28 Feb 2013

Historic Antarctic Cabin Finds New Home

"A historic cabin that's been to Antarctica and back, and survived numerous earthquakes atop a crumbling Christchurch cliff, has been moved to a new, more stable, resting place.

The cabin, linked to Captain Robert Falcon Scott's fatal Antarctic expedition of 1910-1912, has been looked after for the past 40 years by the Crichton family, who have now vested it with the Department of Conservation (DOC).

The building started out as a meteorological hut, taken to the Antarctic on board the Terra Nova for Capt Scott in 1911.

It was brought back to Lyttelton in 1912, still in its wrapping, and erected on Clifton Hill, above Sumner, in the garden of the expedition agent Sir Joseph Kinsey.

It then became home to the wife of Capt Scott's right-hand man Edward Wilson, Oriana Wilson, for a year until she received the news of his death in February 1913.

Conservation Minister Nick Smith says the cabin was removed from Clifton Hill and trucked by DOC to public conservation land on Godley Head on Wednesday.

"If those cabin walls could talk it could tell many a tale of Antarctic exploration and adventure as well as provide insight into the life of a woman who waited in vain for her husband's return from Scott's expedition," Dr Smith said.

"For a building to have travelled so far and survived so much, it would have been a tragedy to have left it to be demolished."

The cabin will be restored and opened to the public."

Story on the historic hut and its links to Antarctica care of MSN News -27 February