Grytviken
Ernest Shackleton has become something of a cult figure in recent years. Management schools teach leadership courses using the Shackleton model; religious leaders commend Shackleton as an example of faith and steadfast courage. In some ways this might seem improbable. His fin-de-siècle world of British Imperial pluck and derring-do is light-years away from our own uncertain times. Revisionists have been hovering over the legend for some time, pointing out his infidelities and improprieties, and asking why other explorers, technically more competent and able to achieve their objectives, do not seem able to command the same attention, at least from the English-speaking peoples. It is Shackleton who attracts.
Sent home as an invalid by Scott from the Discovery expedition in 1903, Shackleton immediately conceived the Nimrod expedition as a way of saving face. It was Amundsen’s success in leading the first successful expedition to the South Pole that led Shackleton to devise the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition: the Endurance set sail just as hostilities were declared at the start of the Great War of 1914-18. It is the heroic circumstances of the failure of this expedition that account for Shackleton’s reputation: the Endurance stuck fast in the ice, brilliantly recorded in Frank Hurley’s haunting black-and-white photographs; the long open-boat voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia; the persistent attempts to rescue the crew left behind. In the words of Sir Raymond Priestly, a member of the Nimrod expedition: “For scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
Shackleton returned to South Georgia one last time, to the Norwegian whaling station at Grytviken. It is unclear exactly what the objectives of his fourth Antarctic expedition were. In 1922, at the age of 47, he died of a massive heart attack aboard the Quest, anchored in Cumberland Bay. This morning we started our visit to Grytviken by paying our respects at his grave and drinking a tot of rum, naval fashion, to his memory.
Ernest Shackleton has become something of a cult figure in recent years. Management schools teach leadership courses using the Shackleton model; religious leaders commend Shackleton as an example of faith and steadfast courage. In some ways this might seem improbable. His fin-de-siècle world of British Imperial pluck and derring-do is light-years away from our own uncertain times. Revisionists have been hovering over the legend for some time, pointing out his infidelities and improprieties, and asking why other explorers, technically more competent and able to achieve their objectives, do not seem able to command the same attention, at least from the English-speaking peoples. It is Shackleton who attracts.
Sent home as an invalid by Scott from the Discovery expedition in 1903, Shackleton immediately conceived the Nimrod expedition as a way of saving face. It was Amundsen’s success in leading the first successful expedition to the South Pole that led Shackleton to devise the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition: the Endurance set sail just as hostilities were declared at the start of the Great War of 1914-18. It is the heroic circumstances of the failure of this expedition that account for Shackleton’s reputation: the Endurance stuck fast in the ice, brilliantly recorded in Frank Hurley’s haunting black-and-white photographs; the long open-boat voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia; the persistent attempts to rescue the crew left behind. In the words of Sir Raymond Priestly, a member of the Nimrod expedition: “For scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
Shackleton returned to South Georgia one last time, to the Norwegian whaling station at Grytviken. It is unclear exactly what the objectives of his fourth Antarctic expedition were. In 1922, at the age of 47, he died of a massive heart attack aboard the Quest, anchored in Cumberland Bay. This morning we started our visit to Grytviken by paying our respects at his grave and drinking a tot of rum, naval fashion, to his memory.
