What is an expedition - well technically it involves a scientific element or has a specific purpose. In theory the race to the pole in 1912 between Edmundson and Scott was a bit of a miss match partly because Scotts party was an “expedition” and they had a distinct scientific element where as Edmundson did not, but sour grapes asides Scotts party choose “technology” over tradition and so Edmundson had the natural advantage built on decades of knowledge and understanding starting with arguable the godfather of polar travel Fridtjof Nansen who honed his skills by studying the polar Inuit.(The real experts). We have a reproduction example of the “hero” jacket worn by Edmundson in our museum collection. Made of little more than waxed sack cloth and lambs wool it is surprisingly warm, we have tested it to -22c and it works quite well. We would imagine it would get a bit smelly and itchy after a while.

Today when we talk of an expedition we mean any trip to a far flung or difficult to reach location and many a company has been founded on providing commercial “expeditions” to its willing customer base. Hurtigruten, Quark, G-Adventures to name but a few.  Ultimately most of us want a “controlled” adventure, apparent rather than real danger, even so expedition travel pushes the boundaries to what you might think is possible and they are not without risk. In 2007  we planned an expedition  with GAP Adventures' and MS Explorer which sank that year in the Bransfield Strait off King George Island near Antarctica. We spoke first hand to some of the Philippine crew who helped get everyone to safety. Not a single life was lost. In 2011 on another (now G Adventures after a row with the clothing company of the same name) on Expedition we won the wildlife photographer competition for our '“cute” fur seal shot (he/she had severe conjunctivitis so appeared that they were winking and sticking their tongue out). We gave the bottle of champagne we won to the real hero’s - the Philippine crew who kept their heads and helped (along with the rest of the crew) save a ships company of people.  Several years later off the coast of East Greenland MV Expedition (actually an ice strengthened converted car ferry) and during the voyage we hit an iceberg and bent a propeller shaft and we had to limp around East Greenland on on one prop. The vibration when they tried engine two was horrendous. I was lucky enough to visit the engine bay with the chief engineer (a Polish guy) and he explained the issue to me. The twin engines themselves were (are) basically locomotive diesel engines - very simple (but bloody massive - even the gudgeon pin that holds the pistons in weights many KG) but reliable. They have a fantastic engineering department on board ship. Given that we were sailing in uncharted waters with just depth soundings for guidance, on one engine potentially a risky business, but the crew were well drilled and the skipper (Russian) experienced in polar waters.