A freezing, 19-day Antarctic nightmare that became a classic of travel literature

History · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Apsley Cherry-Garrard survived one of the most brutal journeys in history to collect three penguin eggs. His harrowing account, The Worst Journey in the World, remains a masterpiece of adventure writing, though it was born from the trauma of watching his companions perish in the frozen Antarctic wasteland.

In 1911, Apsley Cherry-Garrard joined Edward Adrian Wilson and Henry Robertson Bowers on a winter trek to Cape Crozier. Their goal was to secure emperor penguin embryos to study evolutionary links between birds and reptiles. Battling temperatures as low as -77.5 °F, the trio man-hauled sledges across Ross Island in near-total darkness. They were forced to relay, walking three miles for every one mile of progress, eventually building an igloo from stone and canvas. When a force eleven blizzard destroyed their shelter, they spent days huddled in sleeping bags, singing hymns to maintain morale.

The expedition was marked by profound loss. Cherry-Garrard later accompanied a relief effort to find Robert Falcon Scott’s South Pole team. He reached One Ton Depot in March 1912 but, constrained by orders and severe weather, turned back before finding the party. Scott and his men perished just 11 miles away. This failure haunted Cherry-Garrard, who suffered from physical ailments—including shattered teeth from extreme cold—and what would now be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder. He spent years bed-ridden, struggling with depression and the weight of his decisions.

Encouraged by his friend George Bernard Shaw, Cherry-Garrard channeled his trauma into his 1922 memoir, The Worst Journey in the World. While initially criticized for its candid, non-heroic portrayal of Scott, the book eventually earned acclaim as the greatest true adventure story ever written. It served as a therapeutic outlet for the author, who spent his later years in London before his death in 1959. Today, the penguin eggs he risked his life to collect reside in the Natural History Museum, London, a silent testament to a journey defined by both scientific ambition and immense human suffering.

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