Publishing and Polar Exploration

'It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more': so the dying Robert F. Scott scrawled into his Antarctic diary, before signing off for the last time. It might seem surprising that for Scott- starving, freezing, exhausted and surrounded by his dead or near-dead companions in a small tent on an Antarctic ice shelf- the 'pity' of his situation lay in his inability to write. While this concluding statement could simply be read as the British explorer's understated way of signalling his knowledge of his own impending death, this was not the only time that Scott had connected survival with writing. His 'Message to the Public', written earlier into the back of his diary, included the now-famous line, 'Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell ... that would have stirred the heart of every Englishman'. Again, the main benefit of living, as Scott frames it, is to be able to tell one's story. His words are a salient reminder that, in polar exploration conducted remote from human witnesses, writing (and, eventually, publishing) is just as important as action.