Reflections of a Conservator
Mentally challenging and wondrous are descriptors Artefact Programme Coordinator Shannah Rhynard-Geil uses when reflecting on her first visit to Scott Base in 2022.
“I wasn’t able to visit any of the huts because of the sea ice conditions, but I was in a lab with about 1500 objects needing treatment and felt grateful to experience the isolation of winter,” she says.
Returning this summer as our Artefact Programme Coordinator was a different experience, especially stepping into Scott’s Terra Nova hut.
“I stood in the hut and absorbed its details. The personalities of the men are moulded into the fabric of the huts. I felt the responsibility of immortalising the huts, their possessions and intangible mana in perpetuity,” she says.
“Conserving the huts and artefacts is a precarious balance of ethics, resources and preservation on a world stage, while attempting to protect and honour the men’s sacrifices, courage and the foundation of all modern science undertaken in the vast white expanse.
“Over summer, the huts seemed to reveal their personalities and I found myself talking to them and the men. When we lived for five weeks in tents near the huts we got a very small taste of what it would have been like for the heroic era explorers.”
Shannah says leaving the huts was difficult after weeks of working in them.
“It was almost like leaving friends stranded.”
The Trust is grateful to the Inspiring Explorers™ Fund donors whose support made the programme possible, helping young people step into New Zealand’s backcountry, learn new skills, and give back.
