polar dog trivia

Gilbert Kerr piping with emperor penguin

"Once the unusual taste of penguin meat had become familiar, it proved to be a great favourite: fried and stewed, or as a basis for soup and curry."

post-trivial and more importantly post-prandial we were talking about dogs and the Antarctic. As you do. Or at least as boynton does, always zoning in on the dumb canine lead. Who knows - the topic proper may well have been Scott v Amundsen, or the Scott of John Mills.

While boynton knew something of the doomed Scott of the Antarctic, she hadn't ever considered the Scotland and the Antarctic angle, and was quite amazed to find this wonderful image collection from the voyage of the Scotia including:

W G Murdoch playing bagpipes in Polar Environment
A sledging party with a balloon
Three explorers with huskies and a flag

Footnote
Interesting table from the Shackleton page about Ponies and Dogs (The ponies were not a great success)

Pressure on ice and snow
Pony's hoof... 16 lbs/square inch
Dog's paw... 3.5 lbs/square inch
Human foot... 2.25 lbs/square inch
Ski... 0.5 lbs/square inch

oh and also the hazards of eating dogs in a polar environment

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Comments: polar dog trivia

nice blog.

sorry bout the spam :(
Posted by Scott Wickstein at October 23, 2003 04:15 AM

aarggh..I would almost auto delete such a comment if your name was "a, b, c, d or e"
Posted by boynton at October 23, 2003 11:21 AM