Nearly a century after Capt. Robert Falcon Scott explored the southern continent, experts are working to save the British explorer's wooden hut (pictured on Ross Island, Antarctica, in August 2006) and three others in the area from slipping under the snow forever.
The sanctuary measures 50 feet (15 meters) long and 25 feet (7.6 meters) wide and was built to house up to 33 men.
Scott and his crew stayed at the hut before their ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole in January 1912. Scott and four others died after being beaten to the pole by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
"Had we lived," Scott wrote in March 1912 in a message found with his body, "I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.”
A stash of frozen butter (pictured in December 2009) was recently discovered by experts excavating Scott's expedition base, including his hut.
The butter, which had lain hidden in the stable yard for a hundred years, was made by the Canterbury Central Co-operative Dairy Company in New Zealand.
Scott's ship, the Terra Nova, would've sailed from England with dry goods, said Rachel Morgan, a spokesperson for the Antarctic Heritage Trust, a nonprofit devoted to preserving the huts of Scott and other Antarctic explorers.
But "perishables like butter couldn't be taken through the tropics, so they had to source such things in New Zealand," Morgan said.
The dining table in the Terra Nova hut (pictured in 2009) still contains bottles and containers that Scott's crew used during meals.
Despite the cramped quarters, the hut was still divided into officers' quarters and "men's" quarters. Each group took their meals separately, Antarctic Heritage Trust's Morgan said.
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