[book review] The Endurance

It's really hot outside. If the breeze from the electric fan is not enough, enjoy the live pictures of an Antarctic expedition.

Sir Ernest Shackleton, a renowned British explorer, set sail for the Antarctic with a crew of 27 on Endurance on December 5, 1914. His plan was to cross Antarctica from sea to sea, via the pole, called Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. He felt it was up to the British nation to accomplish this, for the U.K. had been beaten at the conquest of the North Pole and the South Pole.(P.9)

The Endurance, however, got gripped by the ice on January 18, 1915, only 150km away from the destination. After months of drifting, stuck in the ice, on October 27, the expedition abandoned Endurance, and set up a camp on a pack ice, 100m away from the ship and 600km away from the nearest shore.(P.93) On October 30, on the huge ice, the expedition started marching for surviving. In the evening of April 8th, 1916, the ice cracked right under the James Caird, a lifeboat that the expedition was carrying. Shackleton decided to launch the lifeboats. The crew were divided into three groups, each getting on a separate one, James Caird, Dudley Docker, and Stancomb Wills. After three nights of merciless wind and waves, they could land on the Elephant Island. On April 24th, Shackleton with a crew of five set out in James Caird, and made for the whaling station of South Georgia. They got to the island by a miracle, but had to go over a mountain. It was rocky and covered with snow and ice with crevasses here and there. It was a miracle that they made it to the whaling station. On third day after arriving, May 23, Shackleton set out to the Elephant Island where the other crew were left, but they ran into pack ice, and the ship was brought to a complete stop only about 60km away from the island. On August 30, four months after Shackleton left Elephant Island in James Caird, he could get back to rescue his crew. All of the crew survived from the extremely poor condition. Shackleton stated his feeling in the letter to his wife.

"I have done it …… Not a life lost and we have been through Hell."

QOTD : We had suffered, starved, and triumphed, grovelled down yet grasped at glory.