For Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen, pro patria mori ended up reigning supreme. Scott, the last to die in his tent, was writing eloquently until the end. Amundsen, having conquered the Northwest Passage by boat and the South Pole on foot, was lost in a plane searching for a former colleague, Umberto Nobile, in the Arctic. And as for Shackleton, he died only five years after the legendary journey he undertook after the loss of the Endurance.
Shackleton’s star has risen and continues to do so, his decisiveness, compassion, and ability demonstrated so ably by his salvaging victory from the jaws of defeat in saving his men, representing an ideal to aim for in a world where selfless heroic leadership is aspired to by many, practiced by few, and needed by all. Now I was committed to emulating this most difficult of journeys by this most incredible of men and hoped that I could rise to the challenge. An apocryphal advertisement for the original expedition read, “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Safe return doubtful . . . honour and recognition in case of success.”
Together alone: the Endurance crew beside their ice-bound ship.
From the Collection of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
The heroic era of exploration—to which Ernest Shackleton and his contemporaries Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen, and Douglas Mawson belonged—began with the first Antarctic landing by Carsten Borchgrevink in 1895. It ended with Shackleton’s Endurance expedition of 1914–17, which coincided with the loss of innocence on the fields of Flanders as cavalry charges were cut down by machine-gun fire.
Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, and Mawson were seeking to conquer the three “poles”—the North and South Poles and the Northwest Passage, a near-mythical sea route above Canada. Their need to challenge themselves and find out more about the world and their place in it lies at the heart of so many spheres of human endeavor and remains as true today as it was back then. It is as much about discovering what lies within as it is about triumphing over adversity.
These heroic-era expeditions also served the dual purpose of satisfying the national interests of the countries concerned and the egos of the personalities involved. These same motivations remain—although perhaps today’s expeditions are done more with corporate sponsors in mind than king and country.
Shackleton first went south on the Discovery expedition led by Scott in 1901–03. The two men, along with Dr. Edward Wilson, got to within 720 kilometers of the South Geographic Pole. Overcome by scurvy and without sufficient food to sustain them, the trio had to turn back. They were unable to pull their sleds any farther, a problem exacerbated by their poor ski experience and dog-handling skills. Shackleton’s level of debilitation was by far the worst and his subsequent evacuation home by Scott was a slight he found difficult to live with. It began an unbridgeable rift between the two men.
Amundsen finally conquered the third pole—the Northwest Passage—in 1903–06, but not before the British Navy threw men and resources at the task in the hope of being the first to find a way through. One of its goals was to find a faster trade route from Britain to the jewel in the imperial crown, India. Attempts came thick and fast, including John Franklin’s ill-fated journey. Franklin, a former governor of Tasmania, was past his prime at age fifty-nine when the expedition began in 1845. He and all 128 of his men perished—the biggest non-wartime loss of life sustained by the Royal Navy. His ships Erebus and Terror have never been found.
In 1907–09 Shackleton organized his own attempt on the South Pole—the British Antarctic Expedition, otherwise known as the Nimrod Expedition after his ship. The goal eluded his team by only 155 kilometers (97 miles), but Shackleton’s decision to abandon his quest undoubtedly saved the lives of the entire party. To continue would have meant certain death. Again, had the party been more proficient dog handlers, taken a larger dog team, and dispensed with the ponies that proved to be a liability, they might have been more successful. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? Ultimately Shackleton’s decision to turn back exemplified the compassion and fearless decision-making that came to symbolize his ability as a leader. His “surrender” was particularly brave given it ran counter to the mood of the day, where a philosophy of pro patria mori would soon result in millions dying for their country in the trenches of the First World War. As Shackleton said to his wife, “I thought you’d rather a live donkey than a dead lion.”
Shackleton was subsequently knighted for his achievements during the Nimrod Expedition. But the trip was also notable for another major achievement. During it, Mawson, together with Alistair Mackay and Edgeworth David, reached the South Magnetic Pole. Theirs was the longest unsupported sledging journey ever undertaken and included the first ascent of the 3,800-meter volcano Mount Erebus.
The austral summer of 1911–12 was a busy period in Antarctica. Mawson set sail from Hobart to begin his Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) in December 1911, just as Amundsen and Scott were racing to be the first to reach the South Pole. Amundsen reached his goal on December 14. When Scott, who toiled across the Ross Ice Shelf, arrived at the Pole on January 17, he found that the Norwegian had narrowly beaten him to his prize. He and his four men—Edward Wilson, Lawrence Oates, Henry Bowers, and Teddy Evans—started the 1,500-kilometer journey back. Evans died about a month into the return trip, and was followed by Oates, who, realizing he was a hindrance to his companions, walked out into a blizzard uttering the now immortal line, “I’m just going outside and may be some time.” The remaining three men died just twenty kilometers from the final food depot that would have saved them.
Mawson would undertake his own desperate survival journey in the austral summer of 1912–13 when the Far Eastern Sledging Journey that formed part of AAE went wrong, claiming the lives of his two companions. His survival against terrible odds secured his place in the annals of Antarctic exploration history. My re-enactment of his journey of survival in 2006—in which I used the same clothing, equipment, and starvation rations—taught me the depths of resolve he must have called upon.
With Amundsen and Scott having already reached the South Pole, Shackleton embarked on the most ambitious polar expedition of all—the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (ITAE). It was a bid to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea coast to the Ross Sea coast in what he described as “the one great main object of Antarctic journeyings.” ITAE planned to use two ships to accomplish its goal. The Endurance, on which Shackleton traveled, would land at a site near Vahsel Bay adjacent to the Ronne Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea. From here Shackleton would begin his attempt to cross the continent on a route that was very similar to my unsupported expedition to cross Antarctica in 1999–2000, which left from the northernmost tip of Berkner Island on the Ronne Ice Shelf. A second ship, Mawson’s former vessel the Aurora, would leave from Hobart under the command of Aeneas Mackintosh and land at McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea side. Its men would then have the job of laying a series of food caches that the crossing team would access once past the Pole.
The expedition went disastrously wrong. The Endurance was crushed in the ice and Shackleton was forced to undertake a desperate survival bid in one of its lifeboats, the James Caird.
Terra Incognita.
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia
Great Britain, Hydrography Department, Ice chart of Southern Hemisphere, National Library of Australia, MAP RM 1658
“Victory has 100 fathers, and defeat is an orphan.”
John