Captain Scott was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions in the early years of the 20th Century  His story about how he reached the South Pole and how his team died on the way back to the ship is well documented, and at the time he became a celebrated hero, a status reflected by memorials erected across the UK. What is not in the history books is that his team included two naval officers in love with each other 

Edward Atkinson was a commissioned Royal Navy surgeon and parasitologist, and he met Lieutenant Harry Pennell, who was in command of the Terra Nova on Scott’s second (and fateful) expedition.Neither man made it into the popular mythology about Scott’s journey. but Pennell left a trove of letters and diaries behind, which sat largely unconsulted for a century. The romance hidden inside them was a gift waiting for the right moment to be discovered.

 

Now the South Street Seaport Museum located in the heart of the historic seaport district in New York City is telling all about the men’s romance in an event called Queer History: Polar Exploration.  The evening will kick off with Allegra Rosenberg, the founder and director of the Terror Camp virtual polar conference, talking about Pennell and Atkinson’s realtionship. Then Dr. Seth Stein LeJacq, an assistant professor at Hunter College CUNY, will continue the dive into the queer history of polar exploration with a presentation focusing on sexual and gender differences in the historical British Navy. And, Eva Molina, a PhD candidate at Princeton University, will close the evening with a discussion on how sexuality amongst Antarctic penguins became the subject of an academic cover-up in the early 20th century.