Great feast recreated
11:24am Tuesday 26th June 2001
CHRISTMAS came early to the National Maritime Museum when Captain Robert Scott's 1911 “Midwinter Dinner” was recreated to mark the 90th anniversary of the Antarctic feast.
Relatives of Captain Scott's party, and rival Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, gathered at the museum on Midsummer's Day (Thursday, June, 21) to commemorate the historic meal.
In June 1911 the English explorer settled down to a turkey dinner in the South Pole, while at home in England families celebrated the balmy summer's day.
But rather than head to the Antarctic to mark the day, relatives went to Greenwich to tuck into the Christmas meal this year.
Anne-Christine Jacobsen, great niece of Captain Roald Amundsen, said: “It was a super time. I found it very strange to sit there with the decorations as the men had done, with the Christmas trees all around. It was very sad to imagine all the hardships they must have faced.”
Scott's “wondrously attractive” meal, complete with “extravagant” menu and “enormous” Christmas tree, took place in their hut at Cape Evans.
The dinner table sat alongside several objects which were at Cape Evans for the original dinner, including the original menu card, and the exhibition area was dressed for Christmas.
The elaborate occasion was originally recorded by expedition photographer Herbert Ponting.
Tragedy followed the meal when, in January 1912, Scott was found dead with his men in their tent, having been beaten to the pole by his rival Amundsen.
The Greenwich re-creation was part of National Maritime Museum's current exhibition South: the Race to the Pole.