On May 20, 1916, Earnest Shackleton, Frank Worsley and Tom Crean walked into the office of the manager of the Stromness whaling station on South Georgia Island. It was the end of a near-impossible journey in a small boat from Elephant Island (part of Antarctica) where much of his crew was marooned, awaiting rescue. The final stage of the journey was a 36-hour walk over the spine of this severely mountainous island, itself a most improbable feat.
Altogether, this journey and the eventual successful rescue of all his men ranks as one of the greatest human feats in history.
A friend of mine is a many great-nephew of Shackleton. He gave an interesting talk on him at the local Imax a few years ago before the screening of the movie.
Same here. My parents (particularly my dad) were so affected by the story that after they retired, they traveled to South George island to visit Shackleton’s grave, and also to London to gaze upon the James Caird.
That story would be unbelievable if it wasn’t true. On top of everything else, everybody survived. The guys who sailed to South Georgia were amazing, but all the guys back in Antarctica had to wait around for what must have been an eternity with no idea if the boat crew every reached anyplace. It was a few months after the rescue boat set off before they returned for the rest of the crew, what a wait.
I’ve seen the re-creation, and I think there was a Nova stand alone episode. I watch that in awe of the perseverance those men had. To not just give up when faced with an almost zero chance of doing anything but just freezing or starving. Hard to think of a more heroic undertaking.
Well, almost everybody. The Ross Sea Party did lose two members, but the fact that any of them survived is yet another incredible survival story in this saga. Can you imagine the jubilation at picking up the Elephant Island survivors, but then realizing. . . they have to go back to Antarctica because there could be (and were) others.:eek:
I must have been just thinking of the Elephant Island guys, thanks for jogging my noggin. I do remember that one guy was pissed because Shackleton made him kill his cat.
Several years back a friend and I watched a documentary about the expedition at the Mugar Omni Theater, and said documentary included a lot of footage of the crew. Playing with their dogs featured heavily in the first third of the film. And then towards the end they revealed that miraculously none of the crew left behind starved while the others had gone off for help. The dogs, however, were never mentioned again. The adults in the audience sadly connected the dots, but as we were leaving a little boy of about eight loudly asked his parents “what happened to the dogs?” Um…