Ed 0:00

Hey everybody, this is Ed. This is Deja. This is Kara. And this is your day's dumpster fire. Is it gonna repeat? Is it gonna repeat? Hey, it didn't repeat. We finally did it.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

We did it. Would Max XP on to the next trial.

Ed 0:52

Yeah, next step is to actually like record and not have it like blow up in my face like the last episode did.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Or like it just did for me.

Ed 0:59

I'm just gonna like let me tell you guys, the the last episode, because I had run into so many software issues trying to edit it. Normally an episode takes me about eight hours to once we record it, it takes me about eight hours to like edit it and get it out. I put in over 48 hours into editing the last episode of the Terra Nova freezing fire thing. And like I would finish it and then something would glitch up in the software and it would erase it or it'd corrupt the file, and then I have to go back and do it all over again.

Kara 1:36

I'm sorry for your loss.

Ed 1:38

Oh yeah, there that that's 48 hours of my life I'll never get back. Yeah. Absolutely rage inducing. Yeah. Well, which is funny because that's not even the trash can fire.

Kara 1:48

I mean it could have been, but yeah. What's the trash can fire for today?

SPEAKER_02 1:52

What what's what's the trash can fire, Ed?

Ed 1:55

Oh, oh you know, you know, you know Deja good and full and well what this is. I we we the the three of us are running a summer camp at our school. And we are utilizing Deja's classroom for the summer camp. And anybody knows anything about a Montessori classroom, they're real big on having like living critters in there. Like, for example, uh like Kara and I, we have like a parakeet, we'll have a rabbit in there, we have two aquariums, we have uh a leopard gecko, and all sorts of stuff. Well, Deja has a bearded dragon named Elbus, which is kind of cool. He just sits there and does his own thing. And then she has a demon spider from the seventh inner circle of hell, who is also very precious and sweet. Yes, it's a tarantula, and uh you really should have named it Shellom.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

I wanted to name him Franklin. I was outnumbered, and we named him Webbs. So Yeah, but I thought Franklin was great. Webb's is better, Spider-Man was completely out of the question.

Ed 3:09

Not even Spider Pig.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

No, I said actually, no, no, no, no, no. I said Spider Pig, and they're like, no. I'm like, y'all need to grow up, honestly.

Ed 3:20

Yeah, that's offensive. Um, I was looking at Shellub from like Lord of the Rings, like Shellub's lair, the thing that stabs Frodo in the stomach and wraps him up, and it's based off of a giant tarantula.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Um, I thought it would be clever. I can never remember the name of the big spider in um Harry Potter.

Ed 3:40

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

It would it would go pretty okay with Albus. I'm just saying the bearded dragon.

Ed 3:48

Yeah, that would that would be fitting. And actually, when I look back at it, Webbs isn't a bad name either because I think that was the name of the spider from Donkey Kong Country.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

He's like, it's not that bad because it's named after a video game guy. It's fine.

Ed 4:03

Yeah, yeah, because like there was there was I think it was Webs where like like you become this little spider and it shoots out like these little web platforms that you can jump on. But I think it was from Donkey Kong Country too. What happened to the spider?

SPEAKER_02 4:16

My sweet spider.

Ed 4:18

Yeah, so basically, I was trusted to be alone with these kids. And obviously, the first rule of thumb whenever you're watching kids is don't let anything bad happen to the kids. That's right. Safety is number one around these kids. The other thing is is like try not to let the kids like accidentally do something bad to the critters. And so we had one boy, and and and I really I'm I'm really proud of him because this boy, he's a lot like me, wants nothing to do with spiders, but he was brave enough to like actually pick this thing up and like hold it in his hand, and he had it for quite some time, but of course, complete pandemonium. I'm in there by myself, I have no idea what I'm doing. And then next thing I know, uh the spider is splattered on the ground, and it turns out that the boy thought like it had pooped on him or peed on him and whatnot, and he flinched. And it's an honest-to-goodness mistake. I think if anybody in that room, save for maybe Matthew, uh, if anybody in that room had that spider on their hand and they saw it do something weird, they would have just immediately flinched and dropped it.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

I agree. I'm going to say that the student, he's also he was also my student all year. So I definitely I know him, and I know that it wasn't something ever to be intentional and it was a genuine reaction. Yeah. Um, I don't want to blame you either because everybody makes mistakes, and you have to learn from that. Just kidding. Um, no, I am actually really proud of him because he did face a little bit of his own fear. I knew that he is a little bit afraid, and I'm genuinely shocked and and surprised and happy that he conquered a little bit of a fear and held him, even for the tiniest thought of wanting to hold him. That's great.

Ed 6:28

Yeah. So and he and he was holding him for, I would say like between five and ten minutes. Like, that's five to ten minutes longer than I would hold out.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

I mean, you I'm surprised you've been in the room for longer than five to ten minutes because the day I got him, you walked like I don't know, 50 yards away from me.

Ed 6:47

You're like, no.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Kept a wide berth around going all the way around campus. You're like, can you walkie me when you're at the front door so I know to go to the back?

Ed 6:58

Yeah, I started parking on the side next to coach where so then I don't even have to walk by your room where there's a giant man-eating spider.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Yeah, you don't even drive to campus anymore because you don't want the spider to get into your car somehow and end up going home with you, so you end up carpooling.

Ed 7:14

Well, and I I and and when when this incident happened, I think he fell no more than three feet. And one thing that I was really surprised by is just how fragile spiders are. I I I had no idea, but they're but they really have the same consistency as a water balloon. Like they have absolutely zero exoskeleton structure to them, especially that weird bulbous part on their butt, like that broke, yeah. Well, and I and from understand, like a a spider can fall within three inches and they can die from that.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they can't they can't fall really high. That's why they need really small cages. Usually they need like a small tank. One, they have really bad vision and they get really stressed out easily. So if they can't find their food and they're in a big enclosure, or if they fall, it can get really stressed out and it can die. Yeah, there's a lot to learn. There's definitely a lot to learn. And um, I do have a student who is is going to maybe have some feelings, some hard feelings, because he've had a very deep connection with this spider. But I do believe that the other child will be able to handle it really well, and you'll obviously handle it really well, but I'm pretty nervous about him finding out. I think that we're gonna have to have a conversation.

Ed 8:39

This weekend I can I can head that off of the past because I'm going to a reptile store and I'm gonna try to find a replacement that looks exactly like and then Ed, what are we gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 8:49

We're gonna do research and we're gonna write a paper and put it in a frame about how to care for and handle this critter, right?

Ed 8:58

It's more or less going to be in this container until you show up next week and put it in its cage.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

He's going to sit in my car. If he's alive or dead, that's not what's not my responsibility at all. 117 degrees outside.

Kara 9:16

In short, R.I.P. webs.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah. Yep. May the force be with you. Yeah. Maybe you rest in peace.

Ed 9:29

Pour one out for you, buddy. Yeah, because I I remember I was texting you guys, I'm like, oh crap.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

The spider fell.

Ed 9:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Like, okay.

Ed 9:44

So depending on your relationship to spiders, uh, this could be a trash can fire, or it, you know, it could be a step in the right direction.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Yeah, my mom, I was telling my mom, she's like, and you ha you felt sad about a spider? I was like, well, yeah, I mean, you spend enough time with like anything and you start to learn it's like mannerisms. Like he, you know, he had a little bit of a personality. He would come out and he would kind of do his little rounds, and then he would go back in his little hole. And you know, when he was hungry, you could kind of tell because he was get get a little bit more active and he would be out a little more, and then when he ate, he would be gone. And you knew that and you connect with that, and you see that every day. And you feed him and you name him. And when you feed a cat or a puppy, you take him home and you've had him forever. Yeah, that's what they do. And so yeah, I was like, Yeah, mom, get over it. I have a heart. I'm sorry.

Ed 10:37

My mom and I we're we're like on the same page. Like, uh, a dead spider is a good spider. Like, and not that I wanted this one to die, like that was like because obviously trantulas are very, very docile. Um, I could not find anybody in any form anywhere that had ever been bitten by a trantula.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Um no, and it's kind of like a little pinch, it's not really like a harsh ow.

Ed 11:02

Yeah. Most people they claim that they've gotten like they'll get the hairs. Like if the if the spider's feeling threatened, they'll shoot those little hairs out, and those are like an irritant. But that's like the worst of the worst that I've come across anybody dealing with a tarantula. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's our trash can fire. Note to self, note to you guys, that uh tarantulas cannot fall any more than three inches. Yes, let alone three feet.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

If you're afraid of anything, hold it while it's on the ground already.

Ed 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Like just be around it on the ground.

Ed 11:39

Or just don't just don't hold it, period.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah. Or I don't know. I don't know. It's fine. And we're gonna get another spider. And his name's not gonna be webs number two because that's I refuse. We gotta keep webs webs and move on.

Ed 11:56

It'd be webs with one B.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Uh yes. Perfect.

Kara 11:59

RAP webs. What's the episode about it?

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Be the force be with you.

Ed 12:03

So uh, yeah, on that note, let's uh I say let's dive into um our episode.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Let's do it. Terra Nova Party 2.

Ed 12:13

Yes. So uh if you are just turning into this episode, um, you might want to go back and listen to episode 31. We are going over the Terra Nova uh incident, which is weird because the Terra Nova incident is named after the ship that had very little to do with the actual expedition itself. It's just that was the name of the ship, that's the name of the expedition, that's what we're gonna go with. In in part one, we kind of dove into the I don't know, the exotic, if that's even a thing you could uh uh coin to Antarctica, but we were looking at in the early 19 or late 1800s, early 1910s, going in the 1920s, how fascinated the world was with the continent of Antarctica. And there was a lot of expeditions, there was all sorts of people that were trying to go there, and they were trying to set a world record of some sort, like be the first to hit the uh geographic South Pole. Uh, you have another guy that wanted to traverse, you know, from coast to coast all of Antarctica. You have people that were trying to catalog all this stuff, like Antarctica was literally uh the final frontier because obviously in the early 1910s we weren't going into space yet. But if you ever look up Antarctica, like especially during the winter, where it can get like below a hundred degrees Fahrenheit uh and in temperature and all that kind of stuff, you you look at Antarctica during the winter and it's actually not a whole lot different than the planet Mars in terms of temperature and whatnot. What was interesting is that in the early 1910s, humanity actually had a better understanding of the planet Mars than they did of Antarctica because you can shine a big giant telescope at Mars and you can derive a lot of information from the comfort of an observatory, whereas Antarctica, uh you hop off your boat, it that whole continent is just trying to kill you. It's a it's a very hostile place. And we we kind of went over um the this major, major expedition and some of the key players. And I think the first guy that really set everything off was Shackleton. And Shackleton, he was famous because he was with Robert Falcon Scott during the original uh expedition where they were trying to get to the geographic South Pole, and they made it like some 82 degrees south or something like that before they had to turn back. And Shackleton he kind of set the bar for okay, if if you're gonna be successful down here, you've gotta pass me. You've got to go past where I went. And I think he went back again and hit like 88 degrees south, and that kind of started this ice race, I guess. I I don't know of any better term for it. But in the 1910s, we are left with two guys, uh, Robert Felconscott and Rald Amundsen. And these two guys couldn't be any more polar opposite of each other in terms of their personalities, their goals, their strategies. You know, a perfect case in point, Rald Amundsen. He was a Norwegian explorer. I don't think this guy had any muscles in his face that could allow him to smile. He is the most dour, stern, emotionless guy that, if you ever see a picture of him, I know Kara will have pictures of everybody up on the website, but this guy was just all business. And Amunson spent most of his time in the northern hemisphere. Uh, he spent a lot of his time with the Eskimos and the Inuits. He was trained on dog sledding, his whole crew were trained on dog sleds. Uh, he preferred to wear furs. Uh, he wore um, he he he could survive off the land. He spent a lot of time with the natives in the north learning how to live in Arctic conditions. And that was kind of his approach to it. It's like, okay, if it worked for these people, it should work for me. And Amundsen was really, really big on trying to find the North Pole. And he set up this massive expedition to go to the North Pole until he found out that two Americans claimed that they had found the North Pole and what were their names? It was Frederick Cook and Robert Perry. And so, like, Amundsen in 1910, he was gonna go, like, he was gonna go to the north, you know, find the North Pole, become famous, and leave Robert Falcon Scott, this British explorer, like leave him with Antarctica to the south. So Amunson and Scott actually had a lot of respect for each other, even though they had completely different philosophies on how to explore and do this thing. But they never really butted heads because Amundsen focused on the North and Scott focused on the south. Well, once Amunson discovered that these two Americans claimed that they had found the North Pole, at the very last minute, Amundsen was like, you know what? We're gonna head south on June 3rd, 1910. Told his crew, nope, we're not doing the North Pole thing, we're going to find the South Pole. And then he sent a telegram to Robert Falcon Scott while he was in Portugal, and basically sent this telegram that Scott didn't get until way later. It wasn't until like he was in Australia or something like that. Uh, Scott gets this message uh from Amunson saying, Beg to inform you, Fram. That was the name of Amundsen's ship. Uh Fram proceeding to Antarctic Amunson. At the very last minute, Falcon Scott got word that this guy who wasn't his competition is now a major source of competition, and this guy had like a like weeks head start. Uh Scott kind of like, ah crap, he had to piece together his crew. Scott's philosophy was latest and greatest in technology, right? Yeah, sure, they had some sled dogs, but uh he wanted to use motorized sledges. He found these special like Siberian ponies that could, in theory, carry more or pull more. Scott was real big in terms of like wearing the latest and greatest of clothing. So instead of wearing furs, he wore like uh very specific wools and uh and all that kind of stuff. Scott was younger, he was all hip and trendy, he was very charismatic, he was all about his technology, and he was also about his science. And I think this is probably the biggest takeaway from this whole incident is the amount of science that that Scott brought to the table. And it's very, very important to recognize that because there's one guy on the expedition, was it uh Cherry Girard? He's like, if I wanted leadership, I go to Shackleton. If I wanted science, I will go to Scott. If I want efficiency, I will go to Amundsen to kind of but like it's a great way to summarize all three guys on January 14th, 1911. The Fram landed in Antarctica, and uh Amundsen set up shop, and all all Amundsen brought were dogs. I think he had like four guys with him, if I remember correctly, four or five guys, and they were all trained at dog sledding. And between the last episode and this episode, I watched like a four-hour-long documentary about dog sledding. I didn't know this, but not everybody can be a dog sledder. Like you have to bond with these dogs, and the dogs have to bond with you. And if there is no connection there, if there is no bond, yeah, you might as well walk. But the the dogs will not do what you want them to do. They will do the opposite, they will make your life a living nightmare. And uh Munson was real big on that. He was real big on the dogs, and every person on his crew had to be familiar with running dog sleds. The same thing kind of applied to Scott, but not as much. I think um, I think a Munson brought like almost a hundred dogs or something crazy like that, whereas Scott brought like a third of that, and he only had one guy on his crew that were trained on dog sleds. And Scott was real big about hand pulling these sleds. There was a part of the expedition, which we'll get to here in a minute, where the whole crew had to hand pull their sleds, and you're thinking, like, oh my god, this is why would you want to do that? Well, it turns out 1993, both the Americans and the Soviets, or I guess they're Russians, I can't remember the Soviet Union fell, but the the Russians and the Americans, they did a study where they tested hand pulling sleds across Antarctica versus using dogs and even motorized sleds. Uh, it turns out that hands down, no pun intended, hand pulling uh a sled is way more efficient and more effective than using dogs or motors, which that kind of blew my mind. And the reason being is that if you're gonna bring dogs, you have to bring a lot of food. You have to bring a lot of food that the human can't eat.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

I was gonna say, is it because you have to provide for something that's living and like I mean, the the the dog has to eat and have fuel to yeah, have the energy to be able to do the labor.

Ed 22:21

Yeah. So like in in a way, what's interesting is like dog sleds are really, really good for like a short haul. So let's say you needed a blitz like 50 miles in a day, but that's all you need to do, dog sleds all the way. But if you are planning, say, like a two-month-long expedition where you're going from one end of Antarctica to the other end of Antarctica, just pull your own stuff. And and the same thing could be said about motorized uh sleds because they're you it they're even worse in a way because you have to pack all this diesel fuel and you have to treat the diesel fuel because under cold weather that will it will jellify or gel and then it's even useless. So, and you can't even burn diesel. It's not like you can take diesel and use it to start fires or treat it like heating oil, like diesel doesn't burn unless it's in very, very, very specific conditions. So if I needed to go say like a hundred miles in a day and that's it, yeah, motorized sleds are the way to go. But if I'm going across country on a uh on an expedition, I like diesel fuel is this dead weight, you can't do anything with it. I thought that was kind of interesting. I I thought that was really counterintuitive until I kind of did a little bit more research into it. I'm like, oh wow, this Scott guy was kind of onto something. So yeah, basically put where we left off was this race to get to the South Pole. And what's interesting to note is that Scott got to Antarctica before Amunson did. And Scott, the first thing he did is he set up depots. Now, both Amunson and Scott, they this is where their strategies were similar, is that they set up all these depots. And the idea behind a depot is that you would send out some guys to, you know, you'd send out like four guys, and they their sleds are just packed with food. Way more food than what these four guys need. The idea is that they would go out, and once they hit like say 78 degrees south or 80 degrees south or 82 degrees south or whatever, they would stop and they would set up these depots. And probably the most famous one for Scott was called the One Ton Depot. And that was like the last. If you're heading back from the South Pole, so if you were heading north, that one-ton depot was like the last stop before you got back to base camp. And obviously, it had a ton of food there. It had uh heating oil, it had everything necessary. And that one-ton depot it was very, very crucial, but they set up other ones along the way as well. And a Munson did the same thing. So the idea is that you would get to the South Pole and then you need to head back to base camp. Obviously, you can't bring enough food with you from base camp down to the South Pole and then back up north because you're gone for like a month at a time, and there's no way you can pack enough food to carry with you for all that time. So these depots would be stationed so that when they were coming back up north, they would have regular intervals where they could restock on food and heating oil and and all that kind of stuff. The big that that was like Scott's big thing is was set up those depots, but he also set up and he spent a lot of time. I guess if you are in a race to get to the South Pole, uh, you could say that Scott wasted a lot of time. But he brought zoologists and bacteriologists, and he bought bought, he brought botanists, he bought geologists, he brought all these scientists along, and he set up all these scientific stations all over the place. So he figured that okay, if I'm gonna go take some dudes with me, I'm gonna go hit the South Pole, be the first one to get there, be all famous for that. But I'm also gonna have a giant crew of people that are gonna be collecting samples, rock samples, ice core samples. Um, they're gonna do like some crazy science-y stuff while I'm in the process of becoming famous for discovering the South Pole. He spent a lot of time, he spent weeks getting all that set up. Whereas like Amunson, he shows up and he's like, I could care less about the science. I re I really don't care about any of that stuff. I'm just here for the South Pole and I'm out. And that that was that was a Munson's strategy. The other part of the strategy, too, to keep in mind, and we will talk about this, especially on the way back up, they would both sides, both the Munson and Scott, they would bring dogs. Yes, the dogs would pull the sleds, but then they also used the dogs as food. As they were heading out and a dog would get sick or die or whatever, they would just eat the dog, right? Free food. And I think a Munson, he with all the dogs that he brought, I I can't remember the exact figure, but I think only like 10 or 17 dogs survived. Uh him and his crew ate the rest of them. So if you're a dog lover, that's kinda uh that's kind of brutal. But then again, though, when you really think about the hostile conditions, like that's kind of what you have to do.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yeah, I mean, if I had to choose to not eat my dog, I would choose to not eat my dog. But I get it, maybe if I'm really hungry, then ask me. But I don't.

Ed 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Makes me very, very, very, very sad. I could not imagine.

Kara 27:46

Same. I couldn't. I say now that I couldn't, but if I'm hungry enough, I will.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

I know that's what I'm like. Well, ask me like right when I first wake up and I haven't eaten all night and I'm like starving and cranky.

Kara 27:58

I'm a huge dog lover. Like, I can't imagine. But I can't I can't.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Except for the coyote looking pretty yummy.

Ed 28:05

Eat your skin walker of a dog.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Yeah, he probably tastes like Voldemort or something.

Ed 28:13

I don't know, like a Voldemort soup. From Minecraft. Like, if you ever eat like the uh like you kill those zombies and then they have like that left over, and you eat that and it turns you into a zombie for a period of time. Uh mm-hmm. No, I've actually had dog before, and it's not too bad. No, let me be had dog testicles before.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

I ate I I'm gonna bulldozer right over that information.

Ed 28:39

Uh yeah, I I was at a uh I was at a uh an Asian restaurant where my mom was had a friend from uh that part of the world and he took us to this restaurant. I had no idea what I was ordering. I thought it was like a meatball soup. It was actually really, really tasty. Turns out the meatballs were actually dog testicles, and um, yeah, they kind of burst in your mouth like cherry tomatoes.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

I don't need to. Let's get back to the story. Yeah. So they had to eat dogs.

Ed 29:13

Yes, so that was part of the yeah, maybe the testicles as well. Like, but that was kind of the strategy that both sides took, and I think it was this universally accepted that if you are going down to the South Pole, you you've this is kind of the process you gotta go through. And Scott actually took it one step further because he had those uh those Siberian ponies, and it was the same thing with them. If they died for whatever reason, you you ate the ponies. And I and for me, to me, like in my mind, it's kind of weird because I don't think that type of animal, like a horse, I don't think they're very fattening. I think they're probably very lean. And I'm thinking if you are in Antarctica, you need fat. Like you need to load up on as much fat as possible. Because, like, who cares about the protein? You need the fat to uh for energy. So, yeah, that I mean the that just you know, a little caveat preemptor, uh dogs do get eaten here. And so, like, we're gonna leave Amundson alone because the Amundsen side of things is really boring. He didn't keep detailed journals, he he he could have his entire expedition down to the South Pole literally could have been recorded on a napkin. That's about how exciting it was. Meanwhile, Falcon Scott here, he is a very gifted writer, uh prolific journalist or journaler. Uh, he kept very detailed records of everything. In fact, the only reason why we know what happened ultimately, even with the Munson as as well as Scott is because of these journals. And so basically, here's here's Scott's side of things, right? He left, I think he left on well, where was it? It was September 13th, 1911. The plan was going to be that he and 16 men would leave base camp, and he brought everything with him. All the dog sleds were coming along. Uh, the two remaining motorized sleds came along. He brought the ponies. Not all 16 men were gonna make it to the South Pole. The idea is that based on certain degrees uh latitude, I think it's latitude, he was going to have four men be like, okay, you four guys, build a depot here, leave as much food as you can, go back to base camp. And then they would go from like say 78 degrees south, they would go to like 80 degrees south, and then he would tell the next three or four men, okay, leave as much food here as possible, head back to base camp. And then they would go to like 82 degrees and then tell the next group of guys, like, okay, leave as much stuff here as you can and then go back to base camp. And the idea was to set up these depots and all the way up to what is known as the Beardmore Glacier. So if you were to like look at Antarctica, think of it as kind of like a uh like a bullseye, right? You've got this giant circular landmass with all the ice on it at sea level, and then about three-quarters of the way up or down or towards the uh to the south pole, you have what's known as the Beardmore Glacier. And this is like a hand over hand climb. And once you get over this glacier, it's smooth sailing, it's just flat snow all the way from there, uh, like the couple hundred miles to to the uh to the geographic south pole. So that was kind of like the three-quarter way. Like once you get to that point, then uh Scott would switch over to just manhauling everything. And by the time he got there from like all these depots at 78 degrees, 80 degrees, 82 degrees, he had these depots set up, and it was him and four other men that were left. And so I think that's where I left off briefly. Went over these guys. I kind of want to revisit them real quick before I get into the remainder of the events. But one of the guys was Edward Wilson. He was an artist, a doctor, a naturalist, an explorer. Edward Wilson was in charge of the science on this leg of the expedition. So, yes, you had all the scientists at the base camp that were doing all their stuff, but Scott wanted to have like a resident scientist with him because where else what when are when other times are you gonna collect weird and exotic rocks from the South Geographic pole? Unless you bring a scientist with you. The other guy that they brought along was Lawrence Oates, and he was a good friend of Scott. He was a British Army officer, you know, just a uh just a good guy to have around. Henry Robertson Bowers. Uh, very good friends with Wilson. This guy was five foot four, and he was built like a mule. And he was in charge of all the uh depot placements. So when the whole group of 16 men left, it was Bowers that would tell, like, okay, you four guys, we're setting up a depot here. So drop all your food and head back to base camp. And he was the one who was responsible for the placement of all these depots. Uh the downside to Bowers is that, like I said, he was built like a mule, very reliable, uh, very strong. The only problem is that because of weather, the depots never got positioned where they were optimal. So, like, they needed a depot like at 80 degrees south, but they couldn't make it that far, so they had to do it 78 degrees. So, like all the depots were off by like two degrees, which you're thinking that's not that big of a deal. But when you're at that part of the world, two degrees is like 50 to 70 miles. So that that does kind of play a part. Like, that's kind of a big deal. 70 miles in in Antarctica is that that's that's a rough time. Uh, the other guy, the fourth guy, other than Scott, was Edgar Evans. Now, he was a Welsh Royal Navy petty officer. Do not confuse this. There was another Evans who was at the base camp, and he was he was kind of like the guy, uh, a much higher ranking officer. He was up there with Scott, and he was kind of like the guy who was in charge when Scott was absent. So Evans, not Edgar Evans, this other Evans, uh, he kind of comes up briefly, but he was the one that was kind of manning everything at base camp. Uh, that I I bring that up because it kind of gets a little confusing because like, wait, I thought this Evans died. No, the other Evans is alive, the other Evans is dead, but then Evans is alive, but this one is dead. This one stayed, but yeah, it can get a little confusing. When I was researching this, I had to like stop and go back and make sure I had all my Evans correctly. So, yeah, Edgar Evans, I'm just gonna refer to him as Edgar and not as Evans, so not to confuse him with the other guy. So they get up to the Beermore Glacier, and this is where they kind of switch over to hand pulling everything. It was Scott, these four other guys, so there's a total of five dudes, and from here on out, now now this is weird, like to get up on this glacier, though I I'll have pictures of this on the website, but like these sleds are probably like eight to ten feet long, and they had to like carry these things up the side of the glacier. Like, there's no cool way of getting them up or down, so it was a lot of like hand over hand pulling and climbing and all that stuff. Once you get up on the glacier, it's not bad, but it's a holy nightmare trying to get it up there. And I bring that up because that's gonna play a part here on the way back. For the most part, their plan worked. The five men made it over the Beardmore Glacier, and uh they were fully prepared to then hand pull the sleds for the rest of the way, knowing that they will have food reserves for the return trip deposited by those folks who turned back and left their rations. There was also that one-ton depot. Uh, while Scott and crew were on the Beardmore Glacier heading toward the South Pole, uh, there were plans to stock up that one-ton depot with even more stuff. And there was also a plan to have sled dogs waiting there for when Scott came back. Therefore, once they hit that one-ton depot, they hitch up to the dogs, and then it's just, you know, smooth sailing all the way back to base camp. So as you can see, a lot of moving parts. There was a lot of pieces, there was a lot of timing that had to be just right. And for those of you who follow the podcast for a while now, you notice that the more complicated the plan gets, the more opportunity for things to go sideways, as you will see here in a hot minute. So, yes, uh, they they uh relied on these depots on the way back, knowing that hey, these will be here for us, it'll be fine, what could possibly go wrong? By January 9th, uh Scott and crew passed the Shackleton prior record of 88 degrees uh 23 seconds south. Already, even if they turn back now, they've beaten the world record of getting as far south as possible. So 88 degrees 23 seconds, seven days later, uh Scott while hand pulling, so it took seven days to go that remaining one degree and what is it 37 seconds south? Uh, it took seven days just to travel that last bit to the South Pole. But yeah, essentially Scott made it to the South Pole and um time for celebration. Uh the only issue was that as they saw the South Pole off in the distance, they saw a black makeshift tent standing there. And when they pulled out their little telescopes to see, like, that shouldn't be there. Like, we're the first to be here. There should be no little tent out there, like up by the South Pole. Like, that this is impossible. When they looked through their uh telescopes, they saw a cute little Norwegian flag flapping in the breeze majestically at the South Pole. In other words, Scott had been beaten by a Munson. So imagine planning this giant expedition and meticulously like so far, everything is going swimmingly, like everything is going perfectly. And imagine, like, like here you are expecting this huge amount of success, and you find out that somebody else beat you to it and you didn't even know.

Kara 39:39

Yeah, that's a bummer.

Ed 39:40

Uh, yeah, talk about being defeated. I gotta give Scott credit though. Like, yes, he was defeated by a Munson, but I I I totally respect Scott's attitude during this. He wrote in his journal that he said, the poll, yes, but under very different circumstances for those expected. Great God, this place is uh yeah, this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have labored to it without the reward of priority. Meaning, like, this place sucks, and we busted our butts to get here only to find out that somebody else beat us to it. But then I like this last part here. He's like, Well, it's something to have gotten here, anyways. Like, yeah, we weren't the first ones here, but we're the second ones, and uh that speak volumes.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

That's a Kara attitude right there. Yes, if I've ever heard one. She's like, you know what? I did all of this and I put on I put all my work into it. At least I at least I got here. You know, at least I got here. You did something. I would sit there and be like, Yeah. I would have like, you know, like a little munchkin face, like, err, I'm gonna bite your head off, type of thing. Like, I'd be so grumpy and angry and carry like, you know, at least I'm here. Yeah, we made it here. That's something. That's crazy. What a wild trip it was.

Ed 41:11

Like so far, 99.99999999% of the human race hasn't made it here.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

At least I have a better story to tell too.

Ed 41:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

At least it wasn't boring.

Ed 41:25

Right? Yeah, like you couldn't just like Kara wouldn't be like, well, at least I didn't fill out my whole entire journal on a napkin. I've got like multiple journals of cool stuff that happened.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

That's the historian in her. She's like, you know what? I documented what I needed to.

Ed 41:39

I cited my sources.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

I stayed alive.

Kara 41:43

You know, pictures. I mapped it.

Ed 41:46

Well, actually, he did. Uh Scott did bring photographers along. Like, there's some absolutely stunning pictures of when that 16 men crew left, they brought a photographer along, and he was they were like the first ones to like photograph these parts of Antarctica. Like they don't exist anywhere else in the world. And I think Scott, too, because Scott was kind of like a jack of all trades, master of none. I I I think he's like, okay, a Munson beat me to it, but at least when I come back, I'm gonna have all the science stuff. I'm gonna have like popular opinion. It it's it's gonna be pretty cool. Like, I I I've got more than just me getting to the South Pole as an accolade. I I I I have a lot of respect for Scott in this regard. So, but Scott didn't quite give up so quickly. Uh Scott was like, okay, let's go there, let's finish the distance, let's get there, let's take some pictures of us or whatever at the South Pole. But I wonder if we can beat a Munson back to Australia and get the message out first that Ui had hit the South Pole. So it's kind of like uh Columbus versus Amerigo Vespeci. Yes, Columbus was technically the first, the first I I I know there's Vikings, Kara, but uh like Columbus was the first, you know, Portuguese Spanish guy that made it to the Americas, but it was Americo Vespeci who made his way back to the German map makers, and he got there before Columbus did, which is the reason why this is called America and not Columbia. So I think that was kind of like Scott's plan. It's like, okay, Munston beat me to it, but I can beat him to Australia.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

So kind of sounds like something's gonna go even worse. It it feels like he had too good of an attitude. Am I am I am I on the right, am I feeling the right vibe here?

Ed 43:41

Yeah, he I I I feel like Scott kind of had this air about him of like invincibility, where if your attitude is positive enough, um, there's not gonna be a whole lot that can defeat you. And I would say for the most part, that is true. I I think so much success is. Tied to someone's innate abilities or skills or even luck. I think somebody's success is really dependent on their attitude and how they treat others and and and their outlook. I've I've noticed that the more positive an outlook is, uh the more successful somebody can be, as as opposed to being like a curmudgeon and a Debbie Downer, and yeah, I I've seen it play out both ways. So on January 18th, so don't forget, these guys are hand pulling their sleds. So what was it? It was January 9th, that's when they passed the 88 degree mark, and then nine days later, they finally get to the uh they they finally get to where they were uh to the South Pole, and they get to what is known as a Munson's tent. So it took them nine days to go from 88 degrees south to 90 degrees south, which that's just mind-blowing. How like that two degrees is a real butt kicker when you're down in the Antarctica. They get to what is now known as it's a very famous tent. I think it's still there. It's called a Munson's tent. And inside they found a large stockpile of food, which a Munson purposely left the food there. A Munson, he's like, Hey, we had extras. I know Scott is coming, he's gonna get here eventually. So he intentionally filled this tent up full of food just for Scott and his crew to be able to get back. Like, see what I mean when I mentioned it in the last episode, like, yes, there was a competition, but this isn't like people being douchebags to each other. This is one of these things where like everybody was kind of like respectful of each other, and everybody did try to help each other out in their own way, which which isn't something that we're used to seeing when we're talking about dumpster fires. When we're talking about dumpster fires, we're so used to people like cutting corners or being backstabby or or whatever. That's not the case here. Like these guys, yes, they were competing, but they were also gentlemen at the same time. So this is like unlike any other dumpster fire we've covered in the past. Yes, inside this tent was a bunch of food left for Scott and his crew, and there was also a letter, and it was addressed to Scott. Uh in this letter was like a favor that a Munson asked of Scott, and basically it was like, hey, look, if if I don't make it back for whatever reason, can you deliver this letter to Ken Hakon Hkon? I can't pronounce his name, but to the King of Norway, right? Hakon the seventh. Can you do me a favor? Deliver this letter to the King of Norway saying that I got here first, and that would be great. And oh, and we got here on December 14th. Think about this. Amunson had beaten Scott to the South Pole by 34 days. That's another gut punch right there. And if you think about it, like, yes, Scott beat Amunson to Antarctica, but in all reality, Scott also spent weeks and weeks and weeks setting up the science depots and all that kind of stuff. In theory, if Scott had landed Antarctica and just freaking hopped on the dogs and just made a beeline for it, he probably would have gotten there at the same time, if not beaten a Munson to the South Pole. But Scott had other things to take care of. I I do find that interesting that Amundsen's like, hey bro, I know we're competing. I know I stole this from underneath you. It was kind of a jerk move on my part, but you know me. I'm here to find poles. Uh, you're here for a much bigger purpose. Don't let me distract that from you. But if you could do me a favor in case if I don't make it and turn into a human popsicle, can you deliver this letter to the King of Norway saying that I got here on December 14th, 1911? And Scott was like, well, that's more salt to the wound. But he's like, okay. And that's what he did. He loaded up on the food from the tent and he uh the uh he took the letter with him. Being British, this is what British do all through the uh 1500s, all the way up to the present day, uh, they pranced at a British flag on the South Pole. So to this day, there is a Norwegian flag, and then there's a bigger British flag, because the British of it all, like, fine, the Norwegians beat me here, but Scott's like, I left a bigger flag. And it wouldn't even surprise me when like Neil Armstrong landed on the moon if there wasn't like a British flag already on the moon from like the 1700s. I feel like that's what the British would have done. They would have somehow got a flag on the moon, and it would have been like a few inches bigger than the American flag, because that's what the British does they go over the world at this time and they planted flags. And I think I might I left a comment here, like there's probably a bunch of British flags on the moon at this point. So the hard part's over, so let's go back. They pack up, they start heading up north, and for three weeks the men made really, really good progress. Bear in mind, again, they're hand pulling everything, and they they started heading back up north, and it's like a straight line. Like these guys didn't dilly-dally, like they didn't like zigzag anywhere. No, they just went straight back. And for three solid weeks, they made really, really good progress, but this is where the problems start to develop. Edgar Evans, he was starting to deal with uh frostbite. Yeah, I think he had it in his yeah, he had it in his hands. And so for those of you who may not know, frostbite is where literally your extremities, usually it starts with your fingers and your toes. Basically, the blood freezes. And you can tell the first telltale sign of frostbite is your fingers, like your fingertips turn black and it it's dead. And as your body continues to freeze more and more and more, the body part will then turn black. And it's not uncommon for that body part to fall off. There have been cases where people get frostbite in their feet, and like literally the foot just snaps off. And what really sucks about frostbite, your first instinct is like, well crap, I better warm my hands up. Well, there's been a lot of cases where people get frostbite in their hands and they finally get a fire lit and then they start warming up their hands. What happens is that your hand is technically dead, and then as the thawed-out blood makes its way to the nerves or what's remaining of the nerves in the hand, it is excruciating pain. Because if you think about it, your hand is essentially now, instead of being frozen, it is now rotting off. So frostbite is gnarly stuff. Uh, today they have means if if it's a even a relatively severe case of frostbite, they they can replenish the tissue and stuff like that. But back then, if your hand had frostbite, they just amputated it. There's nothing they could really do. You couldn't reheat it, you couldn't revive anything, especially in the feet. Uh Scott recorded that Evans was a good deal run down, which I think is an understatement. Oates' feet uh began developing frostbite, so that's a problem because I don't I don't I I'm not a podiatrist, but in order to walk, humans need feet.

Kara 51:17

Yeah, it's a little hard to walk miles and miles without a foot.

Ed 51:22

Yeah, tooth. Like walking on stumps.

Kara 51:24

Oh, that sounds terrible.

Ed 51:26

Uh yeah, yeah. It's um this this Google images of frostbite, and um yeah, it's it's pretty horrendous. And I'll have a picture of the crew of uh Scott and everybody. Uh when you look at them, like their faces are they it's a black and white image, but their faces look black, and that's because of snow blindness. Uh they didn't have sunblock back then, and I think Evans was really, really suffering from snow blindness, but basically it's like a sunburn, but from the ground up because you know, snow is highly reflective, and it just imagine being in like a hundred degree below zero weather, and your face feels like it's burning as though you are getting a really, really bad sunburn. Count me out. I'm not a I'm not a very good uh explorer in this regard, especially if you could just fly over the South Pole. So, yeah, OSA's feet started developing frostbite, and they were only getting worse day by day, and then the provisions were starting to run low. Remember, the depots that they set up were further back two degrees. They had to travel an extra like 75 miles to get to the depot than where they were originally intending. If the weather had permitted when they were initially setting things up, it would have worked a lot better. They would have gotten to the depots when they mathematically calculated when they would need to be there at the most. Instead, they were running out of food and then, like, oh yeah, we still got like three days to go before we hit the next depot. So now we jumped to February 7th. They reached the Beardmore Glacier and they started to descend. Uh, this would be like the uh the halfway mark, I guess you could say. Uh, remember that glacier is a vertical drop. So they had to like try to carry these hand sleds down, and that's not that's not gonna go well. So while descending, they were having a difficult time finding uh one of the depots left behind for their return. So that was the other issue, is one of the major depots that was near the Beardmore Glacier, they couldn't find it. So they're like, okay, let's stop, let's take a breather. You know, like, yes, we're running out of food, we can't find this, but let's take like a half a day's rest and we'll start again like the next day. So since they're on a rocky patch of ground, Scott ordered Wilson to do some, I love this word, geologizing. That's like what I'm like, like up there with spaghettification in astronomy. I like geologizing, which basically he sent Wilson out to go collect about 30 pounds of rocks. So instead of like conserving energy and conserving food, they added more weight to the sleds in the form of rocks. Don't forget about those rocks, because those rocks, they do a lot. If not getting them killed, but yeah, you you'll see what I mean. In the process of trying to descend from the Beardmore Glacier, Evans sustained a hand injury on top of his frostbite and a severe head injury uh due to a series of falls trying to get their like 200-pound sled down a vertical drop. On February 17th, Evans collapsed and died. So they made it down, and but he was just too far gone. His his body just couldn't do it anymore. And yeah, he died. So first casualty. The remaining men reached the depot at 82 degrees south. So I think the original intention was to hit it at 84 degrees, but remember they didn't make it far enough uh when they were heading out, so they hit it at 82 degrees south, and the original plan was to meet up with some dogs there. So they were supposed to actually be uh I thought it was one ton depot, I got it mixed up. They were supposed to meet the dogs at the uh 82 degrees south depot, and that would have made it so they could get back to base camp and to the other two depots a lot quicker. The problem was that they were three days early, they weren't really aware of again, the timing here had to be impeccable. There, there was a crew of people that had to go all the way out to 82 degrees south to drop off these dogs. And there was a whole side story behind that that was a fiasco. On February 27th, 1912, Scott wrote in his journal, keep in mind, like the the they like they set out in the beginning of January. So they've been out for like a month and a half now. Scott wrote in his journal that he thinks they overshot their mark and decided to keep moving to the next depot. So instead of hanging out there for three days because they really weren't sure, they're like, okay, fine, we'll just go to the next one. He noticed too that each stop as they were hitting these depots, there was less and less heating oil left behind. Heating oil works great to keep you from freezing to death at night, and it helps to cook food. So without heating oil, that yeah, that becomes a problem. Now, now we get into the real dumpster fire. This is where we approach the dumpster full of highly combustible trash, and you flick a match inside of it and walk away. As they kept trudging along, uh, they were met with a severe drop in temperatures. I didn't know this. I thought for sure, like, okay, wait, if the temperatures drop, wouldn't that make the snow icier and make it easier to like travel through? But I guess what happens when the temperatures get too low, the ice turns into what is known as woolly crystals. And Scott likened it to pulling these sleds over like a sand dune. Like it it's really weird. Like the ice crystals, I I guess whenever you're pulling a sled over it, it's it's like with ice skating. The blades of the ice skate actually melt the ice a little bit. And that water ice ice skate layer is what reduces the friction and makes it so that you can that you can, you know, travel on the ice easier. Uh same thing with skis and snowboards, but I guess if if the snow is too cold, it turns two woolly crystals and it does nothing but bog down the sleds because it doesn't behave like ice, it behaves like sand, which that sucks. The wind died down, which Scott thought would help on their journey, but it also became more of a hindrance. So when the wind died down, it kind of like the snow and the moisture in the air just hung there. So when the wind dies down, it doesn't push that out of the way, so it's like fog. So now you you don't have you can't see too far ahead of you. On March 10th, now now we are in, you know, we're what are we two months after? On March 10th, oh that's my wedding anniversary.

unknown 58:08

Huh.

Ed 58:09

Interesting. So they were hanging out at this depot waiting for the dogs to show up. It it became evident that the dogs were not coming. On March 16th, Oates, whose hands and feet were now completely useless. So this guy was just a walking stump. He was like that knight from uh Monty Python where he had no carpels, metacarpels, tarsels, and metatarsels to utilize for anything. This is kind of sad. Uh, Oates, who is now completely useless due to the frostbite, told the men as they were like hunkered down in this little Scott wrote in his journal that Oates said that I'm I'm just gonna go outside and maybe sometime. And he was never seen again. In fact, they actually never found his body, they have no idea where he ended up. But Oates' philosophy is just like I if I can't pull anything, if I can't do anything, there's absolutely no point in me sticking around eating food and chewing up resources. He told his friends, I'm gonna go out for a walk and maybe some time, and um, never seen again. So we've got two people that have died during all this. At this point, Scott became convinced that their luck had run out. And he had some time, and he he wrote a farewell letter to Sir Edgar Speyer. This is an interesting guy, American-born turned British subject and a philanthropist. He worked a lot on the British underground railrays. A lot of his railrays, like the tube and all that stuff, would later be used in World War II for like to account for like bunkers during the bombings of London and whatnot. He wrote this farewell letter to Spayer, and he says, We very nearly came through. And it's a pity to have missed it, but lately I have felt that we have overshot our mark. Again, this is the total Kara response here. No one is to blame, and I hope no attempt will be made to suggest that we had lacked support. In other words, the dogs ever made it, somebody had a job to do, they failed to do it. We'll cover why that happened, but even on to his dying day, Scott refused to blame anybody. Like, this is nobody's fault. It is what it is. I wish we could have made it back, but hey, you know, I don't want anybody to think like I'm pinning this on anybody. Oates of sacrifice helped to lighten the load and speed things up, but by this time it was too late. Like, everybody knew. Uh Scott knew like this is this isn't gonna end well. Uh Scott's foot, right foot was becoming frostbitten, and on March 20th, a massive blizzard stalled their advances as they tried to get to the famous one-ton depot. This was their only shot at survival, and they weren't that far away. They were maybe only 20 miles or so away from one-ton depot, but they had no visibility, they couldn't find it, and they didn't have the energy. Uh, on March 29th, so nine days after, like, you know, we're talking weeks that they only went, you know, like maybe 50 miles. And like, imagine being stuck in the snow for like nine days with no food or anything. To me, that that's kind of like a really crappy way to go. But he wrote in his journal, every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away. But outside the door, the tent, it remain or outside the door of the tent, it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. R Scott, uh, last entry. So yeah, he wrote that down. This is last entry, and then he wrote down, for God's sake, look after our people. And it is around March 29th, 1912, that it is presumed that Scott and all of his remaining mana, which I think was like one guy left, they died at around this time. That's it. Scott and the whole expedition is dead. Does that satisfy as a dumpster fire?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

I don't think I have a lot of words for that. Yeah, you were like, and then Oates goes off and is like, yep, bye.

Ed 1:02:29

Like Yeah, he's like, hey, I'm gonna go back to the back.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:33

I'm not coming back. Don't look for me. Don't try. You're gonna die if you do. And then they still die. Uh Kara's like, at least they got there.

Kara 1:02:43

They they got there.

Ed 1:02:45

Well, and and the thing that gives me is the the resolution that these people have. Like, I I if it were me, if I was on that expedition, I would be screaming and crying and being a little snot the whole way. Like, I don't want to die, I don't want to freeze out here. Like, this sucks. I I would be the most worst companion to bring along on a trip like that. Because I don't know about you guys, I got everything to live for. And but these guys, they're like, hey, we knew this could happen. It is what it is, and uh, hey, this is what happened, and these are the consequences. Uh, they did know that dying from hypothermia is actually a relatively peaceful way to go because there's a point where you don't actually feel cold anymore, you actually start to feel warm and you just get sleepy, and that's it. It it's a uh a relatively peaceful way to go, and I think that that that helps as opposed to like being burned to death or you know, being shot or you know, or whatever. Let's take a look at the other side of this dumpster fire. What happened with the dogs? In part one, we talked about a guy by the name of Mears or Mires, he was the guy that was supposed to get like the Siberian ponies, he was supposed to get all the dogs lined up and all that stuff. So he was like the dog guy, or he was like the animal guy, and he was set out on the first week of February to uh 80 to 82 degrees south with the dogs and XS rations, XS as an like extra summit ration. If the dogs could not make it, it was important to send out a hand-pulled crew. In other words, Mir's job was to get out there in February to reinforce, like help out the crew that were coming back. That was the original plan was to constantly be stocking up these depots as much as possible so that you know there would be no way that they would run out of food on the way back. So another element of complexity to the plan. And if the dog's gonna make it, then then Mirz is supposed to go out there with uh a hand-pulled crew. Miriz was instructed to turn back much later in the trip south, meant that he got back to base camp much later than anticipated, and it was believed that he resigned because he was like fed up with this whole trip. In reality, Mears uh was set to head out when he got word that his father had passed away in England and he needed to leave ASAP to take care of the estate. I'm assuming this guy had a rather large estate, and the longer that he's in Antarctica, the more that estate will get all jacked up. So I can kind of see where Mirrors is coming from. Like, hey, I need to get back and I need to take care of this. But in doing so, it left like a vacuum of orders. And for quite some time, nobody thought that, oh, mirror is this was his job. He was supposed to reinforce 80 and 82 degrees uh depots. Maybe we should send somebody else out in his place. People just didn't think of that. That kind of that that is what happened to the dogs. That's the reason why the dogs never made it there to begin with. Now there was another guy, he was a Bacteriologist Edward Atkinson. Uh, he was now put in charge of everything in Scott's absence. But the problem was this guy was a scientist, not a leader. On February 13th, Atkinson sent out uh Dmitry Jiro Jarov and some dogs to meet up with Scott on the barrier, but was delayed due to bad weather. That was the same bad weather that really messed up Scott's crew on the way back. They couldn't make it. In the process of being sold at bad weather, another trio of reinforcements were heading back north. This is Lieutenant Evans, not the Evans and the Scott group. He had come down with scurvy, and he had to be hand pulled by two other men back to the base camp. They were supposed to go out there, meet up with Scott and everybody on the way back, but he got scurvy and headed back. Now, Atkinson was left with a choice. Lieutenant Evans is like, no, Atkinson, keep going, meet up with Scott, get him back here, get him home, like you're the only hope. But Atkinson was like, no, the priority is to get Lieutenant Evans back to base camp. I personally think the reason why Atkinson did this is Lieutenant Evans was an actual military trained leader, whereas Atkinson wasn't. And I think he actively tried to preserve Evans' life so that Atkinson could like pass the mantle of leadership over to Evans and be like, hey, you figured this out. I'm not good at it. Uh that decision is probably what killed the Scott and everybody else. Because if Atkinson would have kept going, he would have met up with them and potentially saved their lives. Instead, Atkinson wanted to hand over authority to Evans, and the only way he could do that is to get Evans back safely and let Evans run the show from here on out. There was a guy, he actually wrote a book about this. His name is Absolute George Benay Cherry Girard. That guy has a mean signature. Anybody with all those names would have a mean signature. Uh, but he wrote about this incident in his 1922 book, The Worst Journey, which I think that just summarizes up everything. Uh he wrote uh that Dimitri headed out to One Ton Depot on February 26th and arrived on March 10th. And then he was ordered by Atkinson to not risk the dogs and had 24 days of rations. So they could wait there or they could keep going further. If they kept going further, they would run the risk of having to kill the dogs to survive. And if they hit that point, there would be no point because the whole idea was to get the dogs to Scott and his crew to get him back. So they could spend four days heading south to find Scott and his men, and then spend four days coming back any longer, and they would risk running to him to eat the dogs, which would have made the whole thing a moot point. Uh, the weather being too bad, same weather that messed up Scott's progress on March 10th, Cherry, Gerard, and Dimitri turned back. He was only 70 miles away from Scott and his men. And once Gerard learned that he was like a day and a half march away from Scott and his crew, that plagued him for the rest of his life. Because he could have taken those four days and kept going south and he would have met up with them. And this would have been like Atkinson, like this would have been another opportunity where they could have saved these guys' lives. But they had to make a choice based on the information that they had, and they turned back. Uh Atkinson sent out one last relief effort on March 26th. Uh, but by March 30th, with the weather now below 40 degrees, keep in mind we were now heading into the Antarctic winter, more like their fall. He determined at this point there was no way Scott and his men could still be alive. Okay. Scott's conclusion. On October 29th, a search party was sent out to find the bodies of Scott and his men. On November 12th, they found the tent containing the frozen bodies of Scott, Wilson, and Bowers just 11 miles away from One Ton Depot. Like, if the weather had just been clear enough, they would have been able to see it. And if that was the case, they probably would have toughed it out and made it there. It's only 11 miles away. I don't care how hungry you are, how frostbitten you are, you could traverse 11 miles if you know that hope is in sight. So, like, there were so many close calls. There were so many cases where, man, they were so close. Due to the cold weather, Scott's uh journal was perfectly preserved. So there are pictures of like the three men, like they're kind of like laying in their sleeping bags, completely frozen inside this tent. Because of the cold weather and the dry conditions, uh, the journals were like perfectly preserved, and it shed a lot of light on what happened and filled in the missing pieces that the rest of the exploration were missing, like they were trying to figure this out. A cairn of snow was built over their bodies with a cross made of skis mounted on top. As far as I understand, that cairn is still there. Like maybe it's partially covered in snow, but the nice thing about building materials in Antarctica is it's abundant and it never goes anywhere. It's like building a snowman on Mars, it will always be there. Um, then they tried to find Oat's body, but only found a sleeping bag. Uh, they built a cairn in the general area of where they think he died. When word got back to England about what happened, Scott and his men were regarded as heroes, and the entire event was chalked up to just one big tragedy. And it was chalked up to like a lot of people. If they had just waited a day, if they just traveled a little further, if they had just made one simple decision a little more carefully, they like this would not have ended up the way that it did. However, though, later on, researchers started to second guess Scott's decision and his ability to pick men for the job, such as Atkinson. Like, why would you choose a bacteriologist to run this entire expedition? Like, come on. Whereas, like a Munson, very careful about who he picked. And they all had to be uh they all had to check a very specific set of skills. Like, people started second-guessing, like, really, like Atkinson was your best choice. Uh, they also questioned Scott's organizational skills of the entire expedition. Scott was criticized for having too many components and too many ifs in the decisions that were made outside of Scott's presence. So everybody that was trying to rescue them, like Evans and Atkinson and Mears and like all these, uh Cherry Gerrard and all these people, they had to make decisions on, well, I guess this is what we're supposed to do. And that's just a bad way to go. Like this, that's just adding more and more fuel to the dumpster fire in that case. However, it is possible to make the argument that Amundsen is the one responsible for the fates of Scott and his men. It turned out that the two Americans who claimed that they had discovered the North Pole, uh, Frederick Cook and Robert Perry, were highly questionable and not accurate. So if Amunson had just waited to actually confirm that these two Americans actually did not discover the North Pole, then Amunson would have stayed up there, he would have found it, and then Scott and his crew wouldn't be so rushed. Uh, so much of the bad decision making in this whole expedition was a result of being rushed to get to the South Pole and be the first ones to do it. Because of their claims, Amunson immediately headed south. Given that he uh waited till the last minute to tell anyone, let alone Scott, that he was heading south. This put Scott in a really, really tough spot. So he had to decide, okay, am I gonna go down there for the science or am I gonna go down there to be the first to hit the South Pole? And because Scott prioritized the South Pole, he had to rush and make a lot of hasty decisions and put a lot of things in place that probably weren't the best idea. So because of Amunson, Scott had to rush things, including his decision making while in Antarctica, albeit Scott did take the time to get the sciencey stuff going, first to his credit. So I respect him for that. If Amundsen had just waited a little longer, he could have taken the North Pole. Scott would have gotten to Antarctica, where he would have had the time to organize everything uh more carefully. Yeah, the two use similar strategies of uh the depots and whatnot, but here are the main differences between Scott and Amundsen's implementation. Amundsen's goal was simply to get to the South Pole. He was not interested in the science, he wasn't interested in log keeping, he just what he didn't care about any of that stuff. His goal was to just get to the South Pole. Amundsen also only worked with guys that were all trained in dog sledding and skiing, as well as snow survival. He was gonna go down there with a bunch of Eskimos, like trained people that knew how to live in these conditions. He also only relied on dog sledding instead of using motorized sledges and ponies. He also utilized a very simple plan: gather up as many dogs as possible, get to the South Pole as fast as possible, take a few pictures. There's actually kind of a funny picture of like these four dudes looking at the Norwegian flag outside of a Munson's tent. They're like, wow, so majestic. It's like four silhouettes of a dude, like dude standing in front of this tiny little tent. It's kind of funny when you really think about it. So they get down there as fast as possible, take a few pictures, pitch a tent, and get the hell out of there. And he did. He made it back in like two weeks. Like, like a munson did not hang around. He got in there, he got out. Uh, Scott's plan was extremely ambitious and overcomplicated with too many moving pieces. Even though Scott and his crew had carefully mapped out everything down to every last detail, the complexity of the expedition would make it nearly impossible to not run into a dumpster fire. So now we can kind of see the difference between a Munson, like how did a Munson pull this off whereas Scott didn't? But what about those rocks that Wilson geologized, that that Beard Moore glacier? So Scott's scientific contributions are huge, and his scientific contributions set the precedent for Antarctic science today. Uh the 12 curated scientists made discoveries in zoology, botany, geology, glaciology, and meteorology. The Terra Nova returned to England with over 2100 plants, animals, and fossils, 400 of which were new to science. The meteorological meteorological data collected was the longest unbroken weather record in the early 20th century, and it set the baseline that climate scientists use today to compare uh global warming. So the temperatures that they took back then for the all the time that they were there, that is what scientists use today to kind of show, like, hey, Earth is heating up. And it was based off of the temperatures that Scott and his expedition collected. Uh, in 1920, the Terra Nova geographer Frank uh Debenham Debenham Debenham and geologist Raymond Priestley found the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, which contains one of the largest libraries of polar research. It is still there to this day, and it is like the number one go-to spot. If you need to study anything about Antarctica, that's the place to go to. And that has uh Scott's library, all of his findings, all the research that has come afterwards, like not bad, bro. Oh, and those 30 pounds of rocks that Wilson collected. Well, they contained fossilized glossopteris plants. Sick. They had fossilized plants. Well, here's the th here's the kicker. The same exact fossils, those fossilized plants, were found in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and India. Because of that, it proved the theory of Pangea, which states that all the continents at one point in time were one giant landmass. So because of Scott told Wilson to go pick up rocks, there was fossils on there that proved that Earth was one giant landmass that broke apart over billions of years. And the only way that was ever discovered, the only way that was proved, it was because of this expedition. That yes, the men died, yes, it was a dumpster fire, but a lot came out of it, including a revised version of world history. Not bad. So that is the Terra Nova, freezing, dumpster fire. Albeit, I I bet these guys would have killed for like a legit dumpster fire, like a hot steaming pile of trash burning. I'm sure they would have preferred that over the outcome. But yeah, this is the uh Terra Nova.

Kara 1:19:07

Excellent.

Ed 1:19:08

Very unlike any other dumpster fire we've covered. Yeah, it's pretty intense.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:13

It yeah, it really is. That is um it really isn't a situation where someone did something other than I mean, the Atkins guy is kind of a douche for I don't think he was a douche.

Ed 1:19:25

He was just in way over his head. Like, he was a guy that you give him like a team of like two undergrads. Like that that's the extent of his leadership capabilities, is to help like two undergrads with their PhD thesis. Putting him in charge of an expedition where there was literally hundreds of people in all different branches of science and military, his place, it was just a weird that that was that's an interesting piece in it for sure. Yeah, and it's one of those things I I can't say I blame the guy, but then again, though, when Lieutenant Evans is like, Atkinson, go. You you need to keep going, you will find them. If he had just done that, like instead of Atkinson being like, nope, I want to pass the torch off to you. I don't want to do this anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:12

See, that's my problem. Is he's like, No, I'm not gonna commit to it. I'm not gonna get all the way through it. I'm gonna hand it off to that guy, and it's gonna be all his doing now. And that's uh that's kind of a I don't like that. Yeah, I don't like pushing responsibility.

Ed 1:20:29

Well, yeah, and and and it's definitely like on the surface douchebaggy move, but I also kind of feel like Atkinson is like, hey, look, this is gonna fare a lot better if this military leader is in charge.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:42

And that's where he kind of that's where I can understand where he's like, uh, hmm.

Ed 1:20:50

Yeah. As opposed to be like, but I don't know, like if you if you and Kara were stuck out there and somebody said, Hey, trust me, keep going, you'll find him. And I still had like maybe five, six people with me, plus all the food in the world, like I would risk it. I mean, all he had to do is just go out for two days, and he would have run into him.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:12

I wouldn't have made that choice for sure.

Ed 1:21:14

Yeah, I I but you know, I I think Cherry Girard said it best. He's like, hey, look, hindsight is 2020. We made the best decisions with what information we had at the time, and ultimately it wasn't enough, and this is what happened. So I need to read his book, uh, The Worst Journey. I mean, I I've read parts of it and stuff like that, but he has a rather interesting take on it. And then in the 70s, a lot of historians came out and they were like scathing on Scott, like they they just kind of roasted him. But to me, if Scott was this bad, if he was that incompetent, then not only would he have died, the entire expedition would have died, and there would have been no scientific discoveries to be had. Like, if he was truly that incompetent, I feel like nothing would have come about. And so, yeah, I don't know, I don't necessarily agree with the people from the 70s who make this argument. Uh, I could see where they're coming from, but at the end of the day, it's just like, dang, it sucks, but at least something good did come out of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:18

Someone had to do it. You know what I mean? It's the thing is like someone has to do it, and it just happened to be him, and all these people amongst him, and I mean, what a guy that Scott is for sure.

Ed 1:22:32

I I would have loved to have met this guy. He was very jovial, he was very nice, he never played a blame game, he never criticized anybody, he he really did like if it if it just wasn't the act of God going against him, I think his personality and his positive attitude would have gotten through it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

You know what? I've noticed the last I I don't well actually maybe I don't remember before that, but the you did the oil spill and the captain, I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he was kind of the same way where he was like, It's my fault, I shouldn't have fallen asleep. Yeah, it's not their fault, it's on me. I'm gonna take I'm gonna take the whole blame. Same, same, same energy.

Ed 1:23:15

Yeah, like yeah, he uh like hey, I I I slept, that's on me. I didn't train my officers properly, that's on me. And and so, like, yeah, that that's that that's literally the epitome of taking ownership of the situation. And that's something that you don't see very often. I I I get a kick out of like because we deal with elementary kids, we're like, hey, whose uh whose paper is this? And everybody's like, it's not mine. Well, I didn't ask who it wasn't, I was asking who it was.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:48

Are you quoting me from earlier today? Uh that and another teacher literally was like, um, I didn't ask if you didn't do it, I asked if you did do it.

Ed 1:24:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:03

So you had uh seemed like you did.

Ed 1:24:06

We had Mr. Uh Joe in there, he was covering a bathroom break, and he was talking to the kids, and he's like, Who's whose like pile of papers is this sitting by the front door? And one kid's like, It's not mine. He's like, Bunny, I didn't ask you who it wasn't. I was asking who it was.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:24

Yes, that must be a Montessori question to ask. It's just uh I didn't really think that that was what I wanted to know, but thanks.

unknown 1:24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:35

Great.

Ed 1:24:36

Oh uh FYI, it was Captain Uh Pestranjo Rugiati.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:43

Rugiati, that's right.

Ed 1:24:45

That was the captain of the Tory Canyon. Yep, Pestranjo Rippy.

Kara 1:24:48

I wanted to try something real quick. Let me know if it's as stupid, but I figured a good pairing for this episode, literature-wise, um, go and read 1938 John Campbell, Who Goes There. And then Okay, if you're not a big reader, go and watch 1982's The Thing, John Carpenter.

Ed 1:25:13

Yes.

Kara 1:25:14

So I just suggest those two things. If you're a reader, go read that novella. If you're a a moviegoer, go watch the thing.

Ed 1:25:22

Uh, fun fact about that 1982's the uh thing. Um, that was actually a science fiction story written in the 1880s.

Kara 1:25:30

This says it's uh based on a 1938 novella.

Ed 1:25:34

Yes, and the 1938 novella is based off of a short story that was written in the 1880s. Got it.

Kara 1:25:40

Anyway, go watch the thing.

Ed 1:25:41

I'll dig it up. I'll get it to you. It's uh interesting read. It's like once you read it, like, oh, I could see the inspiration behind this. But yeah. This isn't a science fiction lit podcast. But no, but go watch the look that up though.

Kara 1:25:54

Watch the thing. It's a good movie. I enjoy it. It's John Carpenter.

Ed 1:25:57

It's about that thing.

Kara 1:25:58

John Carpenter, Halloween. But yeah, after you listen to this podcast, go watch that.

Ed 1:26:03

So yeah, I think uh who's coming up next? Uh Kara, are you are you going next? Or Deja, are you going next? Okay, what do you what are you working on?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:13

I am going to be focusing on the triangle shirtwaist factory fire. Yeah, it's a daisy.

Ed 1:26:22

Um literally, no pun intended, the polar opposite of my topic.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:28

Just stuff on fire rather than freezing to death. You know, it's a it's gonna be it's it's very interesting how much outcome we've gotten from it. Um I feel like a lot of people know what it is. So hopefully, I don't know, I'm gonna try to make it not so morbid and more about the outcome of it, which would be really nice, but yeah, we know me. I usually end up talking about some orbit stuff, so it's gonna be intense. It's uh it's a it's a hard one. It is a hard one, but it is a very important like all these stories, it's always very important to tell.

Kara 1:27:08

Some one of us is gonna have to figure out a palate cleanser.

Ed 1:27:11

I think that's gonna be you.

Kara 1:27:12

No, I don't think so. I was gonna do lobotomies.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:16

Woof. Or or you know, like the what is it, the Stanford project?

Kara 1:27:21

The Stanford Prison Experiment. That's a big experiment.

Ed 1:27:24

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that that would be an interesting one. Not so much a palate cleanser, that's for sure.

Kara 1:27:29

No. I'm doing a palette cleanser. I'm doing uh an assassination, so I don't know if that's a good palate cleanser.

Ed 1:27:36

I know what I can do. Let me do the time that in World War II America thought that it would be a good idea to take thousands of bats and strap little napalm bombs to them. Oh my gosh. And try to fly them over to Japan. Perfect. And then like the instant they opened up the cages, the bats escaped, drop their bombs, and burned down the whole facility. Yes. That sounds good. So there's all these dudes like wearing white lab coats on fire running around, and it's pure chaos and pandemonium. I feel like that's like the entire episode right there. But there was a lot of other wacky stuff that America thought would be a good idea at the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:14

You know what? I give you a challenge, Ed. Okay. I want to challenge you at finding a palette cleanser that is the wild, wild west.

Ed 1:28:22

Mmm. So a funny dumpster fire from the wild west.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:27

Because I'm trying to find one that is from the west, like a western tale. Okay. But it's not always a light and nice sweet time. Not always cheery in the wild west.

Kara 1:28:43

Well, we'll figure that out later. We should probably wrap that up because I'm dying.

Ed 1:28:49

That's my homework assignment. So I've got you two coming up with this episode, so I have a little bit of time.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:53

Yeah, you got some time. I got some time. I believe in you.

Ed 1:28:56

So anyways. Alrighty. Well, we'll leave it at that. Thanks, guys, for staying on till like almost midnight. Actually, staying on till midnight. Deja, the next time I see you, I'll get you more coffee.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:06

So I have to open tomorrow, so I wish it were tomorrow that I'm seeing you, but I'll figure out something. No, no, no, no. Uh thanks, guys, for waiting up on me. The best. It's all good. Anyways.

Ed 1:29:18

All right. Well, in the meantime, guys, keep it a hot mess. Bye. Bye.