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.
Discovery
The Dundee-built ship and the voyage that opened Britain’s Antarctic century.
RRS Discovery · McMurdo
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.