8 famous Antarctic expeditions

One of the Antarctic expeditions ‘Endurance’ pictured trapped and frozen in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea shortly after the return of the sun after the long Antarctic winter

(Image credit: Getty / Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)

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Cook crossing Antarctic Circle
Antarctica sighted
Polynesian voyage
First landing
Terra Nova expedition
Amundsen at the South Pole
Shackleton's Endurance
Trans-Antarctic Expedition
Additional resources
Bibliography

Antarctic expeditions to the continent of Antarctica have long fueled fascination and burnished the allure of the icy continent. Many of Antarctica's most iconic expeditions are remembered to this day for their achievements, tragedies or stories of against-all-odds survival.

The history of Antarctic expeditions is disputed and stretches back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Intrepid explorers have faced some of the most testing conditions in the region, including impenetrable blizzards and dwindling food supplies. Here are eight famous expeditions that traversed the frozen land of Antarctica.

Capt. Thaddeus von Bellingshausen, sometimes called Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, may have been the first person to see the mainland of Antarctica. During a Russian expedition in January 1820, he noted seeing "an ice shore of extreme height," according to the Royal Museums Greenwich in London. Von Bellingshausen did not claim to have discovered the continent, but his descriptions of what he saw match up well with what the edge of the continent looks like, according to a 1971 study in the journal Polar Record.

Conflicting accounts put either Norwegian explorer Carsten Borchgrevink or expedition captain Leonard Kristensen as first from the 1895 expedition to touch down on Antarctica. New Zealander Alexander von Tunzelmann is also sometimes credited as the first person out of the boat and maintained he was the first ashore until he died in 1957, according to the New Zealand government's NZHistory website.

British naval officer and explorer Robert Falcon Scott led two expeditions to Antarctica, during which he attempted to reach the geographic South Pole. His crew was forced to turn back on his first attempt at reaching the South Pole in 1902 because of poor health and cold weather, according to Royal Museums Greenwich. Scott and his crew left for Antarctica a second time in 1910, sailing there on a whaling ship called the Terra Nova.

Scott landed in Antarctica and began his trek for the pole on Nov. 1, 1911. He reached the South Pole on Jan. 17, 1912, only to discover that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had already been and gone. A disappointed Scott then faced a series of problems on the way back, including bad weather, frostbite, fuel leakages and a lack of food. One crewmember, Lawrence Oates, was slowing down the team because of frostbite, and he sacrificed himself by walking out into a blizzard on March 15, according to the University of Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute.

Scott and his remaining two men got caught in another blizzard and died about 11 miles (18 kilometers) from the safety of a food and fuel depot. The last entry in Scott's diary, dated March 29, 1912, describes a continuous gale and limited food. "Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift," he wrote. "I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far."

In 1911, Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole. The Norwegian was born to a family of shipowners and became a seasoned explorer. He initially planned and raised funds to head for the North Pole in 1909 but got word that Robert Peary and Frederick Cook, two Americans, had become the first people to reach it just as he was poised to leave. Scott publicly announced he was heading for the South Pole in 1910, and Amundsen secretly decided to do the same, according to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Amundsen landed his ship, the Fram, in the Bay of Whales, which was about 60 miles (100 km) closer to the pole than where Scott landed in McMurdo Sound, according to Royal Museums Greenwich. Amundsen began his journey to the pole three weeks before Scott and arrived at the pole 33 days earlier than him, on Dec. 14, 1911, before returning home safely. As well as leaving sooner, there were a variety of reasons Amundsen beat Scott to the pole. He fared better on an unknown route and moved faster with only sled dogs, whereas Scott also had ponies.

By 1914, Ernest Shackleton had already made two expeditions to Antarctica. But that year, he and his crew set out to do something even more ambitious: complete the first crossing of the Antarctic continent — about 1,800 miles (2,900 km). The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, as it was known, ground to a halt in October 1915 because the expedition's ship, the Endurance, became trapped in sea ice. Shackleton and his men took what they could off the ship, including food and lifeboats, before it was crushed and sank.

The wreck of the Endurance was rediscovered in 2022, more than 100 years after it sank, by searchers using robotic underwater vehicles, Live Science previously reported. "This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen," Mensun Bound, the director of exploration on the expedition to find the ship, said in a statement. "It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation. You can even see [the name] 'Endurance' arced across the stern."

British explorer Vivian Fuchs succeeded where Shackleton had failed by making the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 1958, during the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Fuchs traveled 2,158 miles (3,473 km) across the continent from the Weddell Sea to McMurdo Sound, visiting the South Pole on the way, according to the New Zealand government's Antarctica New Zealand website. Fuchs was supported by New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary, whose team placed supply drops from the Weddell Sea inland to the South Pole for Fuchs to pick up as he crossed.

Patrick Pester is the trending news writer at Live Science. His work has appeared on other science websites, such as BBC Science Focus and Scientific American. Patrick retrained as a journalist after spending his early career working in zoos and wildlife conservation. He was awarded the Master's Excellence Scholarship to study at Cardiff University where he completed a master's degree in international journalism. He also has a second master's degree in biodiversity, evolution and conservation in action from Middlesex University London. When he isn't writing news, Patrick investigates the sale of human remains.

8 famous Antarctic expeditions

1. James Cook's crossing of the Antarctic Circle

2. First recorded sighting of Antarctica

3. Overlooked Polynesian voyage

4. First landing on Antarctica

5. Scott's Terra Nova expedition

6. Amundsen's arrival at the South Pole

7. Shackleton's Endurance

8. The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition

Additional resources

Bibliography