Scott’s Discovery Hut
Virtual Reality Experience

Antarctic Heritage Trust invites you to explore Hut Point Peninsula and the first Antarctic base of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Discovery hut, through our latest immersive virtual reality experience.

Most people will never be able to visit Antarctica, but this dynamic and immersive experience will make you feel as if you have. You will be transported to the very heart of Antarctic exploration, allowing you to step inside Discovery hut on Ross Island, Antarctica, just as Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton did over a century ago. Offering exciting interactions, including a ride in the hydrogen balloon the expedition launched, feeding huskies, helping a sledging party, and getting up close to the Discovery ship, this experience shares the stories behind this unique shelter’s place in polar history and the explorers that inhabited it.

Book a Visit

The Trust’s Inspiring Explorers Education™ team travel around New Zealand to bring our virtual reality experiences to schools, community groups, public venues, and festivals. If you would like the team to bring the experience to your school, community group or event, fill in the form and our team will be in touch soon.

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Education Programme

The Trust’s education programme is supported by a suite of resources, and aims to help participants:

gain a deeper understanding of the huts we care for and their significance in shaping the course of Antarctic history.
be inspired by the polar explorers’ stories.
learn more about our conservation work and New Zealand’s long connection with Antarctica.

INSPIRING EXPLORERS EDUCATION

Partners and Supporters

Thanks to the generous donors who funded this experience, including Antarctic Heritage Trust Inspiring Explorers™ Fund donors and a grant from Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage Regeneration Fund. The Trust, in partnership with developer StaplesVR, has created this virtual reality experience to celebrate this unique shelter’s place in polar history and share the stories of the explorers who inhabited it. The Trust also extends its thanks to logistics partner Antarctica New Zealand.

Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage

StaplesVR

Antarctica New Zealand

If you would like to support the touring of this experience, make a donation today or contact us about tour sponsor opportunities:

Click here to donate Sponsorship Opportunities

A Legacy of Antarctic Exploration

On 8 February 1902, the National Antarctic (Discovery) Expedition (1901–04) led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott dropped anchor at Winter Quarters Bay in McMurdo Sound. Expedition Junior Surgeon and Zoologist Edward Wilson described it as, “the most perfect little natural harbour imaginable.” Just 200 meters from the ship, Scott’s men built an unassuming square hut on what would become known as Ross Island’s Hut Point Peninsula.

Described by Expedition Physicist Louis Bernacchi as “more adapted as a summer house than a polar hut”, Discovery hut was well-stocked with supplies but very cold. In the end, the men bunked on the ship itself. Instead, the hut was used for important scientific work in fields including zoology, geology, meteorology and magnetism. They used it as a repair shop, as a venue for entertainment, and to dry furs and tents after undertaking extensive exploration in the region.

This was the second expedition to winter over on the Antarctic continent, and they would carry out significant exploration and serious scientific research, including:

Scott, Wilson and Sub-Lieutenant Ernest Shackleton achieve a furthest south record of 82º 16’ S on a sledging journey to find out if there was land between the Ross Ice Shelf and the South Pole.
Scott and Shackleton took flights above the Ross Ice Shelf in a hydrogen balloon, with Shackleton capturing the first aerial photographs of Antarctica.
An overland party journeyed across Ross Island, discovering the Emperor penguin rookery at Cape Crozier, and taking the first photograph of an Emperor penguin chick.
Expedition Navigator Lieutenant Albert Armitage led an expedition team that became the first to walk on the Polar Plateau.

A historic image of three explorers dressed in Antarctic survival clothing

Starting the great south journey, Shackleton, Scott and Wilson, 02 November 1902. © R W Skelton photograph, Canterbury Museum.

Men dressed in Antarctic survival clothing, harnessed to sledges.

Sledging party at Hut Point, 1901-1904. © Canterbury Museum.

Men and dogs outside a historic building in Antarctica, after a blizzard. Large ship in the background.

After a blizzard, 1902. © R Skelton photograph, Canterbury Museum.

Safe-haven for Every Heroic-era Expedition to Ross Island

Not only did Discovery hut support the exploration goals and scientific achievements of Captain Scott’s first Antarctic expedition, but due to its relative proximity to the South Pole, the hut was utilised by every subsequent expedition from the heroic-era of Antarctic exploration (1895–1922) that visited Ross Island.

The British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expedition 1907–1909, led by Ernest Shackleton, used the hut as a staging post for their unsuccessful attempt to reach the South Pole. With supplies dwindling, Shackleton’s team made the agonising decision to turn back just 97 miles short of the Pole.

Scott revisited the hut in 1911, when the British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition 1910–13 used it as a staging post for their attempt at the South Pole. Ultimately, Scott and his polar party reached the Pole but tragically perished on the return journey, just miles from safety.

The Ross Sea Party, members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914–1917 led by Shackleton, used the hut for shelter while laying supply depots for Shackleton’s ambitious but unsuccessful plan to traverse the continent, from the Weddell Sea to Ross Island, via the South Pole. The Ross Sea Party’s work proved to be in vain when Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, sank in the Weddell Sea after getting trapped in sea ice.

'Discovery' hut and Vince's Cross at Hut Point. © Antarctica New Zealand

Conserving the Legacy

This iconic explorer base has stood for over 120 years and is protected under the Antarctic Treaty. Antarctic Heritage Trust is a world leader in cold-climate conservation and cares for Discovery hut on behalf of the global community.

As part of the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project, the largest heritage project undertaken in the polar regions, the Trust completed a two-year programme of conservation in 2015 to weatherproof Discovery hut, ensure it is structurally sound and conserve more than 500 artefacts.

The huts the Trust cares for require constant up-keep, so every year the Trust’s expert team carry out a programme of artefact, building, and environmental monitoring and maintenance, including how climate change may be affecting the sites.

A person digging out the snow-filled doorway of a historic building in Antarctica

Trust Conservator Nicola Stewart digs her way into Scott’s 'Discovery' hut in 2006, before Antarctic Heritage Trust carried out major conservation works to save the building. © AHT

About the Project

The Trust uses immersive digital technology to bring the historic huts it cares for to the world. It’s incredibly difficult for most people to visit Antarctica so digital experiences create a way for people to virtually step into the huts. To create this ground-breaking virtual experience, the Trust partnered with StaplesVR, a New Zealand based provider of augmented and virtual reality training and entertainment solutions.

Scott’s Discovery Hut Virtual Reality Experience was developed using a combination of LiDar and photogrammetry data.

Krystal Paraone, from StaplesVR describes the scale of this project for their team, “To create something as realistic and true to real world form as the Scott’s Discovery Hut VR, the team at StaplesVR spent over 1,000 hours modelling each artefact and piece of timber to be painstakingly accurate. It was incredibly important to ensure we accurately captured the heritage and significance of the building along with the items inside, that each spot of rust and grain in the timber has been processed and implemented into the digital replica.”

Man operating LiDar device inside historic hut

Capturing LiDar data inside Discovery hut. © Antarctica New Zealand/Anthony Powell

Students taking part in the virtual reality experience.

Help us bring Antarctica to the world

The Trust is a registered charity that relies on support from people like you to create and bring these experiences to the world. A donation to support our Inspiring Explorers™ Fund will help us create new experiences and tour this cutting-edge technology across Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond. A gift to our education programme enables us to share digital experiences like this with thousands of people a year.

Donate today

We’re also looking for tour partners and sponsors for the Discovery Hut Virtual Reality experience in New Zealand and beyond. Please contact us if you work for a company or organisation that wants to help or bring exposure to your brand as we bring this experience to the world – fill out the form here: Sponsorship Opportunities | Antarctic Heritage Trust (nzaht.org)

sponsorship opportunities

Gallery

Explore image collections of Scott’s Discovery Hut, our conservators working at the site, and iconic Hut Point artefacts on our digital image database: Icy Heritage (icyheritage.org)

Browse images from Scott’s Discovery Hut Virtual Reality Experience below.