Tag: Norway

On Some Dead Weight

The tale of the British attempt to be the first expedition to reach the South Pole is one of triumph and tragedy. Led by Robert Falcon Scott, the trip that began in 1910, known as the Terra Nova Expedition, is famous in part for ending with the deaths of Scott and the others of his group who attempted the conquest of the pole only a few miles from a cache of food and warming supplies that would have saved their lives. Alas, the elements (unusually harsh snowstorms) and poor planning (see below) doomed the Scott Expedition from the start.

Scott was one of those Edwardian Era Britishers who felt that they could conquer any task the world had to offer. History had proven men like him right, most of the time. The Victorians, as we have seen in other posts, believed in their abilities to conquer nature and the harsh conditions of the planet in the pursuit of knowledge and national pride. Thus, the trip was one of not only attempting to expand the world’s understanding of Antarctica, but it also had strong ties to British nationalism that was part and parcel of that era.

And, to his credit, Scott and his men did reach the South Pole. They simply didn’t live to tell the tale in person.

You see, the British had some rivals in their quest to be the first to the bottom of the globe. A Norwegian team, led by Roald Amundsen, was vying to plant the Norwegian flag at the polar extreme point first. And that really frustrated Scott to no end. First of all, it wasn’t supposed to be a race in his mind. Besides, Scott was not a professional explorer per se. He was a British military man. But that’s what you did back then. Any British man with enough pluck and gumption (and financing) could do and did do incredible things for the time. And he was one of those men. Scott did have some scientific experience in the south polar region, but exploring wasn’t his occupation. He was more of an amateur in the best sense of the word as opposed to someone who explored and profited from it. And that was how Scott saw Amundsen and his party. Those guys were professional explorers, in Scott’s mind, and that rankled him somewhat. While Scott and his crew were interested in the scientific aspects of the trip, he felt that the Norwegians were in it only for the glory and conquest. And that wasn’t entirely untrue to a degree.

Scott’s and Amundsen’s attempts were different in other ways as well. Scott relied primarily on ponies to pull his sledges, while Amundsen used the tried and true method of dog teams exclusively (which doubled as meat when necessary). The Norwegians were made up of a 9 man team, while Scott’s party was only 5 (both groups had a large cadre of support people in place at their bases on the coasts). Scott’s group’s nutrition was sadly lacking in some basic and energy-granting nutrients, while their Norse adversaries ate relatively well and had a good mix of vitamins and minerals. The Norwegians also used skis, while the British eschewed them.

Despite their disadvantages, Scott’s party reached the South Pole early in 1911 even with their scientific experiments and samples that they collected on the way. However, they found that the Norwegian flag was there, and it had been there for over a month–34 days, in fact–since Amundsen beat him there. And, so, Robert Falcon Scott and his team, happy that they reached the pole but crushed that they finished a close second, turned back towards their home base. And it was this return journey that made him and his crew such heroes in the eyes of much of the world.

The going was slow, as I said, because of the spate of incredibly howling winds and driving snow. Their supplies dwindled. They spoke of desperately needing to reach the depot where fresh food and heat would be waiting, and, now on foot and dragging their sledges themselves, they began to falter. Freezing and starving to death, Scott still managed to keep a daily journal of the trip, and that journal was found along with his body and the bodies of most of the others in the group several months after their passing by some of his base camp comrades. And only 11 miles from their next supply camp. (Interestingly, Amundsen and his group actually gained weight during their return trip.)

In his famous journal, Scott spoke of his disappointment in not being first at the pole for Britain, but at the same time he also reveled in the scientific discoveries he and the party had made. He also mentioned that there had been discussions about discarding the samples of materials he and the group had found, jettisoning the weight, so that they could make more time, but that this idea was quickly abandoned in the name of science and knowledge. And, so, when the bodies of Scott and his companions were finally found, along with his diary, there were these samples. And the samples proved that, once upon a time, Antarctica had been a green, fertile, forested continent. The samples were fossils, you see, fossils the group decided to carry with them instead of getting rid of on the way home.

And so Scott and his men thus pulled several pounds of rocks across miles of Antarctica, choosing, perhaps, science over survival.

On Finding a Knife

Osoyro, Norway, lies on the western edge of the Scandinavian nation, on the water, and is one of hundreds of little, picturesque villages that dot the inlets and bays of the coast. It boasts a population of around 1,500 hardy and healthy and happy souls.

Elise is an 8 year old student at the local elementary school. She’s really a typical kid; she loves horses and flowers and her friends. She’s a decent student, and she loves her pets. But something happened to Elise this year in school that doesn’t happen too often these days.

We have all heard the stories about school violence, especially in the United States. Outbreaks of attacks have been increasing in occurrence across the globe, sadly. In nations where guns are as readily available as they are in the US, even knife attacks have seen a rise in many schools. In an effort to combat this rise in violence, some schools have been encouraging kids to report incidences where they witness a classmate with a potential weapon. This preventative measure has met with a mixed reaction. Kids are not eager to be seen as tattle-tales, squealers, or rats. They want to be liked. On the other hand, if one attack is thwarted because some brave child reported a potential threat, then the program is worth it in my eyes.

Anyway, Elise and her friends were on the playground one day (yes, kids go outside for play even in winter in Scandinavian countries). While running and playing with her chums, Elise spotted something reflecting in the low hanging sunshine of the winter’s day. At first she thought it was a piece of glass. She reached down for it…and realized that it had a sharp edge. This, even to her 8 year old eyes, was obviously a weapon.

Elise showed it to her friends. They crowded around her as she held the blade in her hand. It was only slightly larger than her palm, the edge of the weapon still sharp. She looked around at the faces of the circle around her. All of them were looking at her hand. “We should tell teacher,” she said. The circle of friends all agreed. And so, the little group of girls made their way to Ms. Drange, the class teacher.

Ms. Drange was taken aback at first. How could such a thing find its way to the school’s playground? She quizzed Elise gently, knowing the girl enough to know that she herself didn’t bring the item from home or elsewhere. Elise then led Ms. Drange outside to the pile of stones where she first spied the sharp object shining in the winter sun. Ms. Drange assured Elise that she’d done the right thing to turn it in and to make her teacher aware of the situation. She carefully took the sharp object from Elise and wrapped it in a cloth.

The next day, Ms. Drange contacted the authorities. She told them about Elise and how the object came to be discovered. Soon, a team of experts swarmed the village schoolyard. The area was roped off as the specialists began looking for clues as to the origins of the blade. For the children, the day was wonderful because they could see the investigation for themselves. Elise was both a little confused and happy. She was proud to have done the right thing, but she didn’t fully understand what her discovery meant. The local press asked Elise what she felt when she found it. She shyly said, “It was nice.”

Come to find out, Elise did indeed discover a knife that day, but wasn’t a knife that someone was going to use to harm someone these days. The knife’s material didn’t even come from Norway at all; the nearest place it could have been created was Denmark, several hundred miles away. That’s not to say that it wasn’t used some time in the past, however.

In fact, when Elise’s particular and extremely rare flint knife was made, it has been determined that it had most likely been used in a sacrificial ritual.

Some 3,700 years ago.