HISTORIC SLEDS AT LYTTELTON

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27896, 18 February 1956, Page 8

HISTORIC SLEDS AT LYTTELTON

Display For Raising Of Funds EQUIPMENT FROM ANTARCTICA Three weather-beaten Norwegiantype sleds used by Captain Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton, a harpoon, a reindeer-skin sleeping bag. a tin of eggs and canned food and cocoa, which have lain untouched in the Antarctic for 40 years and more,- have been brought back to New Zealand by Lieu-tenant-Commander M. J. N. Foster, Royal Navy observer with the American Antarctic expedition. Commander Foster, who returned yesterday in the icebreaker Glacier, is arranging to send the relics to Dr. Colin Bertram, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge. England. Two of the sleds, and a fibre-glass “boat” sled used by the New Zealand observers with the American expedition this season, the sleeping bag. and some of the food will be displayed in New Zealand during the fund-raising campaign of the Ross Sea Committee. Some of the food was in excellent condition. Canned strawberries, served in the officers’ mess of the Glacier while she was lying off Ross Island, were received with delight, and some of the cocoa which was broached had lost nothing from being 40 years or more in the tin. Dr. Trevor Hatherton, of the New Zealand party, has some tins of food, and these will be displayed by the Ross Sea Committee. The food was found in dumps outside the huts at Cape Royds and Cape Evans, and from a store inside the Cape Royds hut. The sleds, harpoon, eggs, sleeping bag. and the exhaust manifold of a tractor were discovered there. Dr Oliver Austin, of the United States Air Force, found one sled and eggs at Cape Royds. A Siberian-type sled was also found by Commander Foster, and this he is taking with him to England. The two that will be shown in New Zealand are 12ft dog sleds of ash and hickory. The Cape Royds sled was lying in the water, with only the tip showing. The runners are cracking, and the tarred ropes have begun to rot and fray The Cape Evans sled is in much better condition. Bleached and weather-worn, with some of the lashings gone, it is still in a remarkable state of preservation.