Archive for category: Antarctic Blog

By Doug Henderson

All new arrivals at Scott Base are required to attend Antarctic Field Training.  Some of the returning AHT team having done AFT over the past two years only had to do a refresher.  However, Doug (NZ), Geoff (UK) – both Heritage Carpenters along with Sue (AUS) and Ciaran  (Ire) – both Conservators for the 2016-17 season had to attend the full course.  We had briefings on local weather, hazard identification, how to choose and use appropriate clothing – basically how to keep safe in the Antarctic environment.

Antarctic Heritage Trust

Ciaran, Sue, Field trainer Mike and Geoff enjoy a brew in the field training ‘kitchen’.

The average temperature at present is around -23C so fairly cool.  As part of our course we camped out overnight near to Castle Rock – not that there is any night now as we had the last sunset of the summer on Saturday 22nd October.  We pitched our polar tents, organised our sleeping bags and built a field kitchen using snow blocks which we cut from the Ross Ice Shelf to provide some protection from the wind.  Freeze-dried Chicken Tikka Masala, Lamb  Curry and Nasi Goreng were all on the menu – yum!!  Over dinner, sitting with water boiling on the camp stove our Trainer Mike suggested we throw a cup full of boiling water into the air – the result was a sudden crack and a puff of steam as it instantly vaporised with the sudden change in temperature – amazing!

The evening sunset colours on Mount Erebus and Terra Nova were stunning.  6:30am arrived all too soon and it was time to get up and break camp after breakfast – we had temperatures of -30C ambient overnight.  Some slept better than others but all in all a great experience was had by all!!

By Josefin Jimenez

Conservator Ciaran Lavelle mused in an earlier post Life is like a box of Chocolates about the Fry & Son’s Caracas Chocolate box and the randomness of life, and I can here add another random little piece. As the paper conservator, I worked with repairing the paper components of the box, two exterior labels and the remains of a white interior paper lining with a stamped doily pattern.

Antarctic Heritage Trust

Caracas is the capital of Venezuela, perched atop the northern coast of the South American continent, the country known for its oil, its cocoa, and political unrest. Curiously, it is also where my father was born and lived until his early twenties.

Emilia Bergmark-Jimenez

The sprawl of Caracas at night

To me and my siblings, growing up in Sweden; almost as far away from Venezuela as it is from New Zealand, it was a place both endlessly distant and strangely present. It was where my paternal grandmother, my abuela Vicenta lived, it was there my dad had once fallen from a wall and cracked his head open (bending down he would let us run our hands along his head to feel the scar), it was where my tios and tias and primitos lived. It was where my dad once had kept a baby caiman as a living pet in his bath tub. Dad would tell us stories about his family, about funerals, his school friends, about rich people and poor people, about drunks and strangers and about his mother’s house in Los Rosales. Dad came to Sweden by chance (on his way to study engineering in Soviet Russia) and decided to stay, eventually having five kids there. J.S Fry’ & Sons was established in 1822 and became the largest commercial producer of chocolate in Britain, the factory located in Union Street in Bristol. It was also the first company in England to produce eating chocolate, the Perl chocolate bar and Caracas Chocolate. Fry & Sons imported their cocoa beans from Venezuela, where at the time there was only one factory for domestic production and the bulk of the raw beans were exported. The beans would be transported to the factory in Bristol where they would be roasted, ground and shaped into chocolate bars. The bars were packed into boxes or tins and transported, and this particular box all the way to Antarctica with Borchgrevink and the first British Antarctic Expedition, 1898 ̶ 1900, to be found and taken to New Zealand where it would meet a genetic descendant, a stranger from home.

Emilia Bergmark-Jimenez

The view from my grandmother’s house

My dad didn’t return to Caracas for 20 years until he accompanied my brother there in 2002 and came there regularly after. My abuela died in October 2015 in her house, the last time he saw her was three years earlier as the political situation prevented travel. I have later come to doubt the veracity of the story of the baby caiman.

By Josefin Jimenez

This week I have been working on half a piece of card, identified only as “Game: Card” in the collection database, with no further information on what kind of game, or how to play it.

Antarctic Heritage Trust

‘Who Knows?’ board game

In his account of the British Antarctica Expedition 1898-1900 Borchgrevink talks about playing chess, cards and draughts to pass the time. He also mentions that the two Sámi members of the expedition, Persen Savio and Ole Must, played Sákhuu, a board game particular to Sámi culture.

So what kind of game does this particular board come from? After conservation treatment, two pieces of information were revealed: the title of the game, ‘Who Knows?’ and the name of the distributor, J Jaques & Sons.

John Jaques is a London firm, established 1756, which still exists today. They were the makers of such Victorian hits as Snap, Halma, and Ludo, not to mention the classics Tiddlywinks and Happy Families. “Who Knows?” is a lesser known game and could be considered an early version of Trivial Pursuit.

This vintage edition of the game, charmingly describes the rules as follows:

1. Six Players and 1 Crier
2. The Crier calls the questions, and the Players in turn must answer correctly; whoever does so gains the Ticket, which is placed on one of the divisions of the Card.
3. The player who fills his card first wins.
4. If no one can answer the questions, the Crier must read it aloud so that, when called again, the Players may have a chance at gaining it.

Antarctic Heritage Trust

‘Who Knows?’ rules

A description of the game can be found in the V&A collections catalogue where we can learn more about the categories of the games tickets.

The subject of the cards are as follows:

47 geography
16 grammar
21 spelling
34 mental arithmetic
71 history
63 general knowledge

So far we haven’t seen any trace of either the other game boards or the tickets but as we are approximately half way through the Cape Adare objects I hope that the tickets will soon cross the treatment table.

By Stefanie White

20 unused tea towels from Cape Adare are currently undergoing conservation treatment. They are all of white linen material with a red border along the top and bottom with words reading ‘TEA CLOTH’ and a delicate leaf damask in white. Interestingly, the towel is has been stamped with bright blue ink reading ‘Hemmed and ready for use’. Traditionally, a tea towel was a luxury item that often the lady of the house would embroider, use to polish precious crockery or to cover food baskets with. These towels would came unhemmed and were typically hemstitched by servants or house maids. However, with the industrial revolution, tea towels became to be mass produced and even ‘hemmed and ready for use’. Among the collection of Tea towels found at Cape Adare, we see a nice example of this 19th/20th century new style of tea towel.

I wonder why they were not used…

Antarctic Heritage Trust

Before treatment of tea towel

After treatment of tea towel

Antarctic Heritage Trust

Hemmed, ready for use