From the Poles to the Parlour: Boardgames and the ‘Heroic’ Age of Polar Exploration

Lauren Alex O’Hagan is Research Fellow in the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Open University and Affiliate Researcher in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at Örebro University. She specialises in the study of visual and material culture across a range of historical periods, geographical settings and subjects. Her most recent projects examine how the public images of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen – leaders of the rival South Pole expeditions – were employed in commercial advertising from the early twentieth century onwards, as well as the forms and functions of music keepsakes and their role in parasocial attachment and grief.

From the Poles to the Parlour: Boardgames and the ‘Heroic’ Age of Polar Exploration

In Victorian and Edwardian Britain, boardgames were a popular form of family entertainment, offering a wholesome way to spend leisure time together within the home. At the same time, they reflected the widely held belief that recreation should be both enjoyable and instructive. Publishers therefore produced games that combined amusement with lessons in history, science and geography (e.g. Boer or Britain), while others sought to reinforce moral values and appropriate social behaviour (e.g. Temperanzo).

Advances in colour lithography and other printing techniques enabled manufacturers to produce a wide variety of inexpensive, visually attractive boardgames. Richly illustrated playing boards and colourful box designs enhanced their appeal, while lower production costs allowed publishers to respond rapidly to current events and popular trends. As a result, boardgames increasingly drew upon subjects that already commanded widespread public interest.

Among the most popular of these themes was polar exploration. Expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic were followed closely by the British public, with explorers celebrated for their endurance, scientific achievements and contributions to national prestige. Newspapers published regular expedition updates and exclusive interviews, while enterprising firms capitalised on explorers’ fame through product endorsements and polar-themed advertisements (see Jones).

Polar exploration also permeated popular culture through sheet music, postcards, cigarette cards, toys and souvenirs, ensuring that distant landscapes became familiar features of everyday life (see O’Hagan). Such media enabled audiences to experience exploration vicariously, bringing the drama of the polar regions into the domestic sphere while simultaneously reinforcing contemporary ideals of heroism and imperial endeavour. Through these forms of popular culture, exploration could be imagined, consumed and even recreated within the home.

Polar Boardgames

Over the last few months, I have been researching historical polar boardgames to better understand how they transformed imperial ambitions into objects that could be ‘viewed, dominated, colonised, explored and experienced as a ludic interaction’ (see Nielsen). In other words, these games did not simply represent exploration; they allowed players to participate imaginatively in its narratives of adventure, competition and conquest. Here, I want to shine a spotlight on a few standout examples that illustrate this phenomenon.

To the Pole with Shackleton (1910)

Ernest Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish polar explorer who became one of the most celebrated figures of the ‘Heroic’ Age of Antarctic exploration. After serving on Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery expedition, Shackleton led his own British Antarctic Expedition aboard the Nimrod from 1907 to 1909. During this journey, he set a new ‘Farthest South’ record at 88° 23′ S, coming within 97.5 nautical miles of the South Pole before making the difficult decision to turn back due to dwindling supplies. Upon his return, Shackleton was knighted and widely lionised by the British public.

Figure 1 – To the Pole with Shackleton (1910)    
Source: The Illustrated London News, 24 December 1910

Released in time for Christmas 1910, the board game To the Pole with Shackleton (Figure 1) directly capitalised on his fame and the Nimrod achievement. The game was played on a large, circular papier-mâché board, painted white and bordered by raised ridges to simulate sastrugi (wind-eroded snow waves). Players used magnetic pencils to guide miniature sledges through a maze of tracks towards the centre pole. If a sledge became trapped in a dead end or false lead, it could only be freed using a reversed-polarity magnet named ‘Dr. Cook’ (a reference to the American explorer Frederick Cook, who had recently claimed to have reached the North Pole).

A promotional illustration published in the Illustrated London News on 24 December 1910, titled ‘Antarctic Exploration at Home’,captured the game’s appeal. It depicts a middle-class family gathered around a parlour table, engrossed in the challenge before them. It is a good example of how imperial ideology subtly entered the sanctum sanctorum of the home through the seemingly innocuous medium of play.

Antarctica, or The Race to the South Pole (1913)

Coming three years later was Antarctica, or The Race to the South Pole (Figure 2), based on the competing expeditions to the Geographic South Pole between British explorer Captain Scott and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Amundsen, using dog-sledging and a meticulously planned route, reached the South Pole first on 14 December 1911. Scott and his four companions arrived 34 days later and all perished on the return journey. Although defeated in the race, Scott was subsequently memorialised as a national hero, with his death widely interpreted as the ultimate expression of noble self-sacrifice.

Figure 2 – Antarctica, or The Race to the South Pole (1913)
Source: Boardgame Geek, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/282057/antarctica-or-the-race-to-the-south-pole

The boardgame was published in Australia by the National Game Company, demonstrating how Scott’s story had spread beyond Britain to become part of a shared imperial culture. The game board features a striking polar projection map, with concentric circular grids radiating outwards from a bold red ‘SOUTH POLE’ at the centre. Surrounding the white Antarctic continent are the yellow landmasses of the Southern Hemisphere, including Australia, New Zealand, South America, South Africa and Madagascar, which serve as starting territories. Sprinkled across the ocean grid are imaginative illustrations ranging from polar wildlife like seals and penguins to whimsical additions like floating ice-cream stands and coffee carts.

The primary objective was to be the first player to navigate by the points of the compass and reach the South Pole. To play, each player began by placing their marker in the designated red rectangle on one of the surrounding landmasses. They then spun a teetotum to determine which cardinal direction they had to travel, followed by a dice roll to move the specified number of spaces along the circular grid in that direction. In doing so, the game turned exploration into a playable performance, inviting players to rehearse the ideals of competition and imperial achievement that underpinned the ‘Heroic’ Age.

Beyond Shackleton and Scott

This commercialisation of polar adventure was by no means unique to British heroes or Antarctic expeditions, but belonged to a longer transnational tradition established in the late nineteenth century. Earlier continental endeavours – such as Fridtjof Nansen’s attempt to drift across the Arctic in Fram (1893–96) or S.A. Andrée’s ill-fated 1897 hot-air balloon expedition (Figure 3) – had already inspired boardgames that found an eager market in Britain. The international sensationalism surrounding Robert Peary and Frederick Cook’s competing 1909 claims to have reached the North Pole triggered a similar wave of ludic products.

Figure 3 – S.A. Andrée’s North Pole Expedition (1897) and Fridtjof Nansen’s Arctic Voyage (1897)
Source: Boardgame Geek, https://boardgamegeek.com/image/5092865/s-a-andrees-north-pole-expedition

Among these was The Game of the North Pole (1909)(Figure 4), a classic linear roll-and-move boardgame featuring a winding track of 75 numbered spaces set against scenic Arctic illustrations. The craze also produced dexterity novelties and promotional items, ranging from an Oxo-branded ring-toss where players pitched rings marked ‘Peary’ or ‘Cook’ onto a cardboard Pole to a mechanical puzzle requiring players to manipulate a handle to slot a flagstaff into place. Another game involved rolling a ball through a series of obstacles into a central hole, prompting the Edinburgh Evening News (29 November 1909) to enthusiastically claim that such play would make audiences realise ‘the difficulties the brave Arctic heroes had to surmount’.

Figure 4 – The Game of the North Pole (1909)   
Source: National Maritime Museum, https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-386488

Armchair Exploration

Whether steering Shackleton’s sledges with magnets, tracking Scott’s fatal journey or pitching rings at Peary and Cook, these boardgames invited players to engage imaginatively with polar exploration, transforming its dangers and uncertainties into enjoyable domestic recreation. In doing so, they blurred the boundaries between education, amusement and imperial culture, communicating ideas about heroism, competition, scientific discovery and empire to audiences of all ages. More than ephemeral Christmas novelties, these colourful objects offer a fascinating window into the ways in which the ‘Heroic’ Age of polar exploration was commercialised, commemorated and playfully integrated into the Victorian and Edwardian imagination.

References

Ampollini, Ilaria. 2024. Scientific Knowledge and Educational Board Games: From Domestic Experiments to Popular Science (1790–1850). Centaurus 66 (1-2), pp. 39-66.

Jones, Max. 2003. The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jones, Max. 2021. Exploration, Celebrity, and the Making of a Transnational Hero: Fridtjof Nansen and the Fram Expedition. The Journal of Modern History 93 (1), pp. 68-108.

Nielsen, Holly. 2019. ‘The British Empire Would Gain New Strength from Nursery Floors’: Depictions of Travel and Place in Nineteenth Century British Board Games’ in Historia Ludens: The Playing Historian, edited by Alexander von Lünen et al. London: Routledge, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429345616-2/british-empire-would-gain-new-strength-nursery-floors-holly-nielsen

O’Hagan, Lauren Alex. 2026. Constructing Polar Heroism and National Myth-Making in Norwegian Sheet Music Covers: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis. Scandinavian Journal of History, https://doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2026.2694320

‘The North Pole Game’. 1909. Edinburgh Evening News (29 November), p. 4.