 By early 1906, Scott queried the RGS about the possible funding of a future Antarctic expedition.It was therefore unwelcome news to him that Ernest Shackleton had announced his own plans to travel to "Discovery"s old McMurdo Sound base and launch a bid for the South Pole from there.Scott claimed, in the first of a series of letters to Shackleton, that the area around McMurdo was his own "field of work" to which he had prior rights until he chose to give them up, and that Shackleton should therefore work from an entirely different area.