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South

Book Review by: BBbb77    

Original Author: Ernest Shackleton

When the South Pole was reached on December 14, 1911, by Roald Amundsen and about one month later (on January 16,
1912) by Robert Scott the next challenge of Antarctic journeying was the crossing of the South Polar continent from sea to sea. Such attempt was made by expedition organized and led by Ernest Shackleton. The book is his relation of the history of this expedition, which was one of the most dramatic in the conquest of the Antarctic. The expedition was equipped with two ships: The Aurora and The Endurance. The first one took one group of explorers from Hobart (Tasmania) to Ross Sea shore of the South Pole continent. The second ship took another group of explorers and the leader from England to South America and from there to South Georgia. The plan was that the Endurance would sail possibly close to the shore of the Antarctic and from that point a group of explorers would begin a walk to the South Pole. After reaching the South Pole this group would walk in the direction of Ross Sea. On their way they would meet supplying stations prepared in the meantime by explorers from the Aurora and Ross Sea.
The Endurance left South Georgia on December 5, 1914 and after a little more than one month, at the end of January 1915 was stopped by ice. Practically it was the end of the expedition. The group survived successfully the South Pole winter at this place (drifting with ice), but at the end of October (1915) the ship was destroyed by ice and sunk. Explorers arranged a camp on ice and drifteded together with it up to the middle of April, 1916. Then using boats which they took from their ship before she sunk they sailed to Elephant Island. There Ernest Shackleton left 22 men on the island took one boat and few men and sailed 800 miles in an open boat to South Georgia to look for help. They landed successfully at western shore of South Georgia. From there Shackleton with two men crossed the island (incredible achievement, no map, mountains covered with ice and snow, freezing temperatures, weak people... ) to whaling station at the east coast. All people from the Endurance were rescued.
Ross Sea party was not so lucky. They did not know that a plan of crossing of the South Pole continent by the Endurance party was abandoned and they struggled with all polar world difficulties and dangers to prepare supplying stations for their comrades who were supposed to arrive from the South Pole. They got the message when Ernest Shackleton joined them traveling from South America to New Zealand and further to the South. Unfortunately then, three of them already lost their life.
Ernest Shackleton gives excellent, full of details, very precise and fairly unemotional description of all problems, difficulties and dangers his group had to go through. He neglects his role in the incredible "net result" of the Endurance group odyssey: nobody died, nobody was lost, all members of this group survived and were rescued. The book is a classical position of the literature of polar expeditions.
Published: July 30, 2007
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