Though breathtakingly beautiful, Antarctica isn't the most hospitable place on earth and certainly not where most would choose to vacation. But Adrian Raeside, a well-known cartoonist and author, had other reasons to head south last winter: he was doing research for his next book.
Originally from New Zealand, Raeside grew up in the UK and then moved to Canada at a young age. He made the move to Whistler about 10 years ago.
Raeside is no stranger to the publishing business, authoring 12 other books including There Goes the Neighbourhood: An Irreverent History of Canada, The Demented Decade, Five Twisted Years and a series of children's books. But Return to Antarctica was a definite departure for him, and a project that he didn't walk into intentionally.
You see, Raeside is the grandson of Canadian-born Sir Charles Wright, who was a member of the scientific staff on Robert Scott's infamous 1911 race for the South Pole. Two of his uncles were also part of the Scott Expedition, so as you can imagine, Raeside grew up hearing first-hand accounts of the unsuccessful journey that ultimately resulted in the deaths of five men.
But he always noticed that the childhood stories he heard from his relatives were far different from the glossy tales found in the pages of his school textbooks.
"This was a real stretch because I wanted to get the facts right and I didn't actually intend on doing a book, but years after my grandfather died, going through these boxes of materials that he kept, and that was archives and his memoirs and diaries, I realized that there was so much which wasn't quite the popular story, which was carefully spun by the British government."
The photos of hearty and healthy adventurers within the pages of the textbooks didn't quite match the pictures of disheveled and malnourished men that returned from the expedition almost three years later.
After inheriting his grandfather's journals in 2005, Raeside became fascinated with the story and decided to write a book on the subject.
"In his writings, he's fairly candid about certain members of the expedition," Raeside said with a grin.
By carefully combing through his grandfather's diaries, Raeside uncovered a few planning flaws that he believes ultimately led to their failure.
"It was grim - three years in sub-zero conditions and wearing substandard clothing with substandard food. It takes its toll."
The subzero conditions posed serious problems for the crew.
"In spring sledging and in winter, beards were kept as short as possible. The moisture from breath froze the hair to the inside of their helmets. Those with beards would have to hold their head over the stove to melt the ice around their face in order to thaw the flannel helmet before removing it; if this wasn't done, it literally tore the hair from the face."
Scott went ahead with his haphazard plans for the expedition, hoping for the best, but knowing that they were unprepared for the epic journey. As Raeside sees it, he was almost willfully blind to the risk that he was putting himself and the rest of his crew in.
"My grandfather tried to give him some advice on being able to increase the amount of food they'd be able to eat on the Barrier," Raeside said.
Unfortunately, Scott didn't heed the advice.
The expedition trudged through the frozen tundra for weeks, hungry and sick, before reaching the Polar Plateau. There, Scott pared the team down to five men who would make the final tragic dash to the South Pole, racing against rival explorer, Roald Amundsen. As it turns out, it was lucky that Wright was sent back with the rest of the crew, because after Scott reached the South Pole to discover they had been beaten, the small team turned back and was caught in a blizzard that lasted for days. They froze to death, just 11 miles from a supply depot.
Just last year, Raeside embarked on a journey to retrace his grandfather's footsteps, traveling to Antarctica on a flat-bottomed working Russian icebreaker. On Dec. 13, 2008, Raeside left for a month-long trip to the South Pole.
"They call it an expedition ship, which is a euphemism for 'it's going to roll like a bitch,'" Raeside said with a laugh.
"It was complete sensory overload and for the first time I could understand what the lure of the continent was for the explorers," he said with a smile.
His experience was, of course, far more comfortable that it was for his ancestors back in the early 1900s, and truly helped him to gain a new appreciation for the crew of the Terra Nova.
With the centenary of the expedition looming, Raeside decided he wanted to be one of the first to go on record with his grandfather's version of the expedition.
"I just wanted to set the record straight before I felt there's going to be a ton of books coming out for the centenary, starting next June... but I just wanted to get something out which is, I feel, closer to what actually did happen and again, give voice to those who were overlooked."
He also wanted to remind Canadians that they, too, had a role in what is traditionally thought of as a British expedition.
In Return to Antarctica , Raeside has carefully intertwined excerpts from his grandfather's diary with historical facts from the journey, peppering in experiences from his own trip and insights from his research.
And while many historical books tend be somewhat dry, Raeside's version is vibrant, filled with his conversational style of writing, and lots of graphics to aid in the explanation of the expedition.
He has included a wealth of archival photos of the Terra Nova, the crew, stops along the way in Cape Adare, and the sled dogs, and maps that help the reader understand the route the expedition took from Ross Island, across the ice barrier and to the Gateway Depot. It even includes sketches of equipment like pony snow goggles and custom-made pony snowshoes, which were designed to help the animals cope with the harsh Antarctic weather.
Working with a wealth of research material, Raeside found he was simply unable to fit everything in. Towards the end of the project, was faced with every writer's worst nightmare - having to cut out 60 pages.
While members of the expedition had written a few books on the topic, Raeside felt there were many people who didn't have the chance to tell their story.
"I tried to bring as many voices from the people who were there who had been overlooked, to have their say.
"I didn't set out to trash-talk - that wasn't the intention - but the only conclusion I could come to as I plowed through work on this thing, was that what kind of idiot wouldn't take advice from people who have been there before. He had some incredible misguided faith in his own abilities, which was his downfall."
