Areas of Unrest

12 June 1999 - More Shackleton-mania

It's been a year and a half since I went to Antarctica, but the subject came up a couple of times this weekend. For one thing, I saw Wanna today for the first time since I've been back and she asked me about it (as well as about my other meandering). And then this week included a renewal of my Shackleton-mania, both by deciding which weekend I am going to go to New York to see the exhibit on him at the American Museum of Natural History (though I still need both museum tickets and plane tickets) and by reading Frank Worsley's Shackleton's Boat Journey. Worsley was the captain of the Endurance and his navigational skill was certainly important to the survival of the expedition. His book is interesting, though I'd still suggest Alfred Lansing's Endurance is the best account overall. (I've not read Caroline Alexander's version yet, though I read her fictionalized book, Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition, which was good enough but I don't really care for the literary conceit of pretending cats can write. I do like cats but, in my experience, their major interest in the written word is as a source of paper to shred.)

It occurs to me that I have referred to Shackleton and the Endurance in several entries but there may be readers who have no idea what I am talking about. Sir Ernest Shackleton was not the most successful Antarctic explorer in conventional terms, having managed on an earlier expedition to get only to within 90 miles of the South Pole. While that was the furthest south anyone had been to that date, he had hoped to achieve the Pole itself, but been forced back by short supplies. (In light of Scott's fate, that was certainly the right decision, but it was still disappointing.) Anyway, after Amundsen and Scott, Shackleton decided that the last great exploration of Antarctica was a trans-Antarctic expedition. The idea was that he would take the Endurance to the Weddell Sea and cross to the Ross Sea. (Another team was exploring the Ross Sea area and laying supplies.)

The whole thing almost didn't start as the departure in 1914 coincided with the outbreak of World War I, but the king ordered him to go ahead. Unfortunately, they had miserable luck with respect to weather and got hopelessly stuck in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea. The team spent several months caught in the pack, drifting helplessly with the ice. When the pack ice began to break up in the Antarctic summer, they eventually camped on the floes as the ship broke up. They continued to drift on ice. Finally, the ice floes were breaking up too much to be safe and they used the three lifeboats from the Endurance to cross leads in the ice to Elephant Island. After recovering a little strength, Shackleton left 24 of the men on Elephant Island and, with the remaining 5, crossed 800 miles of the roughest seas in the world to South Georgia Island. Three of the group (Shackleton, Worsley and Crean) crossed the island on foot - which had also never been done before and included such hardships as rappeling down a 50 foot waterfall - where they got help from a whaling station and rescued the other three who had crossed with them. It took 4 attempts (over another 4 months) to rescue the remaining men from Elephant Island. The truly remarkable part is that everybody survived. In my opinion the whole story is a remarkable saga of courage and teamwork.

Anyway, I am particularly fascinated by one member of the crew. Perce Blackborrow was a twenty year old who stowed away on the ship with the assistance of the ship's carpenter, Henry "Chips" MacNeish. (The friendship between these men apparently continued throughout the expedition and Blackborrow as a particular friend of the carpenter's cat, Mrs. Chippy.) It would have been impossible for Shackleton to have turned back when he found out about the stowaway - at least, not without delaying the voyage to a point that would have made reaching the continent that year impossible. But he is recorded as having said something like, "well, you can stay, but if we run short of food and somebody has to be eaten, you will be the first." While Blackborrow did prove his worth as a worker, he must still have remembered those words and agonized over them. He also developed severe frostbite during the boat journey to Elephant Island and his toes were amputated by the two surgeons right after they made land.

What can have been in his mind all those cold months? In the photos from the early months on the ice, he's an attractive young man, smiling broadly with Mrs. Chippy sitting on his shoulder. When they had to abandon the ship, Mrs. Chippy was shot. Did he wonder if he would be next? Did he ever regret having forced his way into this adventure?

Of course, in asking all this, I'm really asking what I would have done in his shoes. That's what fascinates me about exploration, in general, the whole question of whether I could ever have chosen such a path (even without considering that women didn't generally get the choice). Realistically, I doubt I would have; my fears would have gotten in the way. But that bothers me. I'd much prefer to be fearless. I had an interesting discussion about this with Robert once. He thinks that exploration isn't particularly interesting because people who undertake an expedition know that there's a high chance of dying. It isn't surprising when disaster strikes and the struggle to survive is one more sign that it was foolish to go in the first place. He considers fear to be so rational that he doesn't understand why someone would mind being a wimp.

Which brings me to other news, namely that I had an actual date with someone other than Robert this weekend. It went reasonably well and I wouldn't mind seeing this guy (Paul) again, even though he's rather geographically undesirable. Of course, Robert is even more G.U., not even being on the same continent I'm on most of the time. But years and chemistry are mitigating factors. Still, I'd have to be pretty warped to consider Glendale less desirable than London!