12/16/2025
The Time a Scotsman Played Bagpipes for a Penguin in Antarctica. In 1902, Scotland sent explorers on an official national expedition to Antarctica, headed up by polar scientist and naturalist William S. Bruce.
In a uniquely Scottish twist, the two-year-long Scottish National Antarctic Expedition included a position that probably no other country found necessary: an official piper.
Gilbert Kerr, the official piper of the Scotia crew, was tasked with maintaining morale—but he became a postcard icon by posing for the photo above, in which he played the bagpipes in full Highland dress next to an Emperor penguin.
The idea of Kerr bringing out the bagpipes for a bunch of penguins was apparently also intended to test the effect of music on them, according to the 1906 record of the voyage by Bruce and other members of the expedition, The Voyage of the ‘Scotia’: Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration in Antarctic Seas.
The penguins were not impressed. The explorers wrote that “there was no excitement, no sign of appreciation or disapproval, only sleepy indifference.”
They further noted that “it was just all that one man could do to lead one up to the ship: with their beaks they bit fairly hard, and with their long flipper-like wings could hit out decidedly hard.”
Kerr's bagpipes were later donated to a Scottish battalion during World War I and lost at the Battle of the Somme.
