prendrelemick
01-21-2012, 02:52 PM
South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition. 1914 – 1917.
Congratulations to 21 year old Bryony Balen in becoming the youngest Briton to ski to the South Pole. Bryony and her team were airlifted to Union Glacier Camp on November 23 and arrived at the pole 2 months later. She is now awaiting her flight back to civilisation. (Not to say the South Pole isn't civilised these days.) Through various social media sites, her own web page and with satellite tracking, we have been able to follow her progress step by step.
It was different in Sir Ernest's day. In 1914 he set off to try and cross the frozen and completely unexplored continent. He was neither seen or heard from again until, dressed in rags, he staggered into a whaling station on South Georgia, two years later. South! is the story of what happened, in Sir Ernest's own words.
He had never even made it off his ship (The Endeavour) - until it was crushed by pack Ice in the Weddell Sea. ( about 500 miles north of where Bryony was dropped off.) He then led his men across the disintegrating ice flows, dragging three small boats with them. They finally managed to reach land - Elephant Island - and set up a camp there, in what is one of the most hostile environments on Earth. All he had to do then, was go and get help across 800 miles of stormy Southern Ocean in an open boat, then trek over the unexplored interior mountains of South Georgia to Stromness whaling Station on the other side.
He then begged and borrowed various ships, and on the forth attempt was able to rescue the men left on Elephant Island.
Another party of the expedition were stranded on the opposite side of the continent, when their ship, the Aurora, was torn from its moorings and disappeared during a storm. Their story forms the second half of the book. The deprivations they went through - scurvy and starvation- were as bad as anything Shackleton's men suffered, until they were brought back in February 1917 (Shackleton was in the rescue party)
It is the most remarkable story of hardship and survival you will ever read. How through a mixture of discipline and leadership, (or pluck and luck) and very much against the odds, Shackleton brought all his men home. It does not have any great literary merit as such, for it is a report rather than a novel, mostly made up of excerpts from his journal. The weather, logging positions and sounding depths, account for a few too many pages. The reader is left to wonder what it felt like in those moments of deadly peril and setbacks. In a way his straight forward delivery gives us a glimpse of the straight forward attitude that pulled them all through – If your plans go awry, make another plan and work towards it, never give up.
I would not recommend this book for everybody, it's prose is dry and can be tedious, it is bettered by many later writer/explorers in that respect. I am sure when Bryony's book is published it will be a better read and have colour pictures as well. But the story of Ernest Shackleton, the greatest ever Polar explorer, out-adventures every other book of the genre.
Congratulations to 21 year old Bryony Balen in becoming the youngest Briton to ski to the South Pole. Bryony and her team were airlifted to Union Glacier Camp on November 23 and arrived at the pole 2 months later. She is now awaiting her flight back to civilisation. (Not to say the South Pole isn't civilised these days.) Through various social media sites, her own web page and with satellite tracking, we have been able to follow her progress step by step.
It was different in Sir Ernest's day. In 1914 he set off to try and cross the frozen and completely unexplored continent. He was neither seen or heard from again until, dressed in rags, he staggered into a whaling station on South Georgia, two years later. South! is the story of what happened, in Sir Ernest's own words.
He had never even made it off his ship (The Endeavour) - until it was crushed by pack Ice in the Weddell Sea. ( about 500 miles north of where Bryony was dropped off.) He then led his men across the disintegrating ice flows, dragging three small boats with them. They finally managed to reach land - Elephant Island - and set up a camp there, in what is one of the most hostile environments on Earth. All he had to do then, was go and get help across 800 miles of stormy Southern Ocean in an open boat, then trek over the unexplored interior mountains of South Georgia to Stromness whaling Station on the other side.
He then begged and borrowed various ships, and on the forth attempt was able to rescue the men left on Elephant Island.
Another party of the expedition were stranded on the opposite side of the continent, when their ship, the Aurora, was torn from its moorings and disappeared during a storm. Their story forms the second half of the book. The deprivations they went through - scurvy and starvation- were as bad as anything Shackleton's men suffered, until they were brought back in February 1917 (Shackleton was in the rescue party)
It is the most remarkable story of hardship and survival you will ever read. How through a mixture of discipline and leadership, (or pluck and luck) and very much against the odds, Shackleton brought all his men home. It does not have any great literary merit as such, for it is a report rather than a novel, mostly made up of excerpts from his journal. The weather, logging positions and sounding depths, account for a few too many pages. The reader is left to wonder what it felt like in those moments of deadly peril and setbacks. In a way his straight forward delivery gives us a glimpse of the straight forward attitude that pulled them all through – If your plans go awry, make another plan and work towards it, never give up.
I would not recommend this book for everybody, it's prose is dry and can be tedious, it is bettered by many later writer/explorers in that respect. I am sure when Bryony's book is published it will be a better read and have colour pictures as well. But the story of Ernest Shackleton, the greatest ever Polar explorer, out-adventures every other book of the genre.