ABSTRACT
Sara Wheeler concludes her travel memoir, Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, by recalling how she felt compelled to spend her last hours in Antarctica in Scott’s Terra Nova hut, Cape Evans. She recounts how she ‘lay awake for many hours, my head on his pillow, as he [Scott], weighed down by his heavy responsibilities, must often have done’ (Wheeler, 1997, p. 297), until finally she fell asleep. In 2012, the centenary of Scott and his companions’ arrival at the South Pole, Wheeler reflected again on her last hours in Scott’s hut: ‘On my last day in the Antarctic, I slept on Scott’s bunk. In truth, not much sleeping went on as I was too afraid my heart would freeze’ (Wheeler, 2012, n.p.). The allure of Antarctica has drawn her finally to lie in Scott’s place, in his bunk, where she is to ponder Scott’s last hours in a tent outside on the ice whilst also being kept awake by her own experience of the Antarctic cold and the threat it poses to her survival. As she re-tells it, Wheeler’s bodily experience of the extreme environment co-exists with the emotional resonance of her recollection of Scott’s account of his last hours. The fusion of bodily sensation and emotion is captured in her fear that her ‘heart would freeze’.
