Burke Library is currently featuring a new exhibit, "Antarctic Exploration in the Heroic Age."
It was initially planned to coincide with the Antarctic conference (now postponed until April 2002), and focuses on several of the voyages of exploration in the early twentieth century.
The exhibit features accounts by the two protagonists in the race to the South Pole. Roald Amundsen led the Norwegian expedition, which was the first to reach the South Pole on Dec. 14, 1911. Sir Robert Scott led the British expedition which reached the South Pole a month later, but all five members of the expedition who reached the pole perished on their return journey, a journey plagued by bad weather and low supplies. The exhibit also includes accounts of Sir Ernest Shackleton's British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition and the Australasian Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Douglas Mawson. Both stories tell of triumph over unexpected and overwhelming obstacles.
The exhibit will continue through the end of the semester.
