A Modest Little Building at the End of the World

The hut built by Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition team looks much as it did when construction was finished on January 17, 1911—through the long austral darkness, under the indifferent polar sun, this wooden shelter abides on a beach of volcanic scoria at Cape Evans, Antarctica, testament to the human hunger for adventure and acceptance of mortal risks. It’s not an abstract idea, or a memory, or something that survives only in photos: The same cold light slants through the windows as it did 100 years ago, the same olive-green linoleum on the floor awaits the next pair of boots, the same smells of blubber, straw, and timber hang in the air. Scott might have been second to the South Pole, but he was a titan of polar exploration, and the knowledge that his shelter is real, is there, and can be visited provides a striking bridge to the golden age of adventure in the early days of the 20th century.

Scott’s story is tragic. When he was planning his Terra Nova expedition