Cape Evans is a rocky cape on the west side of

Ross Island Ross Island is an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica, off the coast of Victoria Land in McMurdo Sound. Ross Island lies within the boundaries of Ross Dependency, an area of Antarctica claimed by New ...

, Antarctica, forming the north side of the entrance to

Erebus Bay Erebus Bay () is a bay about wide between Cape Evans and Hut Point Peninsula, on the west side of Ross Island. The bay was explored by the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, under Robert Falcon Scott. It was named by Scott's sec ...

History

The cape was discovered by the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, under Robert Falcon Scott, who named it the " Skuary" after the birds. Scott's second expedition, the

British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13 The ''Terra Nova'' Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. Led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition had various scientific and geographical objec ...

, built its headquarters here, renaming the cape for Lieutenant Edward Evans, Royal Navy, second in command of the expedition.Langner, Rainer-K. (trans. Beech, Timothy) (2007). ''Scott and Amundsen: Duel in the Ice'', p. 120. London: Haus Publishing. . Scott's headquarters building still exists and is known as Scott's Hut.

Geography

A number of features on or around Cape Evans have been charted and individually named by various Antarctic expeditions. Windvane Hill is a small hill just northeast of the extremity of Cape Evans. It was so named by the second British Antarctic Expedition because an anemometer station was established on this site. The hill was later marked with a memorial cross. Three lakes - Skua Lake, Algal Lake, and Island Lake - are located on the cape. Skua Lake was named by the second British Antarctic Expedition because of the nearby skua rookery. Midway between Skua Lake and Island Lake is a small, roughly circular meltwater lake called Algal Lake. It was named by United States Antarctic Research Program biologists David T. Mason, Charles R. Goldman and Brian J.B. Wood Jr., who studied the lake in the 1961–62 and 1962–63 seasons. The name derives from the striking mat of blue-green algal remains around the leeward edge of the lake. The final lake is Island Lake, which was apparently also named by members of the second British Antarctic Expedition.

Historic sites and monuments

Scott's Hut has been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 16), following a proposal by New Zealand and the United Kingdom to the

Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting russian: link=no, Договор об Антарктике es, link=no, Tratado Antártico , name = Antarctic Treaty System , image = Flag of the Antarctic Treaty.svgborder , image_width = 180px , caption ...

. A cross on Windvane Hill, Cape Evans, was erected by the Ross Sea Party, led by Captain Aeneas Mackintosh, of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, in memory of three members of the party who died in the vicinity in 1916: Arnold Spencer-Smith, Aeneas Mackintosh and Victor Hayward. The cross has been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 17), following a proposal by New Zealand and the United Kingdom to the

. The whole site is protected as

Antarctic Specially Protected Area An Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) is an area on the continent of Antarctica, or on nearby islands, which is protected by scientists and several different international bodies. The protected areas were established in 1961 under the Antarct ...

(ASPA) No.155 largely because of its historic significance as one of the principal sites of early human activity in Antarctica.

References

External links

Cape Evans Panoramas
– panoramic photographs of Scott's hut at Cape Evans {{Coord, 77, 38, S, 166, 24, E, source:GNIS, display=title Evans, Cape Antarctic Specially Protected Areas Historic Sites and Monuments of Antarctica