The countdown has begun towards the unveiling of a monument to the heroes who braved the Race to the Pole.
In a warehouse on a Kirriemuir industrial estate, renowned town sculptor and stonemason Bruce Walker has spent months painstakingly creating a memorial to the men whose bravery binds rural Angus and the inhospitable landscape of the Antarctic.
A century ago, Captain Robert Scott and Edward Wilson led the fateful Terra Nova expedition, a treacherous voyage planned in the cottage setting of Burnside Lodge, just north of Kirriemuir.
The expedition team reached the pole in March 2012 beaten there by Norwegian Roald Amundsen but all perished on the return journey.
In a year which has witnessed commemoration events at home and abroad, the final weeks of 2012 look set to see Angus pay its own special tribute when a new monument is unveiled in Glenprosen amid the landscape which naturalist, scientist and surgeon Wilson was working in when Scott persuaded him to join the polar challenge.
Kirriemuir Landward East community council has led the effort to create a spectacular granite memorial on the site where both a fountain set up in 1919 and then a replacement memorial cairn have stood.
In early May, Mr Walker got to work on the massive lump of granite from a north-east quarry and those closely involved with the project are now hopeful that the monument will be revealed before the year is out.
”Bruce is now into the finer work on the sculpture and believes that he can have it finished by the end of November,” said Kirriemuir Heritage Trust chairman David Orr.
”Airlie Estate has now removed a tree from the site of the monument and the stone for the retaining wall has also been sourced from Craigenlow quarry. The stones from the current cairn will be added to the foundation for the sculpture.”