The Last Place on Earth Quotes

“Where imaginary mole hills turn into hallucinatory mountains”
― Roland Huntford, The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole

“Our plan is one, one and again one alone—to reach the pole. For that goal, I have decided to throw everything else aside.”
― Roland Huntford, Scott and Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth

“In the snows Amundsen grasped that it was usually best to lead from behind. He could see his men and survey the situation, the foundation of command. And the last man has the responsibility of retrieving what falls off the sledges. However careful the stowing, somehow something vital usually drops by the wayside.”
― Roland Huntford, Scott and Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth

“Men, as Amundsen liked to say, are the unknown factor in the Antarctic.”
― Roland Huntford, Scott and Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth

“Nansen had moreover introduced a startling new concept into Polar exploration. He had deliberately cut off his lines of retreat. His route was from the desolate east coast to the inhabited west. This was not bravado, but calculated exploitation of the instinct of self-preservation. It drove him on; there was no incentive to look back.”
― Roland Huntford, Scott and Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth

“The English too, were turning their eyes to the South. In 1769, there was to be a transit of the planet Venus across the disc of the sun, a rare event which astronomers wanted to observe. The newly discovered island of Tahiti was judged the perfect site. The Royal Society in London asked the Royal Navy to organize the expedition. The Navy obliged. This was to have profound and unlooked-for consequences. It led to the virtual monopolization by naval officers of British Polar exploration until the first decade of this century. The voyage inspired by the transit of Venus was commanded by a man of quiet genius, James Cook, one of the greatest of discoverers.”
― Roland Huntford, Scott and Amundsen: The Last Place on Earth