Emperors of the Ice

The 'Winter Journey' of 1911 is at one level merely a fascinating lost chapter in the history of Antarctic science, but it turns out to be a key that unlocks the real meaning of one of the most mythologized and misunderstood episodes in British history, Robert Falcon Scott's alleged "race to the Pole". It's also one of the greatest survival epics of all time. In the Antarctic Winter of 1911, while waiting for Scott's main expedition to begin, three extraordinary men decided to amuse themselves with a side-expedition. They set out into the perpetual winter dark hauling two wooden sleds with a combined weight of over 700 lb. The point was to test a s new twist on Darwin's theory of natural selection by collecting and studying the incubating eggs of the Emperor penguin. It would only take a week, they thought. But everything went wrong, and only one of them would live to tell the story. Rife with captivating details of survival in an icy wilderness, and illustrated with dozens of photographs from the actual journey, this re-imagining of the famous 1910-1913 expedition, told in Cherry's voice, is an unforgettable tale of courage, camaraderie, and science at the extremes.