They eventually found shelter on Elephant Island at the edge of the ice in April of 1916 as winter was taking hold. The crew and expedition members were forced to make their escape over the shifting pack ice. In the spring of 1915, the expedition’s ship, HMS Endurance, was crushed by ice and eventually sank. His achievements on the ice were matched by his heroic journey of escape by sea and the rescue of his whole party, which is the story of this book. Since he neither won the race nor died trying, he is less well remembered today than Amundsen and Scott, though the sum of his achievements was arguably greater than either of these explorers. In Shackleton’s historic boat journey, the boats fared remarkably well, but the discomfort rose to a colossal scale.įor those who do not know or have forgotten the details of this chapter of Antarctic exploration, Sir Ernest Shackleton was one of the major players in the early 20th century race to be first to the South Pole. Shackleton’s Boat Journey simultaneously satisfies our appetites for vicarious adventure and reminds us why we reserve the bulk of our adventurousness for the imagination: it is not the risk of disaster to our frail ships as much as the certainty of profound discomfort to body and mind. Quite a few will harbor dreams of striking out to distant horizons aboard their less-than-state-of-the-art vessels. Most readers of Good Old Boat are likely to have a good old sense of adventure.
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