About the book: 2014 / Every step into the unknown is dangerous - everyone knows this truth. But few experience it on themselves, as experimental volunteers. And in the forefront of these few are travelers and pioneers. Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) is a great and tragic figure even by the strict standards of harsh polar explorers. Not figuratively, but literally, he devoted his life to reaching the South Pole of the Earth. Competing with the expedition of Roald Amundsen, Scott and his comrades reached the Pole, discovered the Norwegian flag there - and died on the way back. Courage differs from courage, as strength differs from effort, as love differs from falling in love, as justice differs from vengeance. Just one example: Captain Oates, who had frostbitten feet, “went missing in action” in order not to detain his comrades: he left the tent and did not return. Yes, they did not become the first - they became the only ones. Was their sacrifice in vain? The truth is simple: from childhood we are brought up by examples. What examples does a person need more: acquisitiveness and conformism - or nobility and heroism? The legacy from Captain Scott has left grateful descendants with a high example of the strength of the human spirit, and attentive and sensitive readers with travel diaries and farewell letters, books that can not only captivate with captivating descriptions of polar romance, but also touch our hearts and souls. Freezing eleven miles from the base camp, which he never reached, Scott began his farewell letter to his wife with the words: “To my widow”... This publication includes travel diaries and farewell letters of the great pioneer - his testament to his descendants. A will to which can only be added the words of Tennyson, carved on the grave of the brave polar explorer: “Fight and seek, find and not give up.” Biographical sketches about the author of this book and his devoted assistant in the first polar expedition, E. Shackleton, which complement the main text, expand the panorama of events and help to better understand the time and place, circumstances and people who erased the blank spots from the world map. Electronic publication includes all the texts of Robert Scott's paper book and basic illustrative material.