KEY POINTS:
Sir Edmund Hillary's return to Scott Base for its 50th anniversary has brought a reminder that his polar expedition of 1957 was an act of insubordination, probably less delightful at the time than it seems now. The New Zealanders were to establish the base as a supply depot for a Commonwealth transantarctic expedition led by British geologist Sir Vivian Fuchs. Having done so, Hillary's team were supposed to lay up and wait for Fuch's party to trek across the continent from Shackleton Base.
But being adventurous types, and believing they knew a new way into the polar plateau, they thought they might race the British to the pole. Ignoring instructions from London, they climbed on their Massey Ferguson tractors and set out. After a hazardous journey up the Skelton Glacier, through blizzards and across crevasses, they reached the plateau and made it to the South Pole, beating the British by 17 days.
There is surely a lesson in that story regarding who now should pay for the preservation of the huts used by Scott and Shackleton a century ago. It emerged during the anniversary discussions that Helen Clark has twice suggested to her British counterpart, Tony Blair, that his Government might contribute. The response has been zero. The British Antarctic adventurers cannot be as celebrated in their homeland as they still are in this country. Should we be surprised?
Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton, to whom statues were erected in New Zealand, were almost the last in a long tradition of British seamen whose explorations gave birth to a great maritime empire. Scott and Shackleton took on the world's last unclaimed land mass. Their expeditions were heroic and inspiring to anybody with a sense of the challenge, but perhaps particularly to New Zealanders.
This country was their last safe and comfortable stop, their supply point and stepping stone to the unknown. They were the first to bring a sense of adventure here, inspiring Sir Edmund, by his own account. He became, and remains, the epitome of New Zealand achievement, inspiring in turn the likes of Sir Peter Blake, whose son is now in Antarctica helping to restore Shackleton's hut.
New Zealand has taken upon itself the task of preserving the huts. The $7 million cost of work so far has been borne by the Government and the Antarctic Heritage Trust, which seeks private and corporate donors. Another $9 million is needed. The Prime Minister, the trust chairman, Paul East, QC, and Sir Edmund are all appealing to the British Government to help. But really, we can do this, as Sir Edmund did 50 years ago, on our own.
It is entirely our initiative and another $9 million is a drop in the bucket that taxpayers provide the Department of Conservation. The department expends that much and more on remote mainland sites and islands that few of us are ever likely to see. Scott's hut, which urgently needs work to begin to save it from the elements, is a well-trod attraction by comparison with some of the department's expensive secrets.
So let's give Britain a break. The prospect of expending millions to maintain a couple of rough huts deep in snow on the far slide of the globe cannot have much appeal in Whitehall today. To Britain these are distant relics of an era long past, and it probably feels it has quite enough of a colonial legacy to maintain at home.
But to New Zealand the huts are not so far away and remain evocative. Antarctica is in our sphere of identity. We have taken a leading role in its scientific discovery and environmental protection. We can easily look after the shrines to our heritage there.
