Tourists now following the Antarctic trail

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32689, 19 August 1971, Page 26

Tourists now following the Antarctic trail

(By

JEFFREY BLYTH,

of United Press International)

LONDON.

“Great God: this is an awful place,.was the reaction of Captain R. F. Scott when he reached the South Pole in January, 1912. Since then, conditions have improved, so much so that several hundred tourists can now claim to have spent i a holiday in Antarctica.

Organising out-of-the-way holidays for the travel-jaded is a growing business in the United States. No longer are many Americans content to spend their annual vacation in Mexico or Monte' Carlo. They are bored with erasing in the Caribbean.

They now look for something more exotic and exciting—and for a really off-beat holiday, one to boast about to the neighbours when you get back home, there is probably nothing to beat a trip to the Antarctic.

Getting there these days is not so difficult. It entails a 24-hour plane flight from New York, then a three-day sea trip from the tiny port of Ushuaia on the southernmost tip of South America. Of course, the presence in Antarctica of the United States Navy makes the visit a lot less hazardous. The United States, as well as several other nations, has maintained a base in Antarctica since, the International Geophysical Year in 1957. Although some of the United States Navy men are said to view the growing influx of tourists with misgivings, they are a reassuring presence—just in case someone falls down a crevasse, or the. tourist ship gets stuck in the ice. What does the tourist do in Antarctica? Take pictures, study the wild-life? These include seals, seabirds, and whales. And, of course, the penguins. For tourists who are able to include McMurdo Sound in their programme, there is the unusual sight ''of an active

volcano, Mount Erebus, trailing plumes of white smoke from-the top of its 13,000 ft high ice cone. It beats Vesuvius or Etna any day.

What sort of tourists are willing to pay up to SUSSOOO in air and sea fares for this sort of holiday? Scientists and doctors predominate. But ordinary married couples go along, too, and on several trips there have been a few grandmothers. “There is a tremendous interest in Antarctica,” says a spokesman for a New York agency which specialises in holiday trips to unusual places, and pioneered holidays to the Antarctic. “We have come a long way from the time when only a few hardy explorers were able to glimpse its beauty. Now, almost anyone can go there and see it first hand.” Already, close on 200

tourists have signed up for next season’s South Pole safaris. A spokesman for the United States Navy said: "The United States Government’s only stipulation on tourists coming to Antarctica is that they meet the necessary safety standards, are self-sufficient, and abide by the international agreements for the conservation and preservation of the Antarctic continent.” This is what worries the scientists and the conservationists. They have visions of hordes of tourists and sou-venir-hunters swarming over the ice-cap, scaring the penguins, leaving trails of litter, and perhaps even defacing or looting the few historic monuments.

For example, the hut at Cape Royds, where Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men spent a winter, is preserved just as

they left in it 1907, with tinned food, still in excellent condition, on the shelves, clothing hanging in the cupboards, portraits of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra on the walls. There is even a copy of the "Illustrated London News” still lying open on the table. Or the similar hut, equally well preserved, at Cape Evans which was built by Captain Scott and from which he set out for the South Pole. Already defaced, allegedly by "tourists,” is the 10ft memorial cross which Scott’s men erected on a hilltop overlooking Cape Evans when he failed to return. Tourists regularly climb the hill to take pictures of the Antarctic mountain range which, 900 miles away but clearly visible in the clear Antarctic air, stands guard over the South Pole.