Escape from the Antarctic (Penguin Great Journeys)

Escape from the Antarctic is a selection from Ernest Shackleton's book South, describing the most remarkable part of Shackleton's disastrous expedition to the Antarctic in 1914-17. Escape tells the portion of the story where Shackleton and his men have been marooned with few supplies on an Antarctic island after their ship is crushed by pack ice, and his decision to set out across 800 miles of forbidding ocean – "the most tempestuous storm-swept area of water in the world" (pg. 3) – in a small boat with a handful of men to the tiny island of South Georgia. On this island, the exhausted men then traverse a glacier thought impassable to find aid at a whaling station.

It is an incredible feat, and for the most part Shackleton's prose show more matches it. It is quite a dry account, with only the occasional flair, but the feats described are remarkable no matter how they are told. It is impossible when reading not to be intimidated by the cold, terror and brute force of Antarctic nature, and impossible not to be staggered by the ability of weak, exhausted men to resist it. Anyone who can tell first-hand of crashing ice, howling hurricanes and gigantic waves – "so small was our boat and so great were the seas that often our sail flapped idly in the calm between the crests of two waves" (pg. 15) – is always going to find ears for his story. show less

As the first World War ravaged Europe, Ernest Shackleton led the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition in hopes of crossing the Antarctic. There were two parties, one which laid out supply dumps and the second which would make the crossing. The second party was marooned on Elephant Island after ice crushed their ship the Endurance, 800 miles away from the nearest settlement, at the onset of winter. At this point, Shackleton made the desperate decision to split the group: the less fit men would remain at base camp while Shackleton and five other men would seek help. (more)