A new stained-glass window in a North Dunedin church tells the untold side of a famous Antarctic expedition.
All Saints’ Anglican Church unveiled the new window commemorating Rev Arnold Spencer-Smith who had a role to play in Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
People from around the world tuned in through live streams online to witness the unveiling in a mass at the church on Saturday.
Arnold Spencer-Smith. PHOTO: SUPPLIEDAll Saints’ vicar the Canon Michael Wallace said Mr Spencer-Smith was a chaplain and photographer on a ship called the Aurora that was laying a supply depot near Ross Sea for when Sir Ernest and his men would cross it.
However, the Aurora broke from its mooring in the Antarctic and drifted for 11 months before limping into Port Chalmers, Canon Wallace said.
He said the men left in the Antarctic had to rely on supplies left over from Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s previous expedition to the Antarctic and made clothes from old sails.
“They were thinking this is a life and death mission we’re on so that Shackleton will be OK, but meanwhile their ship the Aurora with all the supply had drifted off, so they were stuck there with very few supplies.”
The ship was repaired in Port Chalmers and Sir Ernest, who had made it to New Zealand by then, returned to Antarctica with it to save its remaining crew.
Read it all in the Otago Daily Times
