Amber on Ice

09 Nov -- A few weeks back, I rode a Delta out to Cape Evans. This is where Robert Falcon Scott, famous Antarctic Explorer, built a hut to help support his Continental Expeditions. The Hut was erected in 1911. It was built the previous winter in New Zealand. The hut is 50' long and 25' wide. They used quilted seaweed as insulation. The hut was equipted with acetylene gas jet stoves and even a gramaphone. The floor of the hut was kept below freezing so that any snow that got in could be easily swept out. The warm air at the top of the hut was used to melt snow for weekly bathing. The hut housed a cooking area, huts for the men, a lab, a dinner table, and several work benches. Attached to the hut was a stable for the ponies. Yep, they thought ponies in Antarctica. That was a shock for me to learn as well. The Hut remains as it was left nearly 100 years ago. They have the newspapers from 1908, original food, clothes, even the dead penguin on the lab table which remains fairly well in tact. The stables continue to smell of hay and horse.