The journey that followed unbelievably eclipsed what had gone before and was described by Sir Edmund Hillary as “the greatest survival journey of all time.” Shackleton and five of his most able men left Elephant Island on April 24 on an 800-nautical-mile voyage across the notoriously treacherous Southern Ocean in the largest of the three lifeboats, the James Caird.
Frank Worsley was skipper. The New Zealander was something of an eccentric, a risk taker and not a natural leader—in the authoritarian sense at least—but he was undoubtedly one of the most accomplished sailors of his time. Tom Crean was a tough Irishman from County Kerry and perhaps the strongest polar expeditioner of the heroic era. He was fiercely loyal to Shackleton and virtually begged to be included in the Caird team. His experience and resilience were invaluable: as a petty officer in the Royal Navy, Crean had already served under Scott on two of his Antarctic expeditions. Chippy McNeish, with whom Worsley in particular did not get on, was a rough Scot whom Shackleton described as “the only man I’m not dead certain of.” But his efforts to make the Caird more seaworthy were remarkable and, as it turns out, critical. One of the oldest men on the Endurance, McNeish had a rough, cantankerous manner that was problematic, and Shackleton undoubtedly chose him for the Caird crew as much to safeguard morale among those left behind on Elephant Island as for his respected skills as a sailor and shipwright. Similarly, Shackleton chose John Vincent, a hardened ex-naval North Sea trawlerman, because of his physical strength and sailing skill, but in no small part to remove him from Elephant Island due to his bullying ways. Timothy McCarthy, meanwhile, was perhaps the best and most efficient of the sailors, always cheerful under the most trying circumstances and described by Worsley as “the most irrepressible optimist I’ve ever met.” Having survived this great journey, he was tragically still claimed by the sea, dying as he did only three weeks after returning home on a navy ship that was lost with all hands during the Great War. It was McCarthy’s first day under enemy fire.
For seventeen days this tough group of men battled constant gales, terrible cold, and mountainous seas in their twenty-three-foot keel-less wooden boat, using only Worsley’s occasional sextant sightings from the boat’s pitching deck to navigate by. That they not only found South Georgia but also managed to land on this remote island is incredible. Their epic voyage and subsequent survival is a remarkable testament to both Shackleton’s leadership and the seamanship of Worsley, who saw the sun for only four sightings during the whole voyage in tumultuous seas.
Upon their arrival at South Georgia, following a hurricane that nearly finished them off, the six men clawed their way into King Haakon Bay, a spectacular fjord on the southwestern side of the island. There, Shackleton left Vincent and McNeish, who were too exhausted to continue, in the care of McCarthy. He, Worsley, and Crean then climbed over the unexplored, heavily glaciated mountains of South Georgia to reach Stromness whaling station on the other side. It was a thirty-five-kilometer journey that the world’s top mountaineers in the modern era have subsequently been unable to replicate in the way Shackleton did it.
Ultimately Shackleton was able to save all of his men—the three who remained on the other side of South Georgia and, with the help of the Chilean Navy, all twenty-two of the crew members who had been left stranded on Elephant Island. It was an epic triumph of endurance and leadership.
This boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia and the climb across the mountains to Stromness was what Zaz had been referring to when she asked me to lead a team to attempt “the double.” My unequivocal agreement meant I needed not only to build a replica Caird from scratch but also to assemble a team skilled and brave enough to attempt this with me.
So why did I do it? A simple answer was that I was honored to be asked by Shackleton’s granddaughter to undertake this journey and was inspired to want to do it as the greatest survival story of the heroic era of exploration. Despite my reprising the conversation her grandfather and Worsley had had in which Shackleton suggested he was “no small-boat sailor,” she remained unmoved and I am grateful to her for her confidence. In no small part, too, it felt like the logical conclusion of my bid to cross Antarctica in 1999, thwarted as it was by a fuel leak 1,800 kilometers into the crossing. I hadn’t been trapped in the pack ice as Shackleton had been, unable even to land on Antarctica, but I still had unfinished business in the Great White South. Perhaps the journey in the replica Caird and climbing across South Georgia would be a closing chapter for us both.
At a more philosophical level, I consider exploration to be the adventure of seeing whether or not you can achieve something, the thrill of trying, and the process of learning more about yourself and your surroundings that going on a journey to find out affords you, and I think this outlook is consistent with Shackleton’s. That we as individuals need to challenge ourselves to find out more about the world and our place in it is, I believe, as relevant a concept now as it was for Shackleton. As André Gide said so eloquently, “It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves—in finding themselves.”
Certainly this love of exploration both literal and personal was a major driver for Shackleton, as undoubtedly was the desire to excel, with polar exploration being the means by which this could happen. As a middle-class, merchant-navy man of Anglo-Irish parentage (despite moving to England at the age of ten, his voice apparently retained traces of his Irish roots), he did not naturally fit easily into either Irish or English society, obsessed as they were in Edwardian times—and to an extent still are—with social standing. As the outsider—unlike Scott, who in every way represented the establishment—Shackleton defied pigeonholing and actively resisted it, displaying a healthy disregard for class and tradition. Polar expeditions offered him a way to transcend these boundaries while fueling his love of adventure—and not hurting his marriage prospects either.
Perhaps it was this refreshingly modern attitude that resonated so strongly in my own mind, as much as his extraordinary achievements. The more I discovered about Shackleton, the more I recognized, from his adaptability born of living in a number of different places and needing to fit in, his determination to follow projects through to completion and the energy with which he did so, right down to the stubbornness and impatience he exhibited once he had decided upon a course of action. His intolerance of any negativity expressed by his men, along with his not being fazed by problems as long as a solution was suggested, were also familiar attitudes, not to mention his hunger for adventure and new experiences. In short, had we met over a few drinks, I think Shackleton and I would have had quite a few things to talk about and agree on.
And, of course, there were the many intriguing anecdotal details that made Shackleton such a compelling character and the story of his survival so remarkable. His powerful personal charm and charisma, which enabled him to talk as easily to Kaiser Wilhelm II as to the lowliest member of his crew and which won over financial backers for his expensive expeditions and gained him the unswerving loyalty of those who served under him (who affectionately called him “the Boss”), are the stuff of legend. Combine this with the failings he displayed both financially and personally and, for me, he became over time the most extraordinary and most “human” of all the heroic-era explorers. The invitation to retrace his journey was more than just an opportunity for adventure.
In the years since the achievements of Shackleton and his peers, there has been an ebb and flow in the way in which their exploits have been regarded. Mawson survived to old age, going on to achieve great things beyond his Antarctic feats, and is now finally beginning to get the recognition he deserves. Scott, once the hero who had paid the ultimate price by selflessly giving his life in the pursuit of his goal, has come to be seen by many as someone who went too far. Perhaps he was too readily prepared to sacrifice not only his life but also those of his men, and made serious mistakes along the way that contributed to their demise. Amundsen, who was seen as unfeeling and dispassionate with his routine butchering of his dogs and clinical