List, Books and Videos of North Pole & South Pole Famous Explorers and Early Explorers.

The Worst Journey in the World
by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

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As Apsley Cherry-Garrard states in his introduction to the harrowing story of the Scott expedition to  the South Pole, "Polar Exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised." Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World is a gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. The youngest member of Scott's team, the author was later part  of the rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and three men who had accompanied Scott on the final push to the Pole. These deaths would haunt Cherry-Garrard for the rest of his life as he questioned the decisions he had made and the actions he had taken in the days leading up to the Polar Party's demise. 

Prior to this sad denouement, Cherry-Garrard's account is filled with details of scientific discovery and anecdotes of human resilience in a  harsh environment. Each participant in the Scott expedition is brought fully to life. Cherry-Garrard's recollections are supported by diary  excerpts and accounts from other teammates. Despite the sad fate of Scott, the reader will grudgingly agree with the closing words of The Worst Journey in the World: "Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion. And I tell you, if you have the desire  for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.... If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg." 

 Introduction to the British 1994 edition   "A masterpiece. ... When people ask me (I get the question about twice a month), 'What is your favorite travel book?' I nearly always  name this book. It is about courage, misery, starvation, heroism, exploration, discovery, and friendship. It vividly illustrates the demands  of science and the rigors of travel. It is a record of the coldest darkest days that can be found on our planet. It is written beautifully but  not obviously, with a subtle artistry. ... It is rare to find a person who is at once a great traveler, recounting an overwhelming experience,  and who is also such an accomplished writer. ... Everywhere his voice is clear, articulate and humane and sometimes startling."--Paul Theroux.

Scott's Last Expedition  The Journals
by Robert Falcon Scott, Beryl Bainbridge

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In November 1910, a ship called Terra Nova left New Zealand on its way south to Antarctica. On board was an international team of  explorers led by Robert Falcon Scott, a man determined to be the first to reach the South Pole. A year and a half later, Scott and three  members of his team died during a brutal blizzard. Their dream of reaching the Pole first had already been dashed by the Norwegian  explorer Roald Amundsen, and now on their return trip--slowed by ill health and bad weather--Scott's party found themselves trapped in a tent without sufficient provisions, while the wind howled endlessly outside. Even in his final hours, Scott found the strength to continue  the journal he'd started at the beginning of his adventures; the diary was found beside his frozen body.

Scott's Last Expedition: The Journals is the explorer's detailed account of his time in Antarctica. The team's daily progress towards  their final goal is recorded in Scott's vivid, personal narrative, as well as his impressions of the harsh conditions, the stark beauty of the  tundra, and his own increasingly desperate ambition to beat his rivals to the Pole. Shortly before he died, Scott wrote: "Had we lived, I  should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every  Englishman." Robert Falcon Scott and his men died, but their story lives on in his journals. 

The Last Place on Earth
(Modern Library Exploration)
by Roland Huntford

Amazon.com
On December 14, 1911, the classical age of polar exploration ended when Norway's Roald Amundsen conquered the South Pole. His competitor for the prize, Britain's Robert Scott, arrived one month later--but died on the return with four of his men only 11 miles from their next cache of supplies. But it was Scott, ironically, who became the legend, Britain's heroic failure, "a monument to sheer ambition  and bull-headed persistence. His achievement was to perpetuate the romantic myth of the explorer as martyr, and ... to glorify suffering  and self-sacrifice as ends in themselves." The world promptly forgot about Amundsen.

 Biographer Ronald Huntford's attempt to restore Amundsen to glory, first published in 1979 under the title Scott and Amundsen, has been thawed as part of the Modern Library Exploration series, captained by Jon Krakauer (of Into Thin Air fame). The Last Place on Earth is a complex and fascinating account of the race for this last great terrestrial goal, and it's pointedly geared toward demythologizing   Scott. Though this was the age of the amateur explorer, Amundsen was a professional: he left little to chance, apprenticed with Eskimos,  and obsessed over every detail. While Scott clung fast to the British rule of "No skis, no dogs," Amundsen understood that both were vital to survival, and they clearly won him the Pole. 

 Amundsen in Huntford's view is the "last great Viking" and Scott his bungling opposite: "stupid ... recklessly incompetent," and   irresponsible in the extreme--failings that cost him and his teammates their lives. Yet for all of Scott's real or exaggerated faults, he  understood far better than Amundsen the power of a well-crafted sentence. Scott's diaries were recovered and widely published, and if  the world insisted on lionizing Scott, it was partly because he told a better story. Huntford's bias aside, it's clear that both Scott and  Amundsen were valiant and deeply flawed. "Scott ... had set out to be an heroic example. Amundsen merely wanted to be first at the pole. Both had their prayers answered." --Svenja Soldovieri.