#Terra Nova Camp

[infandousxx]

Terra Nova, NL

August 2024

[duckprintspress]

Queer Horror Stories to Celebrate Mary Shelley’s Birthday!

Today, August 30th, is Frankenstein Day and Mary Shelley’s Birthday! To celebrate the first horror novel, we decided to ask our contributors about their favorite queer horror novels and ended up with 28 titles for a very spooky end of summer. Contributors to this list are: Shadaras, D.V. Morse, Nova Mason, Terra P. Waters, Rhosyn Goodfellow, Nina Waters, Meera S., Shea Sullivan, Owl Outerbridge, Sanne, Tris Lawrence, boneturtle and an anonymous contributor.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

The Devourers by Indra Das

Into the Drowning Deep & Rolling in the Deep (Rolling in the Deep series) by Mira Grant

What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier series) by T. Kingfisher

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot

The Honeys by Ryan La Sala

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zi Xu

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

The Hills of Estrella Roja by Ashley Robin Franklin

The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles series) by Anne Rice

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumokuren

Pet Shop of Horrors by Matsuri Akino

Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

Make the Exorcist Fall in Love by Aruma Arima & Masuku Fukayama

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

Fate/Stay Night by Type-Moon

Umineko When They Cry by Ryukishi07

Case 00: The Cannibal Boy from Sounding Stone

Welcome to Night Vale

The Silt Verses

What are your favorite queer horror novels? Tell us in the comments!

Want to chat your favorite reads with us? Join our Book Lover’s Discord server!

Update your Goodreads TBR with any of these books by visiting our queer horror shelf on Goodreads!! Or, jump onto Bookshop.org and browse these books on our queer horror list!

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Final Girl

Stephen Graham Jones: Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this the tale of the girl who’s obsessed with slashers Jones: there’s this girl who just constantly talks about slashers Barker: oh that sounds really annoying Jones: Barker: like that sounds SO annoying

Jones: so one day she thinks she might be in the middle of her own slasher movie Jones: and she thinks oh shit this rules Jones: people are just gonna get murdered left and right Jones: this fucking rocks

King: so why’s she think she’s in a slasher movie? is there a killer on the loose? Jones: oh it’s cuz this hot virginal girl moves into town King: King: wait so not because anyone gets murdered? Jones: no just cuz this hot girl moves in Jones: i mean that’s usually the first indication that a slasher is around right? King: to be honest, it’s not usually the first thing I’d think of Poe: yeah that could indicate a lot of different things

Jones: so this hot but very pure girl moves into town King: and somehow that makes the slasher-obsessed girl think that she’s in a slasher movie come to life? King: but why would tha- Joss Whedon: [shrieking] SHE’S THE FINAL GIRL!!! Whedon: LET ME TELL THE STORY! Whedon: I KNOW ALL THE TROPES!

Jones: see, this girl knows the rules of a slasher movie Jones: so she knows how to- Joss Whedon: OH! OH!!! Whedon: OH!!!!!! Whedon: PICK ME!! PICK ME!! I have thoughts on this!! Jones: Jones: no Whedon: b-b-b Whedon: [weakly] b-but the tropes Whedon: [weakly] i-i need the tropes to live Whedon: [weakly] p-please Whedon: [weakly] the tropes Whedon: [pathetic cough]

Jones: also in the midst of this a whole herd of elk mysteriously dies Jones: possibly from overexertion during a pick up basketball game King: Poe: Jones: It could happen

Jones: so this girl sees some classmates going to a party Jones: so she puts on her michael myers mask and kind of stalks around in the background Jones: as you do

Jones: there’s a summer camp that was once the site of a slasher-type massacre. It was on the other side of the lake, up the road with the gas station, you know, the one  old man McGee ran? He used to sell sodas in cans, not with the pop tops. With the pull tabs. They don’t make those anymore, you can’t even get them. King: so about that massacre Jones: this is what we call local color

Jones: so i had to take the ferry over to terra nova. so i tied an onion to my belt, as was the style at the time. we didn’t have white onions on account of the war Koontz: [crying] when are we gonna get to the massacre

[spacecoffeeandcartoons]

discovery: welcome aboard the discovery, a custom-built science vessel that can conquer the pack ice in four days. our crew is young, dumb, and full of hope. we’ve got Captain Anxiety (Bachelor Edition), Slam Poetry Storemaster, Dr Polar-Bear-Dick-In-A-Jar, Frankie Wild-o, and Bilson <3. they know everything will be alright, because it will be! enjoy the cross-dressing theatricals, bi-weekly debates, and complimentary balloon rides! 

terra nova: hop aboard our leaky blubber-stained whaler bitch. do our motor sledges work? no. are our ponies dropping like flies? yes. is providence gonna let us have just one good day? fuck no. officers include Captain Anxiety (Dad Edition), Scurvilicious Himbo, Antivaxxer Eeyore, Ooze, Near-sighted Impostor Syndrome Lordling, and Uncle Bilson <3. if you want to shatter your teeth while camping tentless in 70 below, spend your anniversary in an ice hovel grateful to eat 10 raisins, or lose your foot to frostbite because you ate a hot curry, you’ve come to the right place. also, hut point is for plotting mutiny, and the dogs aren’t coming to save you. great god. (based on https://t.co/VSAxmMgoFm)

[vitorialada]

fechamento da fenda @silencehq. menção: @nemesiseyes.

Stevie sabia o que estava por vir. Todas as tentativas anteriores de fechar a grande fenda que partira o Acampamento Meio-Sangue em dois, na fatídica celebração secreta dos conselheiros, haviam terminado em falha e ataques de monstros. O resto dos campistas e os diretores também sabiam, pois novas armas foram colocadas nas mãos dos semideuses e a expectativa era de uma batalha certa. Também era, porém, da possível aparição do outro traidor e, quem sabe, da revelação de sua identidade.

Ao comando de Quíron e de seu líder de patrulha, ela se colocou a postos — com a mão direita agarrava o cabo de Invicta e, com o braço esquerdo, apoiava Contenda. O torso estava protegido pela armadura forjada em Waterland, recentemente modificada e agora com a propriedade especial de tornar-lhe resistente a ácido e venenos (e, deuses, como era longa a lista de monstros que soltavam um ou outro). Na cintura, Conquistadora e sua mais nova arma, o bumerangue que apelidara de Ventania encaixavam-se em um cinto de couro; e, finalmente, nos pés, usava as botas aladas que ganhara como recompensa após sua fracassada missão.

Ela jamais poderia prever que, em uma questão de minutos, estaria sendo — literalmente — arrastada para o inferno.

Não fosse pelos bons reflexos e pela velocidade sobre-humana concedidos à filha da deusa da vitória, Stevie certamente teria saído voando junto às árvores e aos brinquedos do parquinho. Mas, em um ato de raciocínio rápido, ela fincou a espada no chão e agarrou-se a ela enquanto as asas das botas batiam contra o puxão da fenda. Foi assim que salvou não só a si mesma como a outros semideuses pelo caminho, escalando o solo como se fosse a parede da sala de treinamento e levando os outros a locais que eram distantes o bastante da fenda para não serem engolidos por ela.

“Alguns de nós são mais honrados que outros, pelo visto.” Tadeu a dissera. “No seu caso, chega a ser doloroso o quanto você é obviamente uma heroína.”

Poucos meses atrás, ela concordaria. Modéstia nunca fora uma qualidade cultivada por Stevie Rowe, cujos olhos famintos olhavam para figuras como Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase e Leo Valdez e cobiçavam o poder que eles possuíam sobre o Acampamento. Quando Percy e os amigos eram citados, os campistas estremeciam. Quando entravam em um cômodo, todas as cabeças viravam em sua direção. Era isso que ela desejava ser: uma heroína, do tipo que os nomes paravam em livros de História e as figuras eram transformadas em estátuas.

Naquele momento, porém, ela não se sentia uma heroína. Não era o típico sorriso convencido que adornava seu rosto enquanto ela voava de um lado para o outro, recolhendo colegas e lutando contra o campo de gravidade da enorme rachadura no solo — era uma expressão de terror. De medo de ser picada por Campe ou envenenada por uma das cabeças da hidra, mesmo que as vozes ao seu redor gritassem que os monstros não eram reais. Se tinha medo deles, eram reais o suficiente. E, mais que isso, o olhar em seus olhos era do choque de alguém que assistira não só Elói, mas outro de seus amigos, Héktor, ser dominado pela consciência de Hécate e cair no chão, desacordado, sem demonstrar sinal algum de que se ergueria de novo.

Nada do que sentia lhe parecia heroico. Voar na direção oposta dos monstros em vez de enfrentá-los com certeza não era heroico. E, ainda assim, ali estava ela.

Então, de repente, tudo cessou. Ela viu a grande explosão de magia, o vermelho e o dourado misturando-se na nuvem pesada de poeira. Viu os monstros serem sugados para dentro da fenda, seus olhos tremeluzentes, como se as criaturas se desligassem. E, quando a poeira se desfez no ar, viu a terra costurada novamente, sem abertura alguma para dividi-la ao meio. Por um segundo, o silêncio se instaurou no campo de batalha enquanto as cabeças dos semideuses se levantavam para admirar as luzes verdes a flutuarem sobre suas cabeças.

Gritos vitoriosos irromperam, os semideuses correndo para se abraçarem e acudirem seus feridos. Stevie libertou um suspiro aliviado e, finalmente, sorriu. Havia sobrevivido à tormenta. Se fosse continuar a se martirizar, poderia fazê-lo depois.

Mas uma comoção diferente se criou entre a multidão de campistas. Alguns começavam a se mover apressadamente entre o restante, nomes sendo berrados sem resposta. Ela os conhecia, mas um em específico fez seu sangue gelar.

Rapidamente, ela olhou para trás, de onde havia se separado de sua equipe de patrulha.

“Tadeu.” Sussurrou Stevie.

Logo ela mesma afastava os outros semideuses com pequenos pedidos de licença e desculpas, esbarrando em ombros, quase tropeçando em pedras e galhos. Quanto mais procurava, mais tinha certeza de que ele não estava ali.

Não.

“Não, não, não, não, não…”

Uma pisada em falso e ela caiu sobre os próprios joelhos, palmas da mão na terra. Stevie não falhou em perceber onde elas estavam apoiadas: no mesmo pedaço do acampamento que, há meros minutos, a fenda se abria e esticava. E, agora, o lugar no qual seis semideuses foram vistos pela última vez antes de serem puxados para o abismo.

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

I just finished a re-read of Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s account of his time on the nightmarish Terra Nova Antarctic exploration, and it inspired me to look again at some helcaraxë art. I think Tolkien would have been aware of all of the most prominent Antarctic explorers, who were active when he was a young man and were very famous in their time, and I wonder how much he was thinking about their specific experiences as he worked on the story of the Noldor who were forced to cross the grinding ice.

Some of the real life accounts are truly horrifying and, of course, a bunch of them end with death. You’ve got people forced into unexpected terrain without access to proper supplies, trying to cross a hellish ice plain with a single axe, 15 meters of rope and boots with screws and nails pushed into the soles. 

You’ve got people trapped away from camp and racing against starvation to get back, starting out at full rations before cutting to half and then a quarter and eventually getting down to one biscuit per day per person, and even that is sometimes given up so that the weakest among them can have a little more and perhaps stave off disaster for a little bit longer.

You’ve got groups trudging across a mountainous ice field with snow blindness, hurricane force gales, every mile of forward progress requiring 3 miles of walking because they have to keep doubling back to help stragglers and retrieve supplies, but they’re still gamely trying to sing songs and hymns that can be heard above the screaming wind to remind themselves of better times and places.

You’ve got guys walking along one minute and the next they’ve vanished, swallowed up by a crevasse that didn’t even exist 10 seconds ago and now they’re broken and battered at the bottom of it.

You’ve got people having to hole up in tiny little snow caves to wait out storms that last for weeks on end, everyone so on top of each other that they all end up with dysentery and they can’t keep a fire going because the smoke chokes them, so they’re shivering so hard that their teeth break and every humid exhalation freezes immediately into a layer of rock hard ice on their clothes, gear, sleeping bags, skin.

You have injuries that no longer heal, frostbite that deprives people of the ability to walk, malnutrition that drains people of the energy to do anything at all, and so others are not just pushing forward with the weight of their own bodies and their own gear but the weight of the makeshift sledge that’s pulling their incapacitated friends because all the ponies and dogs have long since starved or been eaten.

You’ve got people who can see clearly that their dear friends’ refusal to abandon them despite their desperately poor condition is endangering the lives of others, and so one night they make their peace with death and quietly walk off into a blizzard on their own.

But despite all of that, some of them survived to tell the tales. They made discoveries. They pushed the limits of human knowledge and achievement. They went home to have families, or not. They became lifelong friends, or forever blamed each other for decisions that were made. They were endlessly proud of what they’d done, or regretted that they’d ever become involved. They went on to great historical acclaim or relative obscurity. They lived.

I don’t know. Feels relevant.  

[francaistoutsimplement]

Je savais que la Gauche avait laissé tomber les travailleurs, (N'est pas les bobos de Terra Nova) je parle des vrais, pas des petites natures qui se grattent le tarin devant un tas de glands et se mettent en arrêt dès qu’ils pètent trop fort dans leur slip kangourou!

Je savais que la Gauche était pour la libération sexuelle y compris avec les enfants! (N'est ce pas Cohn-Bendit, Frederic Mitterand, Jack Lang et bien d'autres...)

Je savais que la Gauche était friande de chemsex, de bars à coke et de putes à fric! (N'est ce pas les petits amis de Palmade)

Je savais que la Gauche se nourrissait de l’africanisation des quartiers et de l’électorat des frères musulmans! (Ben, faut quand même bien des noirs qui pédalent chez Uber pour livrer les bobos)

Mais je ne savais pas que la Gauche préférait un marocain récidiviste meurtrier sous OQTF à une jeune fille blanche, française, instruite, de bonne famille, sans histoires et sans défense!

Ce camp a non seulement des casseroles qui auraient dû lui ôter toute légitimité mais surtout, ce dont il est capable devrait nous alerter sur son niveau de salubrité.

Ils sont tous à vomir. Il faut être sorti du Q d’une collabo et avoir été bercé contre un mur par un punk à chien sous ecstasy pour se comporter d’une manière aussi excrémentielle, ad nauseam.

[jesslovesboats]

whats your fav historical boat and why ??:)

Hello 🙂 I'm so glad you've asked this question and I promise to be extremely normal about it 🙂

I can find something to love in almost every polar and/or nautical expedition, but nothing has captured my attention and my heart like the Karluk, the flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition.

The ship herself was a disaster. Built in 1884 as a fishing vessel, she was repurposed as a whaler in 1892, then acquired by Stefansson in 1913 for the bargain bin price of $10,000. The Karluk was uniquely unsuited for polar exploration-- she was old, rickety, and had what chief engineer John Munro described as a "coffee pot of an engine" that was so ineffective that icebreaking was out of the question. Captain Bartlett almost refused to take her north, but in the end, he acceded to Stefansson's demands. He would come to regret this decision.

In the least surprising turn of events ever, the Karluk became trapped in the pack only a month into the voyage, hundreds of miles from her destination. She remained there until she succumbed to the pressure of the ice and sank five months later, setting the stage for one of the most unbelievable survival stories in the history of polar exploration.

Why the Karluk? For me, it's that the ship was such a perfect metaphor for the expedition itself, which is not always the case! For example-- Terra Nova was overloaded and leaked like a sieve, but the expedition she supported was meticulously planned. Endurance could not withstand the pressure of the pack, but even so, her entire crew survived. The Karluk, though? A nightmare ship with a nightmare (derogatory) leader and a nightmare (affectionate) crew for a nightmare expedition. No part of this should have worked, and it's a miracle that anyone made it home. If not for the selfless actions and basic human decency of a select few crew members and the kindness and generosity of the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic, no one would ever know what happened to them.

Stefansson was simply the worst leader imaginable for a venture like this. He was smug, aloof, selfish, willing to play games with the lives of his men, and hopelessly out of his depth. He failed to adequately provision the expedition, a decision that would prove fatal. The crew he hired were a mix of polar veterans with substance abuse and/or ego problems, Indigenous people (including a family with 2 small children), untested men recruited off the docks, and inexperienced scientists not coping well with the rigors of exploration, among others. I need you to understand that these are my boys and I love them, but they were a MESS. The atmosphere on the Karluk and in the subsequent camps was a toxic sludge of fear and anger and paranoia and egos. No one here was elevated by their suffering, there was no code of honor keeping the men in line, and there were painfully few moral leaders setting examples for the others. With apologies to The Terror, survival was a nasty piece of business. To top it all off, Stefansson abandoned the Karluk and her crew after the ship became frozen in. He went on a "hunting trip" but conveniently failed to return. Leadership!

Hopefully this helps to explain why the Karluk is a perfect metaphor for this part of the Canadian Arctic Expedition. Only an old, crumbling whaler with a tiny, ineffective engine could have shepherded this disaster team to the shores of Wrangel Island. The Karluk was not the ship they needed, but she was the ship they had, and even Captain Bartlett grieved as she sank.

For more information, I highly recommend checking out The Ice Master by Jennifer Niven and Empire of Ice and Stone by Buddy Levy. I also Karlukpost regularly, and you can find my screeching in the Karluk tag.

I hope this answered your question, thanks for a fun ask! ❤️

[thehutpoint]

I had some laughs recently here, because of the photo that was chosen to adorn the note about proper tagging the posts in frozen boys department. I was laughing my arse off because the pic, with added words about hygiene, metaphorical but still, displayed some, um, not very hygenical deeds of certain gentleman. I published that photo earlier, discovering the unhygenical gentleman by accident, looking for, obviously, Titus Oates. There was even a bit of public investigation to find out above the reasonable doubt the identity of the offender against hygiene and manners. The picture depicts the hut at Cape Evans, with piles of the stuff hauled from the ship in front of it and some very busy men running around. Here it is:

My attention was immediately caught by the tall man in the center, the one in the white-ish pants, who is, obviously, Titus. The posture, the hat, that cannot be anybody else. The man next to him looked suspiciously like certain Cecil Meares, but I wasn't sure. So I immediately went to look for this pic in the biggest resolution possible, to blow it up. Soooo...

So I enlarged the pic and I got shocked. Good Heavens, Mister Meares! What is that right hand of yours doing and WHERE?! There are ladies watching here, mind your manners please!

Well, yes, dear Cecil is casually scratching his balls, because why not. I can imagine that with limited water and a lot of hard, sweaty work there might be some severe itch, requiring emergency scratch down there, though I am also pretty sure Ponko did not notice Meares's downstairs maneuvers while making the photo, because he would not potograph for posterity something so indecent. You won't find even any shirtless men or men in shorts in his pictures because decency. He did not notice it even while developing, otherwise it would end up in the waste bucket. So let's thank the Fate for this moment of Ponko's distraction that helped to preserve for the posterity that whiff of very laid back manners in the Terra Nova camp.

Looking at this photo admire also the fruit of sartorial creativity Titus wears on his lower parts (maybe I should write that anonymously to the Antarctic Confessions blog, but naked Titus had to be a memorable view, these long, muscular limbs, broad shoulders and chest, narrow waist and nicely shaped arse, oh my dearies...). The way these trousers are shaped on his butt is quite astounding and I am starting to think they were constructed from domething else. A sack maybe? Anyway. truly unique construction and I am not surprised these trousers got so many attention in the diaries and memiors of other expedition members. His hat, on the other hand, looks like something, probably a horse, chewed on it in a paroxizm of boredom.

PS. I always thought Meares is like a cat. Scratches his family jewels in a casual manner, vanishes when he has enough, ghosts people at a whim... If I had any poetic chops I would totally write another song for "Cats" musical, called "Mr. Meares" (when you two special interests meet in a head-on collision...)

[dwellington]

3 4 11!

right at the top i want to thank you 🫵 dear friend tumblr user sleepnoises for getting me in the habit of recording the books i read! without which i would have a much harder time answering these questions.

3: top five?

from fifth to first:

The Raven Tower, Ann Leckie

Cosmogony, Lucy Ives

The Last Samurai, Helen Dewitt

The Employees, Olga Ravn

Terra Ignota, Ada Palmer

it's my blog and i can put four books in first place if i want to.

4. new authors you love?

believe it or not: ada palmer! truly an extraordinary worldbuilder. given how much i loved both terra ignota and teixcalaan i think i need to track down more sff that's like 70% drawn from the author's doctorate. samuel delany also fits here--nova and babel-17 would fill out the rest of the top ten.

honorable mentions to seth dickinson, lucy ives, and the inimitable ms octavia butler, all of whom are in the "definitely going to read more" camp.

11. favorite old release?

this one has to go to giovanni's room by james baldwin. what a goddamn kick in the teeth (positive). where's that meme

honorable mention to mercedes lackey's the last herald-mage trilogy, a groundbreaking* depiction of queerness in fantasy fiction from the 90s, which i read along with the absolutely terrific Shelved by Genre podcast. i'm categorically apprehensive about giving podcast recommendations, but if you're at all interested in genre lit, ranged touch does really remarkable in-depth criticism without getting bogged down in academiana.

[croziers-compass]

Gender as Ship Ranks and Titles: A Drunken Ramble from Yours Truly.

Not particularly edited in any way and very Raw in its creation. So please forgive the hideous nature that this piece is written and articulated in.

Dead Dove. Do not Eat.

I have another weird influx of people resonating with the gender system of ship ranks and Naval History in several other groups and circles/communities I am in. And it's strangely wholesome right now because it has created an influx of individuals with varying degrees of understanding that specifically comes from Polar Exploration. This new influx is a bunch of Polar Explorers who have a particular niche interest in other Expeditions such as the Crozier-Ross Expedition, Terra Nova, the Ross Sea Party, Amundsen, Captain Scott, and Shackleton. So now, included in this, comes an influx from some people who attended Terror Camp and got to discuss some things with Francis Spufford who spoke about how strangely and very unexpectedly gendered it was on these Expeditions.

In my mind, despite the crews being all men, gender sort of melted away into ranks and how they provide for one another as individuals both through rank and their skills aboard the Expedition. He spoke a little about how the crews engaged with one another through almost "neo-gendered" roles that replaced conventional social structures and settings that you would normally have been seeing in the period appropriate binary that was so strictly enforced. From caregiving and support concepts as well as other nuanced aspects that were important for the crew and their social structures. This was because there was this immense amount of isolation and removal from conventional society and no other "binary" to compare themselves as individuals to. This removed gender altogether for the crews as they were so isolated and far from civilisation that such concerns, matters, and focuses were no longer an applicable structure. But still, yet, gender as a social structure plays a prominent role in understanding one another in a more social way and not a way to uphold "Gender Roles" or the "Gender Binary". It was not a necessity.

This was particularly true about the Shackleton Expedition and it seemed to impact a lot of others that have a sort of niche interest in the concept of gender associations that are expressed through varying "era's ship ranks". We observed this particularly with how some of the crew sought out very particular individuals and referred to them in almost an exclusive way where they connected the ship rank or the ship role to the crew member and began to exclude conventional pronouns in their journals. There was a fluidity to the way that they saw one another after being isolated for so long. The years spent away from the structures of conventional society meant that they needed to reinvent social society for themselves.

They could not afford to abide by the usual structures of society in the Polar Regions because it was not a safe way to survive.

The structures of Naval roles and Navy Ranks provided a good chain of command that could be relied upon as a narrative for who provides and does what for the expedition as well as the personality and entire energy of that individual.

Naturally, eventually, everything else fell away.

So there is this concept of conventional grasps of gender falling away entirely and no longer being useful to the societal structures that they once had. By extension, there is no need for the other concepts and structures that fit into the social binary. They don't exist. The Polar Regions are sterile. You are isolated. Without need of anything else but the chain of command to keep everything in a way that makes sense to the crew.

Final Disclaimer these are not sober ramblings.

[scotianostra]

March 29th 1912 is the estimated death of Explorer Henry ‘Birdie’ Robertson Bowers.

Bowers was born on 29th July 1883 in Greenock.

After his father, a naval captain, died in Rangoon, his mother raised him from the age of three with his two older sisters. The family moved to Streatham, London when Henry was around 13, he joined the merchant navy on leaving school and by the time he was 21 had sailed around the world four times on a cargo ship, The  Loch Torridon which became famous as one of the  most perfect four-masted barques ever built.

“Birdie” went on to join the Royal Indian Marine Service in 1905 and as sub lieutenant saw service in Ceylon and Burma then   commanded a river gunboat on the Irrawaddy. He later served on HMS Fox, preventing gun-running in the Persian Gulf.

In 1908 Bowers joined Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition after reading about Scott’s earlier expeditions including his journey on The Discovery.  Although he was only meant to be a member of the ship’s crew Scott was so impressed with Bowers he made him a member of the shore team.

When the party made it to the South Pole it was Bowers who found the flag  Amundsen had planted and the tent the Norwegian explorer had used as camp when they beat the British team there 35 days previously, Bowers was the navigator in the team and is said to have taken most of the photos and it was he who fixed the exact location of the geographic South Pole for the Polar party. On there way back from the Pole probably one of the most famous events in exploration occurred when Captain Lawrence Oates, who had been slowing the party down after  his foot became frostbitten and gangrenous, spoke the words “I am just going outside, I may be some time”. It was a courageous decision by Oates to let the team go on without him and stand a better chance of getting back safely.

By now they had already lost one crew member after a fall in mid February, Captain Scott, Bowers and Dr. Edward “Bill” Wilson ploughed on for three more days covering 20 miles, a blizzard halted them on March 20th, forcing them to stop, the snow storm lasted for days longer than expected and the trio, exhausted, cold and hungry, some 11 miles short of their next food depot could not continue. Scott’s last diary entry read….

“March 29th, 1912

Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale from W.S.W. and S.W. We had fuel to make two cups of tea apiece and bare food for two days on the 20th. Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.

It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.

R. SCOTT.

For God’s sake look after our people.”

On or after this the three men perished, they were found by a search party the following spring on 12 November 1912. The search party collapsed the tent over them, thus burying them where they lay under a snow cairn topped by a cross made from a pair of skis. Among the items they found and took back with them were the Kodak film rolls with the photographs at the South Pole and geological specimens which later proved the Gondwana theory.

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 1 replay, first part of Bring Down The Sky:

-My first playthrough, I did not realize this was DLC and did it quite early. I was impressed by its nature and thought all sidequests would be like that. Quite disappointing to realize most were of a much smaller scope.

-Loki – Another potential victim of the Reapers? An ancient cataclysm caused its elliptical orbit and terrain. There are subterranean tunnels that were first thought to be made because some were so regular, although later it was decided they were natural.

-Asteroid X57 – Hackett must be sleeping on the job. The asteroid is on a collision course with the first human colony and he doesn’t call you when you enter the system. You have to read the asteroid’s description and then choose to land.

-Asteroid X57 is a prelude to Omega – an asteroid mined out and then used as a base. Which one did the Bioware team come up with first?

-The Normandy VI provides the background as you land on the planet. I know this was probably to reduce the number of voice actors, but it stands out as unusual.

-Ditto that it’s the Normandy VI that warns you when you’re out about to go out of bounds. Why couldn’t they use Joker’s existing line for that?

-Why are there rocks floating above the asteroid. Is this ever explained? I assume it’s related to mass effect shields or artificial gravity.

-The DLC is set on making you hate batarians. When you first land you have an icon on your map for a Survey Station. Go there, and you find the body of G. Mendel. You’re told he probably surrendered, was badly beaten, then shot in the back of the head.

-This is the only time in the game when turrets feel dangerous, and it’s mostly because they’re grouped together and retract unless you’re close to them. Even then, with careful positioning you can take them on one at a time

-This is the first time seeing Batarians in the game. Again, the game sets out to make them antagonistic. Shepard – with no dialogue wheel, unusual for ME1 – says “Batarians” in a tone of disgust.

-There are also varren. This is the only time they show up in ME1 besides Feros (unless they’re in the final attack on the Citadel and I’ve forgotten)

-The commands the batarians give the varren aren’t translated

-Shepard speaks without a dialogue wheel again when leaving the base. “Hey” to Simon

-All variants of the intro where Shepard gives an introduction, they introduce themselves as the Alliance.

While this fits the situation – a human colony being attacked – it breaks the trend of spectre = paragon/neutral and Alliance = neutral/renegade

This DLC seems to be a transition to ME2 with that change and the autodialogue.

-The awfulness of batarians continues. They smash the face plates of people in vacuum and their varren eat people alive

-Most dialogue (all?) point out that these batarians are probably acting alone and not on the Hegemony’s orders

-If you go renegade, Simon does not want Terra Nova used as an excuse to invade the batarians. Good guy

-For an engineer, Simon sure has an in-depth understanding of what will happen if the asteroid hits the planet.

-Why do the batarians kill the Survey crew? They deliberately sought out two of the stations to kill them. For fun? To be thorough?

-The construction camp and the grenade storage are easily missable. I think I did miss them on my first playthrough.

I get the impression the grenade storage was an apology for not being able to easily restock grenades in the main game.

-The batarians didn’t loot R. Montoya’s body, but Shepard did not even hesitate. I already have multiple copies of that amp; hope their family didn’t want it.

-Ironic that the defense drones Montoya activated did nothing to help them, since Montoya left the station, but they do come after me. I’m the good guy, I swear. Please ignore this amp I’ve acquired.

[sastrugie]

every time terra nova is mentioned on the terror camp i think of you ⚘️

OHHH thank you so much! this is seriously such a compliment because the terra nova is def my most beloved expedition ever and i dont think i will ever get over it in my entire life <3 i have to thank these guys so much for! :')

i wish i knew who you are on the discord haha! you def give me arctic vibes! and i cannot wait to talk about it all with you dfghj i missed paul and nives livestream :( but i will watch the recordings ofc!

i kind of feel awkward sometimes to be honest in the chats bc i´m afraid that my comments are boring and uncool and other people are asking so many good questions and have such funny comments so I hope ppl dont think i´m weird: I just wanna make polar friends dfghjk ;;

ANYWAYS

i´ll reply to the other ask tomorrow! ENJOY ANTARCTICA DAYYY <3

[godbeautyorder]

George Percy R. E. Jacomb-Hood | A Very Gallant Gentleman (Lawrence 'Titus' Oates walking out into the night)

Captain Lawrence Edward Grace "Titus" Oates (17 March 1880 – 17 March 1912) was a British army officer, and later an Antarctic explorer, who died during the Terra Nova Expedition when he walked from his tent into a blizzard. His death, which occurred on his 32nd birthday, is seen as an act of self-sacrifice when, aware that the gangrene and frostbite from which he was suffering was compromising his three companions' chances of survival, he chose certain death for himself in order to relieve them of the burden of caring for him.

A large snow cairn built over the final camp and the bodies of Scott, Bowers and Wilson on the Great Ice Barrier (now called the Ross Ice Shelf), 12th November 1912. The cross pictured is inscribed:

"Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L. E. G. Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons. In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard, to try and save his comrades, beset by hardships."

[newsbites]

News from Newfoundland and Labrador, 14 July

1. Police continue to investigate stabbing in St Johns in Topsail Road.

A 34-year-old man was seriously injured in a stabbing in the west end of St. John’s.

The assault took place between Bay Bulls Road and Topsail Road.

Police are urging anyone with information or video footage of the area during the specified time to come forward.

2. A man from Bell Island is facing charges after being caught on 12 July with drugs in a car which was pulled over for speeding.  He was driving while his licence was suspended and showing signs of driving impaired.

3. Near miss at Braya refinery.  A Stop-work order has not been issued by the department. 

Occupational Health and Safety is investigating a "near-miss" incident at the Braya refinery in Come By Chance, involving drilling on a repurposed line that had previously been in nitrogen service.

The line was not in service or under pressure at the time of the incident, and internal analysis was conducted before sharing the findings with OHS and employees.

This incident comes almost a year after a fatal explosion at the refinery, which resulted in a criminal negligence investigation by the RCMP.

4.  Clean-up underway after an unexpected tornado in Half Moon Bay.

5. Electrically-serviced campsites in loops A and B of Newman Sound Campground in Terra Nova Park are currently without power.

6. Oceana Canada is concerned about DFO’s failure to close Capelin Fishery [via VOCM].

OC says that the Canadian government, specifically the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), is not effectively incorporating climate change data and research into fisheries management decisions, which is exacerbating the depletion of fish stocks.

7. Candidate Tony Wakeham is releasing his healthcare plan for connecting residents with a primary provider for healthcare.

Tony Wakeham's health care plan focuses on improving access to timely care in Newfoundland and Labrador by connecting every resident with a primary health care provider and establishing family health care teams.

The plan prioritizes job offers to health care professionals at the beginning of their training to address the shortage of healthcare providers in the province.

Wakeham emphasizes the urgency of addressing the lack of access to health care and believes that waiting for the long-term vision of the Health Accord is not feasible for the province.

8. Musgrave Harbour failed to respond to two access to information requests, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has found [per VOCM].

9. It is peak tourism for Newfoundland and Labrador right now. Business has picked up but the sector still faces challenges, including air access [per VOCM].

Small businesses in the hospitality industry, such as restaurants and tour companies, are relying on a busy summer season to help cover costs and repay loans taken out during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Staffing shortages, inflation, and rising food prices are adding to the challenges faced by businesses in the summer, but increased tourism can help offset these difficulties.

Business owners are implementing strategies such as menu changes, hiring immigrants, and raising prices to adapt to the current economic conditions and make the most of the summer season.