Les Jones

Quotes > Apsley Cherry-Garrard

"There are many reasons which send men to the Poles, and the Intellectual Force uses them all. But the desire for knowledge for its own sake is the one which really counts and there is no field for the collection of knowledge which at the present time can be compared to the Antarctic.

"Exploration is the physical expression of Intellectual Passion. And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man, you will do nothing: if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have the need to prove their bravery.

"Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, 'What is the use?' For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which will not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg."
 -- Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, 1922

If polar or exploration literature are your thing, Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World is essential reading. He was the youngest member of Robert F. Scott's expedition to be the first men to reach the South Pole. He was fortunately not part of the ill-fated group that made the final trudge to the pole, only to perish on the return trip.

In searching for more information about Cherry-Garrard, I discovered that he was a friend of George Bernard Shaw's. Shaw helped edit the book and suggested the title. Cherry-Garrard had wanted to title the book Never Again: Scott, Some Penguins, and the Pole, 1910-1913.

There's a heartbreaking scene in the book when he makes the return journey by steamer to New York. He has been to the ends of the Earth. He has suffered in the cold for months on end. He has seen his friends commit suicide or die, searched for the bodies of the polar team, and himself discovered Scott's body on the ice. He and two others were trapped out in a snow storm for two days when their tent was blown away in a storm on their expedition to retrieve something that no man had ever laid eyes on: an unhatched Emperor Penguin's egg. When he completes his long journey and arrives at the museum in Manhattan he announces he has arrived with the Emperor Penguin's egg for science. Someone who barely takes notice of his presence tells him, in essence, "Oh, OK. Put it over there."