Famous Discoveries - Levick's Notebook

In the Antarctic summer of 2012, Antarctic Heritage Trust Artefact Programme Manager Lizzie Meek made a surprise discovery while working at Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s 1911 expedition base at Cape Evans, Antarctica: a photographic notebook not seen for over a century. Each year the summer snow melt around the building causes variations in run-off patterns and ground erosion. That particular summer melt revealed a Wellcome Photographic Exposure Record and Diary 1910 which belonged to George Murray Levick - surgeon, zoologist and photographer. His name can be seen written in the opening pages.

Levick was a part of Scott’s 1910-1913 expedition and a member of the Northern Party. The Northern Party of six men summered (1911-1912) at Cape Adare and is notable for surviving the winter of 1912 in a snow cave on Inexpressible Island before sledging back to the Cape Evans base, incredibly, all alive. 

The notebook is a missing part of the official expedition record and contains Levick’s pencil notes detailing the date, subjects and exposure details for the photographs he took during 1911 while at Cape Adare.