Explorer’s Skis Will Return to the Antarctic

News February 15, 2013

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(Henry Bowers, Public Domain)

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND—A pair of wooden skis used by polar explorer Edward Atkinson in the early twentieth century will be returned to Cape Evans, the base camp of the British Terra Nova Expedition. This attempt to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole ended in the deaths of Robert Falcon Scott and four others. Atkinson, a physician on the expedition, survived. His skis were collected from a hut at Cape Evans in 1948 by a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, whose son has donated them to the Antarctic Heritage Trust. “The provenance of the skis is beyond doubt. These are a most poignant link to Capt. Scott’s last expedition,” said Nigel Watson, director of the Antarctic Heritage Trust.

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