Polar Museum transformed

The Polar Museum at Cambridge University’s Scott Polar Research Institute - which also holds the expedition diaries of Sir Ernest Shackleton and the photographic records of Herbert Ponting - has undergone a dramatic two-year transformation as part of a £1.75m redevelopment made possible by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Among evocative items on display for the very first time are the Terra Nova journals of Henry Robertson Bowers (pictured), Shackleton’s tea service, presented to him by the citizens of New York after his Nimrod expedition, and the UK’s first full-scale exhibition of Inuit Art.

The Museum, which last year began posting Captain Scott’s diary on Twitter, opens to the public in time for the centenary of his departure from Britain on the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition. Its reopening is the start of a two-year period of commemorations marking Scott’s achievements in the Antarctic. All events can be found at www.scott100.org.

Institute Director Professor Julian Dowdeswell said: “The redesigned Polar Museum is based on the theme of exploration into science, emphasising both the history of exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic and the wider environmental significance of the poles in a changing world.

“We can exhibit much more of our polar collection to the public than ever before and are now able to project not only the history of polar exploration, but also the contemporary significance of the poles in a warming world.

“The very moving last letters of Captain Scott and the iconic Antarctic photographs of Herbert Ponting are displayed alongside a series of exhibits on how science is undertaken in the very harsh conditions of the poles.”

Another item returning to display after the fifteen-month closure is the watch used for navigation on Shackleton’s perilous 800-mile journey in an open boat to rescue his men stranded on Elephant Island.

The Polar Museum contains one of the most exciting museum collections in the UK, offering visitors the chance to experience the story of Earth’s coldest, driest, highest, windiest and deadliest places.

The new Polar Museum will examine:

• The expeditions of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
• The triumph and tragedy of Captain Scott’s last expedition
• What life is like in the Arctic today
• How scientists are trying to measure change in the polar ice caps and predict what the future holds for polar man and beast alike
• How world powers are trying to lay claim to the last great wildernesses
• How British explorers mapped Arctic Canada

The Scott Polar Research Institute was established in 1920 by Frank Debenham as a memorial to Scott and his companions. Debenham was a geologist on Captain Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition 1910-13 (Terra Nova). He wanted a fitting tribute to the national hero and to ensure that Scott’s pioneering scientific work would continue.

New displays will also showcase the work of scientists and explorers, many of whom have set off from the Scott Polar Research Institute. The Institute’s continuing commitment to research is central to the museum and its varied collection and displays.

Its first special exhibition showcases the Museum’s newest acquisitions of Inuit art. These extraordinary sculptures and prints reflect the diversity of an artistic movement that only began in the late 1940s. Many important pieces have been loaned and hundreds more acquired through a Heritage Lottery Fund Collecting Cultures award, making the Polar Museum the holder of the UK’s largest public collection of Inuit art.

Dowdeswell added: “Our intention is to engage and inform visitors about the contemporary significance of the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as polar history, for example through the links between melting glaciers and sea-level rise which affects the British coastline directly.”