Antarctic Time Capsule

Never before seen: from Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Image Source: Antarctic Heritage Trust New Zealand via Petapixel.

Happy New Year! The blog starts 2014 with a hundred-year-old time capsule. On 10 December 2013, the Antarctic Heritage Trust published photographs from negatives discovered in Captain Scott's expedition base at Cape Evans (images of Scott's hut are here). The found photos were taken on Ernest Shackleton's famous and ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917:

The Trust’s conservation specialists discovered the clumped together cellulose nitrate negatives in a small box as part of the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project which has seen more than 10,000 objects conserved at Scott’s Cape Evans hut. The negatives were removed from Antarctica by the Trust earlier this year [2013]. Detailed conservation treatment back in New Zealand separating the negatives has revealed twenty-two images. The photographs are from Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, which spent time living in Scott’s hut after being stranded on Ross Island when their ship blew out to sea.

One of the most striking images is of Ross Sea Party member Alexander Stevens, Shackleton’s Chief Scientist, standing on-board the Aurora.

Although many of the images are damaged, the Antarctic Heritage Trust was able to recognise landmarks around McMurdo Sound, although the identity of the photographer remains unknown.

Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition marked the end of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Two ships served on this expedition, the Endurance and the Aurora; they had separate missions.

While the Aurora sailed to the other side of the continent, Endurance became trapped in ice in the Weddell Sea; it broke apart and sank. Shackleton and five of his crew sailed a life boat to South Georgia, climbing a mountain once he landed ("the first-ever confirmed land crossing of the South Georgia interior"). Shackleton found help and saved his whole crew. T. S. Eliot immortalized this incredible story in his 1922 poem, The Waste Land (see my earlier post here).

As the press release mentioned, the found photos below the jump are from the Aurora's leg of the expedition. The whole collection is here.

Images Source: Antarctic Heritage Trust New Zealand via Petapixel.

Composite photo of Antarctica, seen from space. Image Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio via imgur.

See my other posts on Antarctica, here.

See all my posts on Time Capsules.