“I had been back and forth four times, when Shackleton said to me… ‘Do you know, I had no idea how quickly it was possible for a man on ski to get about. In that respect you’d have been quite useful on the trans-continental march; but that’s a thing of the past.’

“That set me wondering why he had not come to this conclusion long before and had not insisted on every man in the expedition being able at least to move on ski at a modest five miles an hour. Amundsen’s rapid journey to the pole was enough to convince one of the value of skis.”

— Thomas Orde-Lees