An aversion to the use of dogs pervaded all the British expeditions during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration (including those led by Ernest Shackleton). This was baffling to the great Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen. To them manhauling was "futile toil", to be avoided at all costs. Edward Wilson, however, on the fatal southern journey during Scott's 1910–1913 "Terra Nova" Expedition expressed a profound relief, as the pole-bound party began its ascent of the Beardmore Glacier after the last of the ponies had been shot: "Thank God the horses are now done with, and we begin the heavier work ourselves", he wrote. His companion Lawrence Oates thought differently but kept his counsel. Later, when the Pole had been attained and Amundsen's prior arrival discovered, Oates privately castigated “our wretched manhauling” as a cause of his party's defeat.