These Rough Notes

NZ Listener Top 100 Books in 2012

Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale… 
—Scott’s journal, 29 March 1912

Drawing its title from one of the last pages of Scott’s journal, These Rough Notes is a collaboration between writer Bill Manhire, photographer Anne Noble, composer Norman Meehan and singer Hannah Griffin. ‘Beneath the Ice’ remembers the tragedies of Scott’s polar expedition of 1912 and the crash of NZ901 into Mt Erebus in 1979. The ‘Notebook Songs’ capture the experiences of scientists and other contemporary visitors to the ice.