Archivist reveals Perth's link to historic race to lead first successful South Pole expedition

dailyrecord.co.uk:

In 1911, two huge personalities and historic ships raced to be the first to lead an expedition to the South Pole. And artist and archivist Michael Durning, inspired to celebrate Scots explorers by researching them at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) in Perth, has discovered that the origins of one of those vessels began in the Fair City itself.

A discovery unknown to most of the world – until now.Michael said: “I discovered an oddly named Norwegian called Colin Archer during my art project: commemorating the centenary of the death of Scotland’s ‘Forgotten Polar Explorer’, RSGS’s own William Speirs Bruce.“Mapping a trail that began at the Paisley Art Institute’s Art Collection and circumnavigating polar history, I arrived in Perth.”Colin was born in Larvik, Norway in 1832 to Perth parents who had emigrated to the country seven years before, leaving behind a home they built in Canal Street.Young Colin became an innovative boat builder and committed himself to the fledgling Norwegian lifeboat organisation.Established along the coast of Norway, his new boats immediately changed the lives of the country’s mariners.One of his rescue boats alone saved 329 lives and assisted 102 ships, and in recognition Colin was made a Knight of the Order of St Olaf.As a result of his great nautical creations, Nobel Prize-winning explorer Fridtjof Nansen asked Colin to design a polar ship for his 1893 Arctic expedition.Colin then designed and built the ship, donning it “Fram”, meaning Forward, in 1892 which was labelled a wonder of the ‘Heroic Age’ as it could defy lethal icey conditions with its retractable propeller and rudder.Its rotund hull meant that when large swathes of ice threatened to submerge the ship, its buoyancy