Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica

11. Crozier

58 11. Crozier eee In 1841, Sir James Clark Ross sailed into new territory—and history books—when his two wooden ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, entered an unknown Antarctic sea. Ross’ expedition reached farther south than anyone had previously ventured, and this record would stand another fifty-eight years before competing teams raced for the South Pole. On his return, Ross was knighted, nominated to the Legion d’Honneur, and eventually died of heavy drinking in Aylesbury, England. Today, his name is plastered everywhere down south. That cold sea, south of New Zealand, is now called the Ross Sea. Its frigid waters bite a chunk from Antarctica’s pancakelike contour, extending farther south than any other ocean. The Ross Sea is a bleak place, except underwater. Incredibly rich concentrations of phytoplankton support dense marine life, from microscopic bacteria to whales. In 2007, long-line fishermen here accidentally snagged a Colossal Squid thirty-three feet long and weighing more than one thousand pounds—the largest squid ever documented. A cluster of mountains emerges from the west edge of the sea, forming Ross Island. The island is often mistaken for part of the Antarctic mainland, since the intervening ocean lies buried under a thick, floating ice sheet the size of France. This blanket, called the Ross Ice Shelf, collects the runoff of several large glaciers. Ross Island, just shy of one hundred miles across, contains two gnarly volcanoes, each named somewhat darkly for one of Ross’ ships: Mount Erebus and Mount Terror. Erebus is the taller twin, reaching well over twelve thousand feet, qualifying the island as Earth’s sixth highest. Erebus is also the world’s southernmost active volcano and usually issues a wispy plume from its icy summit. Residents are relaxed about the mountain’s activity. 59 Crozier Map by Grace Gardner 60 Noah Strycker When the volcano is talking to us, people reason, it’s happy. When it goes all quiet, watch out. Today, the island houses twin U.S. and New Zealand settlements, respectively McMurdo Station and Scott Base. The environmental group Greenpeace also set up camp on Ross Island in the late 1980s to encourage Antarctic Treaty nations to declare the entire continent a World Park. After five years of being politely ignored, Greenpeace discontinued the occupation. Several penguin colonies scatter around the island’s shores. The largest sits at Cape Crozier, in the lee of Mount Terror at the island’s eastern tip. Crozier carries the name of Francis Crozier, captain of the HMS Terror, and, more pertinently, Sir James Clark Ross’ best friend. Once Cape Crozier was on the map, other explorers followed—slowly. In 1902, the British Discovery Expedition, including luminary Antarctic explorers Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, became the first to land at Crozier. They erected a giant wooden post on a rocky ridgetop, visible from sea, to serve as a pre-arranged message point. Mail could be left there for later parties. More than one hundred years later, that weathered wooden post still stands at Crozier, reminding penguin researchers of a time before GPS and satellite Internet. The Discovery Expedition further scouted and charted Crozier, making several visits to the eastern tip of Ross Island. A scouting party led by Charles Royds discovered the small Emperor Penguin colony there later in 1902. On one aborted attempt to reach Crozier from the other side of Ross Island, a group of explorers became trapped in a blizzard, and, in trying to navigate among broken ice, one man slid over a cliff. His body was never recovered. Priorities on the Discovery Expedition soon turned to marching south. Shackleton collapsed with scurvy, Scott called him a wuss, and, after two years of reconnoitering the area, the expedition returned to England. Shackleton would command his own heroic Antarctic journey ten years later, solidifying a longstanding place 61 Crozier among legendary explorers. Meanwhile, penguins continued to inhabit Cape Crozier, no doubt amused by their occasional human visitors. Robert Scott, marching toward destiny, returned to lead the British Antarctic Expedition in 1910, goaded more by glory (and his wife) than anything else. This time, he aimed for South Pole fame, racing against Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian team to reach the end of the Earth. Scott made some mistakes—for instance, he relied on ill-adapted horses to haul equipment across the ice—and, after a marathon march, famously tagged the pole thirty-four days after...