Map showing the route that Scott's expedition took to reach the South Pole. From 'A very gallant gentleman', a biography of Captain Oates, by Louis Charles Bernacchi (Thornton Butternworth, London, 1933).
Many of the survivors of Captain Scott's British Antarctic Expedition recorded their experiences, often several years after the the event.
This map is taken from a biography of one of the pole party who died, Captain Oates.
On it are marked various significant stages on the polar route. Among them is the point on the return journey where Oates — suffering badly from frostbite and aware he was slowing down his companions' progress — left the tent and valiantly walked to his death.
A few days and some miles later, the others died in their tent. Only a few miles further on was a depot where they had left supplies on the outward journey. Winter closed in, and it would be eight months later, in November 1912, that their bodies were found in the snow-bound tent.
Bernacchi, who was a friend of Oates, includes in book some photographs taken on the expedition by Herbert Pointing, drawings by Edward Wilson — one of those who died a few days after Oates — and maps depicting the routes of their ventures.
[NLS shelfmark: R.170.1]
This book featured in our display on 'Scott's last expedition', which ran from 12 January to 25 March 2012.