Go South, Young Man! Go South!

“There are many reasons which send men to the Poles, but the desire for knowledge for its own sake is the one which really counts.”

So wrote Apsley Cherry-Girard in The Worst Journey in the World, his account of his experiences in the Antarctic as a member of Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition. In the depths of the Antarctic winter, Cherry-Girard ventured in the night to hike across frozen McMurdo Sound to observe the mating of the Emperor penguins and to collect one of their eggs for scientific research–something that had never been done before. It was a terrible journey: 50 miles on foot in total darkness and in air so cold that it broke his teeth. But he got his egg.

After Scott and his companions died the following summer on their return journey from the South Pole, Cherry-Girard and the other members of the expedition sailed back to England. He took his egg to the British Museum where, after a long wait in a cold reception room, somebody’s assistant finally arrived to accept, without one word of congratulation or even thanks, the treasure Cherry-Girard had brought to London from the bottom of the world. Recalling that crushing incident, he wrote:

“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 are a brave man you will do nothing; if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have the need to prove their bravery.

“Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say–  ‘What is the use?’ For we are a nation of shopkeepers and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers; that is worth a great deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin egg.”

Originally published on May 8, 2013