Return to Antarctica: The Amazing Adventure of Sir Charles Wright on Robert Scott’s Journey to the South Pole
By Adrian Raeside
Wiley, $29.95, 326 pages
This book detailing a generations-long exploration adventure came across as fascinating; author Adrian Raeside did not disappoint. After enlightening the reader of his family’s history with explorer Robert Scott’s rather obsessed voyages to “conquer” Antarctica, Raeside spells out an informative and slightly humorous look into the “discovery” of the continent, listing with care the many subsequent explorations attempted thereafter by various groups and countries.
“… I am looking forward to music and seeing a girl’s face and hair…. These eternal beards and matted hair and grubby clothes are rather monotonous.”
Armed with unstinting research, family-held photographs and letters long stored away, Raeside paints a picture of the 1911 and 1912 expeditions of Scott and his crew, one that differed in many ways from the more legendary, “clean-shaven” version that he’d heard growing up. The reader learns of the experiments run by the crew of using snowshoes, VS skis, and how these simple tests aided future explorers. The included photographs depict a story all by themselves, but the maps Raeside drew of the smaller journeys taken–how far they got in so many days–were helpful in understanding better the frightful positions these men placed themselves in. This piece is a candid, studied look at an extreme journey, yet written with more familiarity than a mere documentary.
Reviewed by Meredith Greene
