Posted on 04/06/2002 6:19:55 PM PST by rohry
My apologies in advance for doing a vanity, but I just saw the most uplifting movie at the local Imax Theater. For those of you unfamiliar with Imax it is a very wide (100 feet) and very tall (5 stories) screen with super-excellent sound. Anyway, the movie was Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure and it was a fantastic testament to heroism and human endurance, man’s indomitable spirit in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds and the power of Faith.
I have never been in a war but war is the only experience comparable to what these 28 men went through in their goal to cross the Antarctic continent in 1914. Shackleton considered the expedition's goal to be the last great polar journey of the "Heroic Age of Exploration." The plan was to sail from South Georgia Island across the Weddell Sea to reach Vahsel Bay, from which Shackleton and a small team would cross the continent to the Ross Sea. But just three days into the journey, the wooden ship, Endurance, encountered unexpected patches of sea ice and enormous icebergs. For six weeks, the Endurance, which Shackleton had renamed after his family motto, Fortitudine Vincimus—"by endurance we conquer," dodged floes or smashed through them. One night, Shackleton ordered the crew to stop the engines to save fuel, and, in the morning, the ship was trapped in the ice, leaving the expedition stranded, with no way to contact the outside world for help.
Unable to break through the ice, the plan was formulated to spend the winter on the Endurance, wait for the ice to breakup in the spring.
But as the ice began to move in the spring it crushed the Endurance, ending the goal to cross the Antarctica. The images of the ship being crushed were disturbing and similar to a hurricane blowing your home away. A new goal emerged for Shackleton: saving every life. Twice they tried to haul their lifeboats to water but the ice proved impassable. The only recourse was to camp on the ice floe and hope it drifted closer to land. They called their new home “Patience Camp” because the plan was to wait, wait for the breakup of the ice. If they waited too long they would be sunk as the ice flow disappeared beneath them, if they left too early their lifeboats would be crushed by the reconstituted ice floes in the night. After five long months on a drifting ice floe the ice began breaking up. They launched their lifeboats.
When they launched their three lifeboats in search of land, the men had been trapped in the ice for 15 months. After four days of battling the elements in open boats, they had not gained a single mile, but instead been carried by currents 30 miles farther from land. Shackelton realized that they must try to go to nearby Elephant Island to save the lives of his men. They landed at Elephant Island after seven fearful days on the open sea but while they were on land for the first time in 497 days they were on an isolated island that offered no hope of rescue.
Shackleton decided on a desperate gamble: he and 5 men would sail in the largest of the lifeboats —the 22-foot James Caird—800 miles across the roughest seas on Earth to the whaling stations of South Georgia Island, where they would get help.
Shackleton and his five-man crew faced overcast skies, heaving seas, towering waves, gale-force winds—and even a hurricane—that made it almost impossible to keep the small lifeboat upright, much less for Worsley to navigate precisely with a sextant. If Worsley were off by even half a degree, they could miss South Georgia completely and disappear in the open ocean.
Soaked to the bone and frostbitten, tortured by thirst, and pumping water out of the boat almost continuously so it wouldn't sink, the men were at sea for 17 days before landing on South Georgia Island. But the James Caird was too damaged to go further, and the nearest whaling station was on the opposite coast, across treacherous glaciers and mountains. Shackleton had no choice but to attempt a crossing on the uncharted island on foot. He, after all, had the 22 men on Elephant Island depending on him.
Wearing threadbare clothing, with wood screws from the lifeboat fastened to their boot soles for traction, Shackleton, Worsley and Second Officer Tom Crean set out to march across South Georgia. With just three days' provisions, two compasses, a rope and a carpenter's adze to be used as an ice axe, the three men trudged nearly 30 miles over rugged crevasses and peaks, riskily sliding down a steep slope at one point, for they would have frozen to death at that altitude as night fell. After 36 hours of traversing the unmapped island, they arrived at Stromness whaling station, the first civilization they'd encountered in 17 months.
Nearly a century after Shackleton and his men landed on South Georgia Island in the James Caird, three of the world's most accomplished modern-day mountaineers—Reinhold Messner, Stephen Venables and Conrad Anker—landed on South Georgia to retrace Shackleton's route across the island to see what he, their hero, faced. Crossing South Georgia in three days as fit, well-fed climbers, the three were amazed that Shackleton, Worsley and Crean were able to accomplish the same crossing in 36 hours, without rest, with feet still numb from the frigid James Caird journey.
Returning to the Shackleton story, immediately after Shackleton, Worsley and Crean arrived at Stromness, a boat was sent to rescue the three crew members on the opposite side of South Georgia. Then Shackleton set out in a borrowed ship to save the 22 men on Elephant Island, but ice blocked his path again and again. Meanwhile, the men on Elephant Island assumed the worst—that Shackleton and the others had been lost at sea.
Finally, on August 30, 1916, Shackleton was able to reach Elephant Island. As he neared land, he anxiously counted the figures on the beach, exclaiming to Worsley, "They're all there, Skipper. They are all safe...Not a life lost." All of the men had been saved...
At this point in the film tears were running down my cheeks for the supreme bravery of these men. I have to admit that I probably would have given up at least three times given the he cards these guys were dealt:
Some of this has been copied from a website because they summed up the experience better than I could. Please see this movie…it is a real positive experience…
Timeline of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance Expedition
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Shackletons ad in a London Paper.
Richard W.
A waitress at The Crabhouse told us that I26 was a "parking lot" 4 years ago during the last hurricane alert. I've got a second floor apartment, I guess I'll stay put and hope the roof doesn't blow off and the Ashley doesn't rise more than 10 feet!
This truly is a moving story. I've seen it recounted several times in different venues, and it still reaffirms my faith in all that men can be.
Actually, I you're thinking of Scott and his ill-fated trip. This expedition was later and the goal was to cross the entire Antarctic continent, not go to the South Pole. They had dogs (no horses) and there are some 90 year-old films showing them taking care of them (apparantly they were susceptible to sea-sickness).
Imagine a year and a half living in those conditions with no loss of life!
Oops! That would be Shackelton starring Kenneth Branagh.
This Imax movie has got to be one of the most moving things I've ever seen. Original films (90 years old) mixed with modern shots of Giant icebergs and iceflows. Picture a 5-story high screen with surround sound! No Hollywood drama needed...
Next month they will be showing a movie taken from the Space Station. They showed a trailer and you're looking down on Earth and you feel like you're going to fall!
The photographer himself recovered the glass plates of those photos by diving into the freezing Antarctic water after the ship had sunk. Shackleton ordered the remaining plates destroyed (the ones still on the sunken ship) so that the photographer would not risk his life a second time to recover them.
The network you saw a movie on Shackleton was A&E. In fact it's on tonight at 8 PM (Eastern). This is not the same movie that we saw.
Actually, they are different. The one last week (I watched it) was a documentary with archived footage. The one this evening and tomorrow is a re-enactment with actors.
The A&E special was a BBC film staring Kenneth Branneth.
THe PBS told the story, the BBC film went into personalities, but I couldn't decide if I liked Branneth's portrayal or not.
Allister Mc Lean (the writer) used to have his fictional heros quote that if you were in an impossible bind, pray to God and ask for Shackelton.
I've been an Endurance fan ever since my brother lent me the book in junior high school.
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