Blizzard: Race To The Pole

Accompanying the compelling "BBC2" series, this DVD tells the story of the worst journey in the world - the 1911 race to the South Pole between Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Englishman Robert Falcon Scott.

At the beginning of the last century no one had yet stood at the South Pole. To get to the very bottom of the earth, in the white heart of Antarctica, meant surviving the worst the natural world had to offer and would symbolise humanity's ultimate domination of nature. The stakes could not have been higher.

By Spring 1912 the race was over: Scott was dead and Amundsen, the victor, was on his way home. Ever since the debate has raged over whether Scott was an arrogant incompetent or gifted but unlucky - the victim of a rare set of meteorological circumstances.

"Blizzard: The Race to the Pole" attempts to settle this debate once and for all, in an experiment of unrivalled ambition. Two teams, selected from among the world's greatest adventurers, will rerun the race, kitted out entirely in the style of the original expeditions.

But unlike Scott and Amundsen, the modern teams will start at the same time and just 10 kilometres apart. For the first time it will be possible to see whether it was luck or judgement that led Amundsen to victory and Scott to his death.

This DVD sheds surprising new light on the astonishing achievement and bitter suffering of the great heroes of Polar exploration.