Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton(eng. Ernest Henry Shackleton, February 15, 1874, Kilkee House, Kildare, Ireland - January 5, 1922, Grytviken, South Georgia) - Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer, figure of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. Member of four Antarctic expeditions, three of which he commanded.
The first experience of polar research was received on the Discovery expedition, a participant in the first trip to the South Pole (latitude 82 ° 11’ was reached), after which he was evacuated for health reasons. In 1907, Shackleton led his own Nimrod expedition, during which he reached 88 ° 23 "S, 97 geographical miles (180 km) short of the South Pole. For his achievements, he was knighted by King Edward VII.
After Amundsen (December 14, 1911) and Scott (January 17, 1912) reached the South Pole, Shackleton stated that the crossing of the entire Antarctic continent remained "the only major goal of Antarctic travel". In 1914 he organized the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition. The trip ended in disaster: not reaching the coast of Antarctica, the expedition ship "Endurance" was caught in the ice in the Weddell Sea and sank. Shackleton managed to save the entire team, while not a single person died, but his heroism and professional quality were not appreciated in Britain against the background of the First World War. In 1921, he led the Shackleton-Rowett expedition, but even before the start of her work in Antarctica, he died of a heart attack at the age of 47 and was buried on the island of South Georgia.
Shackleton was a versatile person, tried to run for the British Parliament, organized commercial enterprises, but was not successful in any of them. After his death, he was forgotten for some time, but in the middle of the twentieth century there was a surge of interest in Shackleton's legacy, first in the US and then in the UK. In 2002, during a national poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Shackleton was ranked 11th, while Robert Scott was only 54th.
Family. Childhood and youth
Ernest Henry Shackleton was born in the barony of Kilkee House, about 48 km from Dublin, where his father was a landowner. Ernest was the second of ten children and the first son in the family. Father - Henry Shackleton (1847-1920), of Anglo-Irish origin (a descendant of Quakers from Yorkshire), mother - Henrietta Leticia Sophia Gavan (1845-1929), came from County Kerry, her family is of Norman origin, they settled in Ireland from XIII century. Since 1600, the Shackletons have had their own coat of arms and the motto "We conquer by endurance" (Latin Fortitudine vincimus, English By endurance we conquer). One of Shackleton's distant ancestors was the famous navigator Martin Frobisher. The younger brother of E. Shackleton - Frank (1876-1941) - was arrested in 1907 on charges of stealing the Crown insignia of the Order of St. Patrick, but acquitted.
In 1880, Henry Shackleton decided to change his life; leaving the ruined estate (in Ireland then there was a general decline in agriculture), he moved his family to Dublin, where he began to study medicine at Trinity College. In 1884, the Shackletons left Ireland and moved to the suburbs of London, where the head of the family hoped to find a rich practice (in total, G. Shackleton worked as a doctor for over 30 years). Journalist and historian Roland Huntford has suggested that the Shackletons' Anglo-Irish origins may have played a role in the move, as Irish nationalists assassinated Lord Cavendish, the Irish Secretary of State, in 1882, aggravating national tensions.
Ernest Shackleton developed an early passion for reading, which stimulated an interest in adventure. Until the age of 11, he received home education and education, and then was sent to a preparatory school in West Hill, Dulwich, southeast of London. At the age of 13, he entered Dulwich College, and he never shone with academic success. He had a calm disposition, but willingly got into fights if classmates tried to say something about his origin or made fun of his Irish accent. Later, he recalled that it was boring for him to study, and claimed that from school course geography, he did not endure almost nothing, and the study of literature was reduced to reading and analyzing passages from national poets and prose writers. However, Shackleton graduated fifth in a class of 31.
Ernest Henry Shackleton
In the heart of Antarctica
© Translation of the diaries of F. Hurley A. Gumerova
© 2014 by Paulsen. All Rights Reserved.
* * *Dear friends!
in front of you best book the famous polar explorer Ernest Shackleton - a man who had an amazing talent to lead people in the most desperate conditions. His team believed in him as in a god, and he always justified these hopes.
In the journey on the Nimrod described on the pages of the book, Shackleton could reach the geographic South Pole for the first time in the history of mankind, but turned back without risking the lives of his comrades. “A live donkey is better than a dead lion,” he wrote to his wife, but Shackleton's life shows that the last thing he cared about was personal safety. For him, something else was important: caring for the people who trusted him, the delight of meeting with unknown places, the glory of the discoverer. Shackleton was not indifferent to financial success either - however, at the same time, he literally devoted himself to polar expeditions that did not imply any profit ...
By the way, apart from lectures on travel, the only financially successful project in Shackleton's life was this book, In the Heart of Antarctica. It was first published in London in 1909 and has gone through many editions in various languages. In Russian, the full version of the book was published only once - in 1957.
Of course, this work is far from fiction. It is very detailed: the author describes in detail the equipment, organization and course of the expedition. However, not only is all this interesting in itself: from these serious pages, the author's personality is clearly visible - his unfailing cheerfulness, love of life, sympathy for his comrades. And although more than a hundred years have passed since the completion of the expedition on the Nimrod, we still have much to learn from Shackleton. For all of us, not just travel lovers.
P.S. We took the liberty of supplementing the book In the Heart of Antarctica with another interesting text: the diaries of the Australian Frank Hurley, a photographer who participated in Shackleton's expedition to the Endurance. The fate of these diaries is bizarre and is described in the introduction to them. In the meantime, we will only note that these diaries, as far as we have been able to find out, have never been made public.
Frederik Paulsen, publisher
Dear readers!
Before you is the second book in a series dedicated to the legendary British polar explorers, which is jointly presented by the Shell concern and the Paulsen publishing house.
"In the Heart of Antarctica" is a book by the famous British polar explorer Ernest Henry Shackleton, a member of four Antarctic expeditions.
The personality of Shackleton is well known in the UK. So, in the survey "100 Greatest Britons", conducted in 2002, Shackleton took 11th place. Even during his lifetime, the researcher was known in Russia. In 1909, at the invitation of the Russian Geographical Society, Shackleton visited St. Petersburg, where Nicholas II granted him an audience.
"In the Heart of Antarctica" was first translated into Russian in 1935, and only once reprinted in 1957. More than 50 years later, the book is published again and timed to coincide with the Cross Year of Culture of Great Britain and Russia.
It is gratifying that the book is published with the support of the Russian Geographical Society, which has a long tradition of international cooperation, including with British researchers. I am sure that Ernest Henry Shackleton's book will take its rightful place on the bookshelf of all those who are interested in the heroic pages in the history of mankind's exploration of the polar regions of our planet.
I wish you an enjoyable reading!
Olivier Lazar, Chairman of Shell Russia
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
Foreword
The scientific results of the expedition cannot be covered in detail in this book. Articles of the specialists who participated in the expedition, with summarizing information about the work done in the field of geology, biology, magnetic observations, meteorology, physics, etc., are placed in the appendix. In the same preface, I want to point out the most important aspects of the work of the expedition in the field of geography.
We spent the winter of 1908 in McMurdo Sound, twenty miles (32.2 km) north of Discovery's wintering ground. In autumn, one party climbed Erebus and examined its craters. During the spring and summer of 1908–1909 three sledge parties left the winter quarters. One went south and came to the southernmost point reached by any man hitherto; another reached the South Magnetic Pole for the first time in the world, the third explored the mountain ranges west of McMurdo Sound.
Southern sledge party hoisted the British state flag at 88°23'S sh., at a distance of 100 geographical miles (185 km) from the South Pole. This party of four found that south of McMurdo Sound between the 82nd and 86th parallels is a large mountain range that runs in a southeasterly direction. It has also been established that large mountain ranges continue south and southwest, and that between them lies one of the greatest glaciers in the world, leading inland to the plateau. The height of this plateau at 88 ° S. sh. over 11,000 feet (3353 m) above sea level. In all likelihood, the plateau continues beyond the South Pole, extending from Cape Adair to the pole. The serifs and angles of the new mountains to the south and the large glacier are mapped approximately correctly, given the somewhat crude methods of determination unavoidable under those conditions.
We have not solved the mystery of the Great Ice Barrier. In my opinion, the question of its formation and extent cannot be finally answered until a special expedition surveys the line of mountains around the southern end of the Barrier. We have only been able to shed some light on the structure of the Barrier. On the basis of observations and measurements, a preliminary conclusion can be made that it mainly consists of snow. The disappearance of Balloon Cove as a result of part of the Great Ice Barrier breaking off suggests that the retreat of the Barrier, which has been observed since the voyage of Sir James Ross in 1842, is still ongoing.
Ross, James Clark (1800-1862), English polar explorer. In 1818-1821, he participated in several Arctic expeditions of his compatriot William-Edward Parry to find the Northwest Passage - a sea route along the northern coasts of the American continent. In 1829-1833 he participated in the expedition of his uncle John Ross. Together with this expedition, he endured three difficult winterings in polar ice Lancaster Strait (Parry Archipelago); discovered the North Magnetic Pole in 1831. In 1839-1843 he sailed to the Antarctic on the ships Erebus and Terror. During the first voyage, Ross discovered in the southern part Pacific Ocean water expanse far to the south (the Ross Sea), a section of the coast of Antarctica - Victoria Land, two volcanoes - Erebus (active) and Terror. Further south, the ships were blocked by a high - up to 100 m high - ice wall (Ross Barrier, Great Ice Barrier). On the subsequent voyage, Ross traced the direction of the Barrier to the east for 200 km and reached 78 ° 10 'S. sh. - a point that no one had visited before, noted the destruction of the ice barrier. On the third voyage, Ross explored the coast of Louis Philippe Land and discovered Ross Island.
At the 163rd meridian, there is definitely an elevated, snow-covered land, as we have seen slopes and peaks there that are completely covered with snow. However, we did not notice the exposed rocks and did not have the opportunity to measure the depth of the snow cover in that place, so we could not draw a final conclusion.
The result of the journey undertaken by the Northern Party is the achievement of the South Magnetic Pole. According to observations at the very point of the pole and in the immediate vicinity, it is located at 72 ° 25 'S. sh., 155°15’ E e. The first part of this journey was made along the coastline of Victoria Land, and new peaks, glaciers and glacial tongues were discovered, as well as two small islands. Careful triangulation has been carried out along the coast along the entire route, and a number of corrections have been made to the existing map.
The exploration of the Western Mountains by the Western Party has added to the knowledge of the topography, and to some extent of the geology, of this part of Victoria Land.
Another important result of the expedition in the field of geography is the discovery of a new section of coastline 45 miles (72.4 km) long, running from Cape North, first in a southwesterly direction, and then in a western direction.
During the return voyage of the Nimrod, we undertook a thorough search, which reinforced the prevailing opinion that the Emerald Isle, the Nimrod Islands, and Dougherty Island do not exist. Still, I am against removing them from the map without additional research. It is possible that they are located somewhere in the neighborhood. Therefore, it is better to leave them on the map until it is absolutely proven that this is a mistake.
Exactly one hundred years ago, on October 27, 1915, the team of the British traveler Ernest Shackleton landed on the ice of Antarctica. The ship sank, but people made a desperate attempt to escape - and survived. Full history this expedition can be learned from the books"Lost in the Ice" and "Leadership in the Ice".Some of the facts:
On August 8, 1914, Ernest Shackleton set out with his brave crew to cross the endless snows of Antarctica. This journey was destined to be the last expedition of the golden age of polar exploration.
Shackleton planned to reach Antarctica and pass through the South Pole, but on January 18, 1915, the ship, without reaching the target, got stuck in a dense accumulation of ice debris.
The crew is trying to clear a path for the ship.
Gradually, the ice floes tilted the ship thirty degrees. At some point, one of the ice floes pierced the hull of the ship, water poured into the hold. It was not safe to stay on the ship. The order to land on the ice was issued on October 27, 1915 at five o'clock in the evening, although by that time it was already clear to most of the expedition members that the ship would sink. People fought for him - and lost.
The ship went under water on 21 November. The team members had to get used to a new reality, consisting of constant inconvenience, endless dampness and inevitable cold. The camp "Ocean", which they set up not far from the ship, became the new home for the travelers. Travelers who left South Georgia almost a year ago were left drifting on an ice floe.
The crew drags a lifeboat across the ice after the ship's sinking.
On December 23, Shackleton and his team packed their gear and left Camp Ocean in search of more reliable ice. The team spent the next three and a half months at Camp Patience on an ice floe that was drifting northwest. However, the ice floe became more and more unreliable every day, and on April 9, the team members had to transfer to lifeboats. A week later they landed on the deserted island of Elephant.
Shackleton took a few men with him and went by boat to get help. After 16 days, they managed to reach the whaling base on the island of South Georgia. It took another three months to get to Elephant Island and evacuate the remaining crew members.
You can read more about the heroic expedition of Ernest Shackleton and the courageous people who managed to survive in extreme conditions in these books: "Lost in the Ice" and "Leadership in the Ice".
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Shackleton, Ernest Henry (1874-1922), English Antarctic explorer. In 1901-1903, a member of the expedition of R. Scott, in 1907-1909, the leader of the expedition to the South Pole (reached 88 degrees 32 minutes 19 seconds south latitude, discovered the mountain range on Victoria Land, the Polar Plateau and the Beardmore Glacier). In 1914-1917 he led an expedition to the shores of Antarctica.
Shackleton Ernst Henry - Antarctic explorer. In 1901-1903 he participated in the expedition of R. Scott, in 1907-1909 he led an expedition to the South Pole (reached 88 degrees 32 minutes S, discovered a mountain range on Victoria Land, the Polar Plateau and the Beardmore Glacier). In 1914-1917 he led an expedition to the shores of Antarctica.
Shackleton, scion of an old Irish family, was born at Kilkee House to a doctor's family. His youth was spent at sea. Upon learning of his son's desire to become a sailor, Shackleton Sr. did not oppose. When Ernst graduated from high school, his father used his acquaintances to get his son a cabin boy on the 1,600-ton clipper ship Hogton Tower, which was setting off on a long voyage. In the last days of April 1890, the Hogton Tower left the shores of England and headed across the Atlantic around the southern tip of America's Cape Horn to the Chilean port of Valparaiso.
Sailing on the Hogton Tower was a harsh but excellent school for Shackleton. He served on a clipper ship for four years, made two long voyages to Chile and one circumnavigation.
Upon his return from circumnavigation, Shackleton was able to easily pass the junior navigator's exam and get a third mate position on the Welsh Regular Line's Monmouthshire, which sailed to Japan, China and America.
In 1901, Second Lieutenant of the Royal Navy Shackleton was already on duty on the bridge of the British Antarctic Expedition's Discovery expedition ship, organized to explore the polar countries. Captain R. Scott led the expedition.
On November 2, 1902, Scott, Wilson and Shackleton set out on three dogsleds to the Pole. For two weeks they were accompanied by an auxiliary party, but on November 15 they returned back, and the pole party continued south. The last day of 1902 found Scott's group at 82° 15" south latitude, eight miles from the Western Mountains, against a valley that cut through the ridge to the west. Scott called it Shackleton's Pass. An ice cliff blocked the path to the mountain range.
Scott's group was forced to return. All three showed signs of scurvy. Shackleton coughed up blood. Shackleton's health condition forced Scott to send him to England. What Shackleton considered a failure brought him fame that the recent navigator of the Carisbrooke Castle could not dream of: he was the first to tell the world about the discoveries of the Scott expedition; he got the first laurels. Shackleton received the rank of lieutenant of the fleet and a new appointment - to lead the preparation of an auxiliary expedition to free the Discovery, which was firmly frozen in the ice. Shackleton did an excellent job: the expedition was equipped and sent on time. Later, she rescued the Discovery from the shackles of ice, and Scott's expedition returned to their homeland.
Shackleton's friend - Beardmore (later Lord Invernairn) - offered Shackleton a decently paid position as secretary of the technical committee in Glasgow. It was something like an experimental design bureau, which was engaged in the creation of new types of economical gas engines.
Calm, measured service in the technical committee did not satisfy Shackleton, so the idea of a new campaign to the South Pole kindled his ambition more and more.
Shackleton made a draft of a new expedition in the newspapers, and then in the Geographical Journal. The challenge has been thrown.
On March 10, 1908, David, Mawson and four other companions of Shackleton climbed the summit of Erebus (3794 meters) for the first time and reached the edge of an active volcano. In the spring (late October) Shackleton began his march to the South Pole. However, being less than 180 kilometers from the pole, on January 9, 1909, the detachment was forced to turn back due to lack of supplies and strong winds. According to Shackleton's calculation, they traveled 2,750 kilometers each way. The geographic results of the campaign turned out to be very significant: several mountain ranges were discovered (including Queen Alexandra) with a total length of more than 900 kilometers, framing the Ross Ice Shelf from the south and west.
On June 14, 1909, England welcomed Shackleton and his comrades as national heroes. However, no matter how significant were the achievements of Shackleton and Scott, the victory of the Norwegians, who were the first to reach the South Pole, hit the national pride of the British. To return the "offended" English flag to its former glory, a feat was required that would surprise the world and allow England to stake out new areas of the ice continent in the name of the king. Shackleton took over.
He intercepted the idea of Bruce and Filchner and came up with a project for a transantarctic expedition. Huge popularity, support of the ruling and financial circles of England helped Shackleton relatively easily obtain the necessary funds, and at the end of 1913 he began to equip a new expedition.
The expedition was divided into two independent detachments. Shackleton's main detachment set off on the Endurance sailing-steam ship "in the Weddell Sea. The ship was supposed to land Shackleton's land party with dog teams and food supplies on the Prince Luitpold Coast. From here the party was to make the transition across the mainland: to the pole - in absolutely virgin places , further, already to the north, on a familiar path - along the plateau of King Edward VII, the Beardmore Glacier, the Ross Ice Sheet to McMurdo Sound. By that time, the auxiliary detachment that set off for the Ross Sea on the ship "Aurora" was supposed to set up a base on the Cape Hut or Cape Evans and place food depots from the base to the Beardmore Glacier.
But luck turned against Shackleton. At first, the departure of the Endurance from England was nearly disrupted by the first World War. Then, on the way south, it turned out that the ship was not as strong as it seemed at the time of purchase, and part of the crew recruited in connection with the war from white-ticketers turned out to be of little use for polar navigation. But the main tests were waiting for Shackleton ahead.
In October 1915, the Endurance was crushed by ice and sank. People landed on the ice, set up camp. The ice floe continued to drift north. As long as there was enough food salvaged from the crushed ship, as long as it was possible to hunt seals, life on the ice floe was quite tolerable. With the approach of winter, the situation of the expedition worsened.
Only on April 15 did they reach the island of Mordvinov (Elephant). But was it a salvation? There was no hope for outside help, they had to rely only on themselves. Shackleton was faced with a dilemma: either send a boat with experienced people to South Georgia, where the whalers' settlement was located, so that they would send a rescue expedition to the island, or everyone should stay here, trusting in the will of God. Shackleton chose the first, most difficult option, and undertook to carry it out himself.
His brilliant project for a transantarctic voyage clearly failed. Only at the beginning of 1917, Shackleton managed to track down and pick up the last seven members of the auxiliary detachment of the expedition at Cape Evans.
Despite all the failures that befell Shackleton, his expedition as a whole did a lot of useful things for science, replenishing knowledge about the meteorological and ice conditions, the depths of the Weddell and Ross seas.
Shackleton turned his eyes to the American North and began negotiations with the Canadian government about organizing an expedition that would explore the Beaufort Sea.
His proposal to send an oceanographic expedition to survey the coast of Antarctica in the African square - from Coates Land to Enderby Land, found support from the Lords of the Admiralty. And on September 24, 1921, the expeditionary schooner "Quest" had already sailed from Plymouth to the south. His old friends Wild, Worsley, McLean and McIlroy, the meteorologist Hussey, went on a long journey with Shackleton.
On January 4, 1922, Quest anchored in Grytviken Bay near the familiar whaling village. Shackleton went ashore to see his old friends who had taken such a lively part in saving the Endurance expedition. In the evening he returned to the ship, animated, satisfied that all preparations were over and that in the morning it was possible to go south. Before going to bed, Shackleton, as usual, sat down to write his diary. “At dusk, I saw a lonely star rising above the bay, sparkling like a precious stone,” he wrote down the last phrase and went to bed ... And at 3:30 on January 5, he died of an attack of angina pectoris.
With the consent of the widow of the deceased, Shackleton's body was buried at Grytviken, at the tip of a promontory projecting into the sea. And when the "Quest" on the way back from Antarctica again went to South Georgia, Shackleton's friends erected a monument on his grave - a cross crowning the top of a hill made of granite fragments.
Reprinted from the site