And it's not even close to what happened to Ernest Shackleton and his crew during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914.Īlfred Lansing's book, written in 1958 from interviews and full access to the journals of all the survivors of the expedition, is one hell of a tale. I've had just enough experience with being cold, wet, and exhausted to know what it's like to half-wish you could just drop dead rather than keep going. Have you ever been cold? Really, really cold? And wet? And tired, hungry, in danger, and with miles to go before you sleep? Probably about the only circumstance in which you're likely to find yourself in that situation is if you are in the military, or you've been on a backpacking expedition that's gone very wrong. The book recounts a harrowing adventure, but ultimately it is the nobility of these men and their indefatigable will that shines through. Lansing describes how the men survived a 1,000-mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean on the globe and an overland trek through forbidding glaciers and mountains. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic.
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