The race to the South Pole: thirty-four days too late

On the eighteenth of January, nineteen twelve, five British men reached the South Pole and found a tent already standing there. Inside lay a letter to the King of Norway: the winner was asking the loser to carry it home, in case he did not get back himself. The story of two expeditions that set out for the same point ten days apart, told from the diaries of both. Chapters 0:00 A tent at the Pole 1:23 The North Pole is taken 2:55 A second plan, in London 6:15 The money 7:29 Oates pays a thousand pounds 11:48 Madeira: the crew is told 13:47 The telegram at Melbourne 16:29 Nineteen ponies and thirty dogs 18:54 The gale of the second of December 22:54 Cape Evans 23:58 A motor sledge goes through the ice 25:28 Framheim in the Bay of Whales 28:03 The two ships meet 30:07 Depots, and ponies on breaking ice 38:06 Cook and Peary 39:24 Four months of night 43:33 The winter journey 47:37 The tent is gone 50:39 Three came back, and three eggs 52:14 The Norwegians start too early 56:03 Both parties set out 1:00:15 The glacier 1:01:49 The Butcher's Shop 1:04:07 Shambles Camp 1:06:44 The fourteenth of December: the Norwegians at the Pole 1:08:38 The tent and the letter to the King 1:10:39 The fifth man 1:14:00 The black flag 1:15:26 The eighteenth of January: they are not the first 1:18:30 The Norwegians all come home 1:20:19 Crean walks alone 1:23:17 Five become four 1:24:24 The oil is gone 1:26:12 Oates goes out into the blizzard 1:28:14 The last entry 1:30:39 The cables from Hobart 1:31:25 Two orders, side by side 1:34:29 Six men in a snow hole 1:35:58 The letter on the door 1:36:43 The tent is found 1:41:20 What killed them 1:43:54 The eggs at the museum 1:46:38 Two accounts Sources — Roald Amundsen — The South Pole, volume one — Apsley Cherry-Garrard — The Worst Journey in the World, London 1922, p. 547 — Lieutenant Edward Evans — second in command — Fridtjof Nansen — introduction to Amundsen's book, 1912 — Captain Robert Falcon Scott — journal, aboard the Terra Nova, the first of December 1910 — Lieutenant Henry Bowers — letter home about the gale of the second of December 1910 — Raymond Priestley, geologist of Campbell's party — diary aboard the Terra Nova, 4 February 1911 — Captain Scott — journal, Cape Evans, 8 May 1911 — Doctor Edward Wilson — to his two companions, as Cherry-Garrard remembered it — Lieutenant Victor Campbell — diary of the Northern Party, Evans Coves, 16 March 1912 — the note left by the search party at the cairn, 12 November 1912 — as copied by Cherry-Garrard — from Scott's Last Expedition, volume one, London 1913 — the letter left at Hut Point for the captain of the ship — the letter this film began with: left in the tent at the Pole — the same letter: whether it arrived, the men who were there do not say — the letter came home — the man who carried it did not Music and footage Kevin MacLeod — CC BY 4.0: «Ancient Mystery Waltz (Allegro)», «Crusade - Heavy Industry» CC BY 3.0: «Frozen Star, Kevin MacLeod — CC BY 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., «Heavy Heart, Kevin MacLeod — CC BY 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., «Lasting Hope, Kevin MacLeod — CC BY 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., «Disquiet, Kevin MacLeod — CC BY 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... CC BY 4.0: «Prelude No. 3, Chris Zabriskie — CC BY 4.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... The author and licence of each image are shown in the corner of the frame.