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Sometimes reality can be stranger than our wildest imaginations. I found myself in total disbelief when reading the story of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 expedition to cross Antarctica. Just before his ship could make landfall, it was encased in a thick sea ice and was ground to a halt. In the diary entries of the crew members, it’s clear that the men expected to be out shortly. Unfortunately for them, things went from bad to worse as the ship began to get crushed under the pressure from the surrounding floes. They were forced to evacuate onto the pack ice, exposed to the mercy of battering polar storms, facing dwindling rations, grappling with uncertainty about the floe’s integrity beneath their feet, and moved at the whim of ocean currents. I found myself vice-gripping the book at the many moments I was certain their end was imminent, from their encounters with charging sea leopards, slipping into the bone-chilling water in the dark, and rowing on lifeboats after days of sleepless nights through rough seas. If this book was a work of fiction, I may have stopped reading halfway though, believing the challenges thrown at the men to be far too absurd to be taken seriously. After nearly two years, enduring months of total darkness during the polar winters, they were finally able to self-rescue.
In addition to telling a tale about survival against all odds, there are several themes that apparent in Alfred Lansing’s telling of the story, made possible by masterfully weaving together diary entries from the crew. The most obvious is Shackleton’s leadership and decisiveness. He takes full responsibility for the welfare of his 28-man team. He’s regularly forced to make difficult choices about where they move toward given conditions, when they should leave zones of safety to make uncertain progress, and what supplies they should leave behind. While Shackleton tries to exercise conservative restraint, certain moments call for him to act boldly as his range of options narrow. Another theme is Shackleton’s dogged insistence that he pay close attention to the morale of the crew. He seems to fear the collective abandonment of hope more than anything else. What struck me the hardest is how content some of these men were despite the circumstances. As much as they miss the comforts of home, they find moments of real joy in the mundane: keeping busy with their hands to ready supplies, using their creativity to put on shows for amusement, or training their sled dogs to race each other. It left me thinking that the formula for happiness may be a lot simpler than we’re raised to believe.
I got this book as a gift for Christmas from Leah’s mom. I’d highly recommend you check it out. If you love it, pass it along to someone else!
