Comms, Author at Antarctic Heritage Trust

About Comms

This author has not written his bio yet.
But we are proud to say that Comms contributed 344 entries already.

Entries by Comms

Ross Sea Party Improvised Gear

By Sue Bassett The artefacts conserved by the Trust that remain in Scott’s Cape Evans hut tell something of the harrowing ordeal endured by Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party in 1914-17. Continuing their futile mission to lay depots to aid Shackleton’s planned crossing of Antarctica, the ill-equipped Ross Sea Party was forced to improvise clothing and equipment in order to survive. Stranded at Cape Evans, they also used Captain Scott’s old Discovery Hut at Hut Point as a staging post for their depot-laying sledge trips. After one such trip, a group waited at Hut Point for over two months for the […]

Antarctic Blog

Pony Snowshoes

By Sue Bassett When it comes to working with historical material that is only 100 years old, most things we recognise at least by function, if not from our own lives and times, then perhaps from those of our grandparents. When reading Captain RF Scott’s journals from his last expedition (1910 until his untimely death in 1912), he makes a number of references to the Norwegian snowshoes they took along for their ponies. The ponies hauled the heavy loads as he and his team erected their hut at Cape Evans and laid food and fuel depots southwards towards the Pole. […]

Famous Discoveries, Media Releases, News Story, Shackleton's Hut

Shackleton’s 111-year-old Beer Barrel

Antarctic Blog

Cape Evans Stove

By Sue Bassett While the Trust’s on-ice conservators move the artefacts from the historic expedition huts to the laboratory at New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica for thawing, documentation and treatment, there are also immovable items that require in situ treatment in the huts. One such case was that of the cast-iron galley stove at Captain RF Scott’s hut from the British Antarctic ‘Terra Nova’ Expedition 1910–13 at Cape Evans. For the Trust’s metals conservators, it didn’t seem too daunting – mechanically remove corrosion, chemically convert corrosion, apply protective coating to surfaces. Straightforward, right? Well, not quite – this is […]