In 1901, a small crew of sailors, meteorologists, biologists, and other scientists embarked on a three-year journey of polar exploration known as the British National Antarctic Expedition. More famously referred to as the Discovery Expedition, the journey was led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest H. Shackleton, Edward A. Wilson, and Frank Wild. The crew primarily focused on traversing terrain and documenting the geographic, botanical, and zoological distinctions of the South Pole. As the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, Antarctica does not offer visitors the most welcoming of accommodations. The South Pole is especially challenging as it experiences just one sunrise and one sunset per year: the latter leading to six months of total darkness.
As one may imagine, sustaining a sense of normalcy sans-sunlight proved to be challenging for the crew; to avoid fallen spirits and waning morale they found creative ways to occupy their downtime. Writing in a diary was a common pastime, with several crewmembers keeping detailed logs of their days while others documented their experiences through illustration or photography. Inspired in equal parts by the desire to “lighten monotony” and to escape the dreary conditions of their temporary home, the crew devised a plan to creatively and collaboratively unite their hobbies.
In April 1902, the Discovery Expedition founded an Antarctic journal titled the South Polar Times:
“This the twenty-third day of April marks the disappearance of the sun for many long months; and as we can expect no light from without, we look for light from within. So in the hope that this idea may even in a small way be realized, the first number of the South Polar Times appears.”
– Editor’s note, South Polar Times, Issue 1
While a tradition of Arctic publishing in the North Pole was well-established by 1902, with the earliest shipboard newspapers dating to 1819, the South Polar Times was the first newspaper published on the continent of Antarctica, in the southern region known as the Antarctic. Additionally, it’s important to note that while these publications reflect the experiences of British expeditions, Indigenous communities have long navigated in and around both polar regions.
As the journal’s inaugural editor, Officer Ernest Shackleton quickly sprang into action. His first order of business was to claim a small room in the hold of the ship to serve as a dedicated publishing office, he then turned his attention to assembling a small but mighty team. The ships steward, C.R. Ford, was tasked with typing up each issue on a Remington typewriter while Dr. E. A. Wilson, Chief of Scientific Staff, supplied the journal with watercolor illustrations and hand lettering. The South Polar Times was also dotted with humorous caricatures by second lieutenant Michael Barne and folksy doodles by Robert Falcon Scott.
In its first year, the South Polar Times published five issues – one issue for each month of winter. Submissions were gathered using an anonymous collection box with many opting to write under a nom de plume. In an attempt to blur the lines of hierarchical delineation (if only for a moment), the South Polar Times stepped outside of the norms of typical shipboard publishing by accepting submissions from sailors and officers alike. Each issue was roughly thirty to forty pages long and typically followed a similar formula: a brief letter from the editor; topical stories about excursions or accomplishments such as “Ballooning in the Arctic” and “A Seal Chase”; various recurring field report columns like “Polar Plant Life”; monthly meteorological updates; several pieces of creative writing and poetry; seemingly endless inside jokes; and each issue almost always closed out with a monthly acrostic or puzzle. Though it was a generally light-hearted journal, every issue of the South Polar Times was crafted with the utmost care, attention to detail, and a crafty resourcefulness. The covers were made of a thin wood known as Venesta board – a plywood-like board used to make packing crates for provisions and supplies. Due to limited resources, only a single copy of each issue was produced. Once completed, the issue was passed around among the crew and often read aloud in the mess hall.
By April 1903, Ernest Shackleton was no longer aboard the Discovery, and in his absence physicist L. C. Bernacchi assumed the role of editor. Under his direction, the South Polar Times published three issues in April, June, and August. At the close of Winter 1903 the journal took an extended hiatus following the completion of the Discovery Expedition but was revived in Winter 1911 during Robert F. Scott’s Terra Nova expedition. In total twelve issues of the South Polar Times were published between 1902 and 1911. Though the journal was created for and by members of the expedition, readers back home were always a consideration. In early issues Shackleton notes that widespread production and distribution from the South Pole would be nearly impossible but implies that circulation among a public readership back home in England was a future goal.
This goal was realized when Smith, Elder, and Company of London published a three-volume edition as an exact reproduction of the South Polar Times. The original typescript copies are held by the Royal Geographical Society, British Library, and Scott Polar Research Institute, but the three facsimile volumes are how people most commonly encounter the journal. Volumes 1 and 2 were published in 1907, each in an edition of 250. Volume 3 was published in 1914 in an edition of 350. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress holds edition no. 48 of Volume 1 and Volume 2, and edition no. 55 of Volume 3.
Though he left the Discovery Expedition in 1903, Ernest Shackleton would return to the South Pole for a second time in 1907 as the leader of the British Antarctic Expedition, also known as the Nimrod Expedition. Likely inspired by his reign as editor of the South Polar Times six years earlier, Shackleton supplied his ship with the necessary equipment to establish a fully functional floating print shop. In an office of roughly six feet by seven, using an Albion handpress, a case of Caslon Old Face type, an etching press, and paper from the Abbey Paper Mill, Shackleton led his crew in the creation of Aurora Australis – the first book to be written, edited, illustrated, printed and bound in Antarctica.
“During the sunless months which are now our portion; months lit only by vagrant moon and elusive aurora; we have found in this work an interest and a relaxation and hope eventually it will prove the same to our friends in the distant Northland.”
– E. H. Shackleton, Preface to Aurora Australis
Printing Aurora Australis was a significantly more advanced process than the one-off typescript production of the South Polar Times – each page was typeset and printed by hand by Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild, while the lithography and etched illustrations were created by the expedition’s official artist, George Edward Marston. However, the bindings again made use of repurposed Venesta board from provision crates.
In fact, the crate boards have become the primary method of identifying and tracking the complete Aurora Australis edition. The exact edition number is unknown as the books themselves were not given any kind of numbered identification, but scholars believe that there were no more than 90 copies produced. Due to lack of formal editioning, each copy is instead tracked by the stenciled text on the inside of the crate boards. This stenciling has become a favorite among fans of the book, offering readers a more tangible illustration of day-to-day life aboard the ship. Because copies are tracked using the stenciled texts, a charming name-game has developed over time: The Museum Victoria in Melbourne holds the “Chicken” copy and Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge holds the “Irish Stew” copy while we affectionally refer to our copy here in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division as the “Turtle Soup and Honey” copy.
In addition to the herculean task of hauling a print shops worth of equipment to the South Pole, the crew also had to put up with the undesirable effects that the harsh climate imposed on various facets central to the printing process. Shackleton details these struggles in the books preface writing, “…owing to the low temperature in the hut, the only way to keep the printing ink in a fit state to use was to have a candle burning under the inking plate.” Some pages of the division’s copy of Aurora Australis seem to demonstrate these difficulties (smudged ink and inconsistent register of the ink are a few examples) though we see them less as error and more as welcomed marks that remind us of the hands that created these special books, and the harsh conditions under which they did so.
Sources and Further Reading:
An Albion in the Antarctic. (2023). St James Park Press.
Blum, Hester. (2019) The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration. Duke University Press.
Marston, G., Shackleton, E. H., & British Antarctic Expedition. (1908). Aurora Australis.
Polar Exploration: Primary Sources in the Manuscript Division LibGuide. (2019). Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
Shackleton Online. Scott Polar Research Center, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.
Stephenson, Robert B. (2008). Aurora Australis. http://www.antarctic-circle.org/aurora.htm.
The South Polar Times, Volume 1 – 3. (1907). London: Smith, Elder & Co.