On January 17, 1912 the Terra Nova Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott arrived at the south pole. To the dismay of the explorers, the found that they had been beaten to the pole by a Norwegian team by 34 days. Scott and his four companions died on the return trip to the base camp.

Photographer, surgeon and zoologist George Murray Levick was part of Scott’s Northern Party. The group summered at Cape Adare and survived the winter of 1912 in a snow cave. Now, one of Levick’s notebooks has been found and preserved by the New Zealand Arctic Heritage Trust.

Conservation specialists found the notebook outside the Terra Nova base in Cape Evans which Scott’s expedition used in 1911. Titled “Wellcome Photographic Exposure Record and Dairy 1910” contains Levick’s name in its opening pages and contains notes on photographs taken at Cape Adare in 1911.

“It’s an exciting find. The notebook is a missing part of the official expedition record. After spending seven years conserving Scott’s last expedition building and collection, we are delighted to still be finding new artifacts,” said Nigel Watson, Antarctic Heritage Trust’s Executive Director in a statement.

The notebook’s binding was lost to 100 years of ice and water damage. The pages, however, are intact and were digitized before the artifact was restored.

The journal has been returned to Cape Evans where it joins a collection of 11,000 artifacts.

More information about Scott’s Cape Evans base can be found on the Arctic Heritage Website nzaht.org/aht/HistoryEvans and at CoolAntarctica.com. The Cape Evans shelter can be seen, in the present day, on Google Street View.