How Goot it is to be alive

 

How Goot it is to be alive






     Once more we visit a PBS mind-expanding series about the rivalry between explorers Captain Robert F. Scott of Great Britain and Ronald Amundsen of Norway as they attempt to reach the South Pole for the first time ever. The show was on the network in 1985 and we studied each episode and discussed them over the phone from Holly Knoll drive to Tremaine. The scenes are set in 1911 and the struggle is brutal and exhausting as they journeyed on the ice, blasted by snow and facing all manner of hardship. While the story is about both expeditions the Amundsen party succeeds due mostly to their skiing ability and the heroic strength of their 50 some sled dogs. Scott's five man party made a couple of poor choices and ended up weeks behind in this race. The men eventually perished on their return in the bleak polar conditions after reaching the pole and finding they were just runners up for the prize. The group was not discovered until the next year by a rescue party. Three of the British group starved to death just eleven miles from the camp where food and water were waiting.  Meanwhile the incredibly indefatigable Norwegian returned a hero to civilization where he uttered the phrase we repeated frequently when content with our state in the world "how goot it is to be alive." Unfortunately Amundsen's achievement was dulled somewhat by the Scott tragedy when the bodies were discovered eight months later. Greg also liked to repeat the succinct reply Amundsen gave to a reporter who asked him what it was like at the South Pole and the great explorer true to his Scandanavian blood just groaned "cold"



" Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more. R. Scott. Last entry. For God's sake look after our people."

 

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