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Tents in the Polar Regions
Polar tents both today and in the heroic age are pyramid shape in design. In the heroic age typically a Willesden canvas, light green in colour to help with any snow blindness, would be placed over five bamboo poles, which would be tied at the top and spread out at the bottom. These poles would be kept tight by digging out and placing snow onto the tent’s skirt. The skirt was a circle of fabric at the base of the tent, which when weighted down with snow, would keep the tent anchored to the ground.
In the heroic age, the zip fastener had not been invented and so a door into the tent was protected using an entrance tunnel. This would be a funnel of fabric two and a half feet in diameter. Once everyone was in the tent this would be gathered up and tied, making the door as drift-proof as possible. A secondary hole at the top of the tent would act as a vent when cooking, although in practice this was often closed to maintain as much heat as possible.
Inside the tent a waterproof canvas ground sheet was spread on the floor to prevent the reindeer hide sleeping bags from coming into contact with the damp snow. It was very important to keep the tent from becoming wet inside, so the men would work hard to brush off any snow from their boots and clothing before coming inside. Any man bringing snow in was likely to be very unpopular. A three-man tent set up along these lines would be around five feet six inches (1.68m) in height and six feet (1.83m) in diameter, weighing around 30lbs (14kg).
On the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-04), Scott at first had little faith in the security of the tents against the Antarctic weather. However, he soon realised that when properly weighted down with snow the tent stayed fast. Unfortunately he learnt this the hard way. Whilst camping, Scott woke one night to find himself not in the tent where he had fallen asleep but out in the open. They had failed to secure one side of the tent sufficiently and the tent was blowing wildly in a storm. Scott made it back into the tent and along with his companions spent the next day holding onto the tent whilst they waited for the storm to subside.
One problem that Scott did discover was that the tents could not offer protection from the Antarctic climate for a prolonged period of time. By the start of the second year of the expedition, the tents had become very thin, due to the constant action of the wind on the fabric and so they needed to be patched where they had become threadbare.
Perhaps the most famous example of tent use going disastrously wrong concerns Wilson, Bowers and Cherry-Garrard, who undertook what was to become known as ‘The Worst Journey in the World’ during the British Antarctic Expedition (1910-13). The three men set off in the Antarctic winter, travelling to Cape Crozier to collect the emperor penguin eggs, which penguins incubate during the winter months. In what was an especially harsh winter, the men struggled against the weather, but finally did make it to Cape Crozier and collected the penguin eggs. Here they built an ‘igloo’ out of rocks, with a piece of tarpaulin as a roof. Whilst sleeping in the igloo, the men were hit by hurricane force winds. They woke to find that their tent had blown away; eventually the wind was to take the tarpaulin off the roof of their rock igloo, leaving the men without any proper means of shelter. They lay in their sleeping bags getting drifted up; whilst this kept them warm they had to be careful not to get too snowed up. As they lay in their sleeping bags in the howling winds the men sang hymns to keep their spirits up. Stuck in their bags, they were unable to eat for over forty-eight hours but were able to melt small pieces of snow in their mouths to provide water.
They feared that without their tent they would never make the seventy-mile journey home. After two days and nights the men were able to venture out from their sleeping bags and search for the tent. Luckily Bowers located the tent, which was miraculously intact - without this it is unlikely that they would have survived. It appeared the tent had been blown upward at which point it closed up like an umbrella and so remained in one piece. The men made it back to Hut Point with three penguin eggs. These were later given to the Natural History Museum in London.
Adaptations to Tents(top)
Tents have also been combined with the protection of snow to produce more permanent and sturdy tent structures. A prime example of this is the British Arctic Air Route Expedition 1930 who built an ice-cap station from which they could monitor the ice cap’s weather throughout the year. Knowing what the weather was like at the ice cap all year round was central to establishing whether an air route would be possible. The station consisted of a tent sunk into the snow, which eventually would form an igloo. This would provide the men with further warmth and security than the tent alone could have. The tent igloo would be connected to two snow-houses by a network of tunnels.
Whilst journeying from the main base to the ice cap the team bringing the second pair of occupants ran into difficulty. They found the weather much harsher than expected and so the journey took them a lot longer, which meant they had used up more food than intended and only had enough for one man to stay behind in the ice cap station instead of the intended two. This left a difficult dilemma, either they pick up the current occupants and return abandoning weather measurements or they could leave one man to winter in the ice cap station alone. Augustine Courtauld, known as August, (one of the men who originally would have been left at the station) insisted that he be left behind to undertake the measurements; he was not getting on with some members of the expedition, and had mild frostbite in his toes so did not want to immediately undertake a return journey. He also thought it vital to the success of the expedition that the measurements continued. Eventually he persuaded the others to leave him, and on 6 December waved them goodbye.
Six times each day Courtauld would venture outside to take weather measurements, often having to dig himself out of his exit tunnels which became blocked in blizzards. He managed to get around this by cutting a hole in one of the snow houses and using a ration box as a door. He had expected to be relived around March but did have enough rations to last him longer. However by March 22 he was buried in his cave, the weight of snow on his ration box door was too great for him to open it, and as he had left his spade outside he was unable to dig his way out. Short of paraffin, which he needed to keep melting drinking water he spent many hours alone in the dark. All this time repeated efforts to rescue Courtauld were being aborted due to poor weather.
Meanwhile a media storm had whipped up across the world and a long-range plane had been sent to rescue Courtauld. The plane arrived to see Courtauld making his way back to the main base; a rescue party had finally located the tops of the survey instruments and the Union Jack marking his position, he had been rescued just as his food ran out.
Courtauld was embarrassed by all the fuss and immediately sent a telegram to his fiancé Mollie stating that “fit as an orchestra …Take no notice hysterical rescue nonsense. Relief carried out as part of ordinary programme. No danger. Love”
He had the calm character and positive outlook necessary to be a polar explorer.
The ice-cap station demonstrated that it could prolong the use of tents in the field, but that it was very important that the exits were kept clear. It also showed that it is especially important to mark the location of snow buried tents especially carefully; the drifting snow can completely cover tents and obscure their location to search teams.
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