Antarctic Heritage tells the story of Antarctic exploration: the Heroic Age expeditions of Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen, the ships that carried them, and the legacy that still draws travellers south. Continuing the work of the International Scott Centenary Expedition of 2012, we publish carefully sourced polar history, explorer biographies and practical knowledge of Antarctica, from the Ross Ice Shelf to South Georgia.
The Heroic Age
Robert Falcon Scott: the man who defined Britain’s Heroic Age in Antarctica
Naval officer, scientist by conviction, and leader of two defining expeditions — the story every route on this continent still passes through.
The Expeditions
Discovery
The Dundee-built ship and the voyage that opened Britain’s Antarctic century.
RRS Discovery · McMurdo
Latest dispatches
Antarctica
Mount Erebus: Antarctica’s active volcano, its first ascent, and its darkest day
Fire under the ice — the mountain Ross named after a ship bound for tragedy.
Antarctica
Who owns Antarctica?
The treaty that froze every territorial claim on Earth’s last continent.
Ships
Fram: the only ship to hold both polar records
Norway’s strange, saucer-hulled answer to the pack ice.
Explorers
Roald Amundsen: the methodical Norwegian who conquered both Poles
Dogs, skis and cold arithmetic — how professionalism beat heroism to 90°S.
Reading list
12 essential books on Shackleton and the Endurance expedition
From Lansing’s classic to the diaries the crew actually kept.
Explorers
Frank Hurley: the photographer who saved his negatives from the sinking Endurance
Glass plates pulled from mushy ice — the images that made the legend.
2012CENTENARY
From St Paul’s Cathedral to the Ross Sea
Antarctic Heritage continues the work of the International Scott Centenary Expedition, formed in 2012 — one hundred years after Captain Scott’s final diary entry — to keep Britain’s polar story in public memory. Today we publish carefully sourced history and practical knowledge of the continent Scott gave his life to. Read about the Centenary →
The Explorers
Coming this season Antarctica for today’s traveller — expedition cruise guides, what to pack for the Drake Passage, and when to see the emperor penguins.