed by Kate McAll
Kate McAll
Kate McAll is Executive Producer, Radio Drama at BBC Wales. There she is a radio director and producer for BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. Her credits include How I Live Now and The Worst Journey in the World , along with seven Torchwood radio episodes.-Radio Plays:Sources:* * * -References:...
. It featured specially-composed music written by Will Gregory
Will Gregory
William Owen Gregory is best known as a songwriter, and the lead keyboards/synthesizer player & producer of the electronic music group Goldfrapp. Originally a classical music student at the University of York, Gregory is the son of an actress and an opera chorus-line singer...
, orchestrated by Ian Gardiner and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is a Welsh symphony orchestra and one of the BBC's five professional orchestras. The BBC NOW is the only professional symphony orchestra organisation in Wales, occupying a dual role as both a broadcasting orchestra and national orchestra.The BBC NOW has its...
under Grant Llewellyn
Grant Llewellyn
Grant Llewellyn is a Welsh conductor.- Biography :Grant Llewellyn began developing his conducting reputation in 1985, when he was awarded a conducting fellow position at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. There his mentors included Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur and André...
. Cherry-Garrard was played by Matt Green
Matt Green (actor)
Matt Green is an English actor and comedian. He was the President of the Cambridge Footlights from 1999-2000. Since graduating in 2000 he has worked as an actor and comedian based in London.- Stand-up comedy :Matt started performing stand up comedy in 2003...
and Scott by John McAndrew, with Carl Prekopp
Carl Prekopp
Carl Prekopp is a British actor. He played Richard III at the Riverside Studios and originated the part of Lawrence in Tim Firth's stage adaptation of Calendar Girls. He has appeared in BBC Radio 4 adaptations of Terry Pratchett's Mort , Small Gods and Night Watch...
playing Dr Atkinson, Mark Meadows
Mark Meadows (actor)
Mark Meadows is a British actor.On radio, Meadows has appeared in Lost Souls and The Worst Journey in the World, both first broadcast in 2008 and directed by Kate McAll for BBC Radio 4....
as Captain Oates and Peter Callaghan as Lieutenant Bowers. Other cast included Simon Lee Phillips (Charles Wright), Richard Mitchley (Dr Edward Wilson), Jack Reynolds
Jack Reynolds
Jack Reynolds may refer to:* Jack Reynolds , English footballer who played for both Ireland and England* Jack Reynolds , English footballer who was later the manager of Ajax Amsterdam...
(PO Tom Crean) and Huw Davies (Taff Evans).