Coldest March

The Coldest March tells the tragic story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his British team who in November 1911 began a trek across the snows of Antarctica, striving to be the first to reach the South Pole. After marching and skiing more than nine hundred miles, the men reached the Pole in January 1912, only to suffer the terrible realisation that a group of five Norwegians had been there about a month earlier. Scott and his four companions died on the return journey. Whether they were courageous heroes or tragic incompetents has been debated ever since. Susan Solomon brings a scientific perspective to her understanding of the men of the expedition, their agonising struggle, and the reasons for their deaths. Drawing on extensive meteorological data and on her personal knowledge of the Antarctic, she depicts in detail the sights, sounds, legends and ferocious weather of that singular place. She reaches the startling conclusion that the polar party was struck down by exceptionally frigid weather a rare misfortune that confounded the men's meticulous predictions of what to expect. This poignant and beautifully written book restores Scott and his men to the place of honour they deserve.