Scott’s team erected Discovery Hut at Hut Point as a prefabricated wooden shelter intended for living and storage. In practice, the hut was often used more as a storehouse and emergency refuge than as the main living space. Even so, it became a key landmark and a fallback shelter for later expeditions operating around McMurdo Sound.
Robert Falcon Scott’s British National Antarctic Expedition (the Discovery Expedition) arrived in McMurdo Sound and set up winter quarters at Hut Point on Ross Island. This landing began a long period of repeated use of the same small area as a logistics hub for sledging journeys inland. It set the stage for the building of the first of the famous “Heroic Age” huts in the Ross Sea region.
In memory of expedition member George T. Vince, Scott’s expedition erected a memorial cross near Discovery Hut. The monument shows how these huts and their surroundings quickly became places marked by loss as well as by scientific work and travel. It also helped make Hut Point a lasting historical landscape, not just a temporary camp.
Planning the British Antarctic Expedition (the Terra Nova Expedition), Scott decided not to reuse Discovery Hut as the main headquarters. He wanted a site farther north to reduce the risk of his ship being trapped by sea ice, a problem encountered earlier at Hut Point. This decision led to building a larger and more comfortable base: what is now called Scott’s Hut.
In January 1911, Scott’s expedition built its prefabricated headquarters at Cape Evans on Ross Island, designed to house the shore party through the winter and support long sledging journeys. The hut became the best-equipped base in the area, with food, fuel, and work space for science and planning. It later proved valuable to other stranded groups because of these supplies.
Roald Amundsen’s South Pole party set up Framheim on the Ross Ice Shelf at the Bay of Whales. Its location gave Amundsen a shorter route to the Pole than Scott’s Cape Evans base. Framheim became the operational center for depot-laying (placing stored supplies along a route) and for the final push south.
Amundsen and four companions reached the geographic South Pole, becoming the first confirmed party to do so. Their success depended on careful planning, dog teams, and supply depots managed from Framheim. The event also intensified the contrast between the two major Ross Sea bases—Framheim and Scott’s Hut—operating in direct competition.
Scott’s polar party arrived at the South Pole after Amundsen and found evidence they had been beaten. The return journey became a disaster, and the entire polar party died on the way back toward the Ross Sea. This tragedy reshaped how Scott’s Hut was remembered: not only as a working base, but also as a place linked to a major loss in exploration history.
In early 1913, a memorial cross was raised on Observation Hill near Hut Point to honor Scott and his companions who died during the 1912 return. The monument strengthened the Ross Island huts’ role as shared sites of memory for multiple expeditions. It also helped fix Hut Point and Cape Evans as key locations in the public story of Antarctic exploration.
During Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the ship Aurora broke from its moorings and drifted away in the ice, leaving ten men stranded on shore. With limited gear and food, they had to rely on existing shelters and leftover supplies. This emergency turned earlier expedition huts—especially Scott’s Hut—into life-support infrastructure for a new crisis.
The stranded Ross Sea Party used Scott’s Hut at Cape Evans as a main living base after Aurora drifted away. Supplies left by Scott’s expedition helped them survive, along with additional stores gathered from other nearby huts. The episode showed the practical legacy of well-stocked Heroic Age huts: they could save lives long after their original builders left.
In January 1917, Shackleton returned and rescued the remaining members of the Ross Sea Party. He then had the Cape Evans hut put in order and locked, closing its active use as a living station. After this, the major Heroic Age huts in the Ross Sea region largely shifted from working bases to preserved historical sites.
Ernest Shackleton died at Grytviken, South Georgia, during the Shackleton–Rowett (Quest) Expedition. His death is widely treated as a symbolic endpoint for the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, which is often dated from the late 1890s to 1922. By then, the Ross Sea huts like Discovery Hut, Scott’s Hut, and Framheim stood as physical reminders of a transition from small, privately led expeditions to more modern, organized polar activity.
Heroic Age Antarctic Huts and Stations (Discovery Hut, Scott's Hut, Framheim, 1902–1922)