EXTREME JOURNEYS

& THE MEN WHO

MADE THEM

2

Some of the members of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. Obviously it's a balmy summer day.

Photo: State Library of New South Wales »

MAWSON'S JOURNEY Continued

FROM PART 1 »

Their companion and the sledge carrying their food and tent lost in a crevasse, Mawson and Mertz struggle back to the discarded sledge, and improvise a tent by draping the remaining tent cover over skis and sledge struts. The dogs are fed worn-out rawhide straps and mitts until December 15th when they have to kill the weakest dog for food. It is a sad and desperate time, and by Christmas Day their last dog is gone, and they are 160 miles from Main Base. By New Year's Day, Mertz has terrible stomach pains and is becoming delirious, but they continue, resting on the 5th. On the 6th, Mertz is so weak, Mawson hauls him on the sledge. The terrible cold, and probably Vitamin A poisoning from eating the dogs' livers, takes its toll. On the 7th, Mertz dies.

For hours Mawson lies awake in his bag, wondering how he can continue. He feels "alone on the wide shores of the world," and close to collapse. Nevertheless, he refuses to go to sleep in his bag, and die. He thinks about his fiancée, Paquita, and marches on. By January 17 he guesses the Aurora must have arrived, and he is still many weary miles away. The terrain is treacherous, and in a single devastating moment he slips into a crevasse, and dangles at the end of his 14-foot harness. He waits for agonising seconds to learn whether the sledge above will hold him, or follow him in. When it holds, he climbs up the rope, praying the sledge will hold. He has just reached the lip of the crevasse, when the edge crumbles, and he falls back in. With his strength ebbing, swinging in an icy chasm, he thinks about cutting the cord, and ending it all. Instead he tries a second time to climb his harness to safety. As he reaches the top he gives a wild kick and throws himself out.

On January 27 another blizzard strikes, and his food is nearly gone, but as soon as he can, Mawson pushes on though he is so ill his soles of his feet have become detached. He wants to live. He dreams about Paquita. On the 29th, he finds a supply depot, built by members of his expedition who have been out hunting for him. He eats, and reads the attached note telling him that the Aurora is waiting. He pushes on to Aladdin's Cave, 23 miles distant, but another blizzard closes in, trapping him. After a week, he sets out in bad conditions, and reaches the Main Base in time to see the Aurora vanishing over the horizon.

The six men who have remained behind to search for him see Mawson as he drags himself toward the Main Base, but he is so terribly changed one of them shouts, "My God, which one are you?" Weather prevents the Aurora's return so they winter over. When at last they return to Australia in 1914, Mawson receives a tumultuous welcome – "the hand-grips of many friends – it chokes me!" He marries Paquita, and subsequently leads several other expeditions to Antarctica, where he makes aerial reconnaissance flights, and contributes to the world's growing understanding of the continent. His daughters say he always encouraged them to believe they could do anything.

Ernest Shackleton

Photo: Scott Polar Research Institute

University of Cambridge »

SHACKLETON & ENDURANCE

Standing on a beach in England, fully clothed with his three small children, Ernest Shackleton waded into the sea, turned, and said, "Oh, why is everything all wet?" The children shrieked with joy, and followed him in.

The son of Anglo-Irish parents Shackleton loves everything wild and wide open and the chance to walk where no one ever has before. For Shackleton this means returning to Antarctica for the third time, in 1914, in order to become the first man to cross the entire continent. He plans to strike out from the Weddell Sea and finish at the Ross Sea, a distance of 1800 miles. A second party of men would land at the Ross Ice Shelf and build a chain of supply depots to meet and sustain his team.

A scourge of Antarctic expeditions is scurvy, a disease easily cured with fresh fruits but deadly if not treated, inflicting exhaustion, muscle and joint pain, nausea, bruising, ulcers, loose teeth, and putrescence of flesh and bones. Shackleton has learned that fresh meat will help keep scurvy at bay, and plans accordingly. He never imagines that disaster will strike before he sets foot on Antarctica. The story, now familiar to many, still harbours a few surprises.

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton, his men and their ship, Endurance, reach Antarctica, only to be trapped in ice. For several weeks the ship emits terrible creaking and groaning noises like a human in agony, until, crushed in the grip of the ice, it sinks. Shackleton watches it go as he and the men stand on the ice pack, in the harshest climate on earth, with no radio communications or chance of rescue. "A man must set himself to a new mark directly the old one goes," he writes in his journal, and they begin an epic journey across the Weddell Sea ice pack in three small open boats, facing icy storms, killer whales, and constant danger from the treacherous sea. Shackleton abandons his quest for knowledge and glory, and sets his eyes on one goal alone: Bringing every one of his men safely home.

Many books and films describe the ordeal in detail, and leadership manuals have been based on Shackleton's methods. These include:

Dissolving any barriers of class or profession between the men, and building camaraderie.

Setting each man to the tasks he does best, no matter who he is.

Responding immediately to individual needs within the context of the team.

Assuring the men they will be paid for every day, despite the disaster.

Keeping them all entertained.

Inspiring every man with unflagging confidence in his fair, tough, self-sacrificing leadership.

There are only 18 fur sleeping bags, so the men cast lots for them. They only realise later that there was something odd in the drawing – none of their commanders draw the warm, fur bags. Shackleton's grand-daughter, Alexandra Shackleton, suggests his leadership grew out of who he was, rather than what he did, and that seems indisputably true. Shackleton had a transcendent goal that was bigger than he was – the safety of his men. The worth of the mark he has set himself transforms him. His leadership becomes empowered by love.

Against all the odds, they ararive safely at the black basalt cliffs of Elephant Island which lies off the Antarctic Peninsula, and is one of the ten most difficult small-craft landings in the world. There they rebuild one of their small, open boats, the 22-and a-foot-long James Caird, and Shackleton and five others embark for the whaling station on the island of South Georgia in a desperate bid for rescue. They make a journey of almost 800 miles through huge and stormy seas. Frank Wild and the men on Elephant Island must try to survive on rations. Their only shelter will be hut they build out of their boats.

Worsley in the Caird manages to steer brilliantly – if he had missed South Georgia, Shackleton and his men would have gone down in the open Atlantic and never been heard from again. Thirsty, hungry, tired, they near the mountainous island » after 17 days, and almost capsize in fierce winds. With their boat falling apart, they are forced to land on uninhabited coast. Frantic to get help for the men they have left behind, they cross the icy spine of mountains to the whaling station in 36 hours, a speed which has never been equalled.

Meanwhile, ten men from Shackleton's Ross Sea party have been dropped off by the Aurora, to lay supply depots as far south as the Beardmore Glacier for Shackleton. Without radio communications, they do not know that Shackleton has not set foot on the continent.

They are two teachers, a geologist, a physicist, a medical orderly, a clerk, a clergyman/photographer, two sailors, and a college athlete. Desperate to make sure that Shackleton's party will not starve, they continue to work through the bitter winter while suffering frostbite, starvation, and scurvy. Blasted by high winds and cold, facing blizzards and yawning crevasses, they manage to lay half the supply depots.

When they return to their ship for the rest, they learn to their horror that the Aurora has been swept away by fierce storms, and is so badly damaged it is unable to return. They are marooned. Without adequate clothing, food, or equipment, they are reduced to living on the supplies and refuse left by previous parties at Ross.

Still determined to lay the rest of the supply depots on which they think the lives of Shackleton and his men depend, they set out to build the rest of the supply lifeline. Ultimately they will drag 4,000 pounds of supplies over 1300 miles while living on starvation rations.

The heroes include Harry Wild (Frank's brother), Earnest Joyce, and Richard Richards. On their return from Beardmore, their food supplies are so low they are reduced to eight lumps of sugar and half a biscuit. Several men fall ill from scurvy, and become so debilitated they cannot walk. Leaving one man behind in their tent, the men who can still walk race for Hut Point. They are dragging the two dying men on their sledge, in the hope that they can reach fresh meat in time to save them. One man dies along the way. They bury him, and arrive at the Hut, where they immediately kill seals for food. As soon as they have eaten, they head back to retrieve the last man in their party. Wondering whether they will ever return home, they endure another Antarctic winter, making scientific observations all the while, and lose two more men.

In the meantime, Shackleton is working desperately to rescue the men on Elephant Island. After three failed attempts in stormy seas, a rescue is successful, and Shackleton discovers to his unspeakable relief that all the men of the Endurance have survived.

He arrives in New Zealand in December 1916, only to find his Ross party is still stranded. The Aurora has been repaired, and he sets sail immediately to rescue them. In January 1917, they are finally reunited. Shackleton later writes, "No more remarkable story of human endeavour has been revealed than the tale of that long march."

In their quest for knowledge, the Brits have suffered. Before they leave, they build a cairn for the three men who died. Their epitaph, which might be called the wish of every Antarctic explorer, reads: "Things done for gain are nought / but great things done endure."

Back to Part One »

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