The English Department Website

SHACKLETON PROJECT

This project is based upon the information found on the three following websites:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/

http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/library/archives/shackleton/

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/shackleton/expedintro.html 

Task 1

Read the following brief description of the Endurance expedition: 

About the expedition

Expedition: Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

Ship name: Endurance

Leader: Ernest Shackleton

Date: 1914-1916

The Endurance expedition is an inspiring story of adventure and survival. In August 1914 Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty seven set sail for the Antarctic in an attempt to cross the continent on foot. Disaster struck when Endurance was trapped fast in the pack ice just eighty five miles from their destination. She drifted with the pack for ten months and was finally crushed by the pressure, leaving the crew stranded on an ice floe. They had to desert the ship as it was destroyed by ice pressure. 
Having abandoned ship, the entire company wintered on the ice. They spent five months camping on the ice and then Shackleton made two open boat journeys, one of which – a trecherous 800-mile (1450 km) ocean crossing to South Georgia Island – is now considered one of the greatest boat journeys in history.  In a mere lifeboat, along with Crean, Worsley, McCarthy, McNish and Vincent, Shackleton reached the island’s remote whaling station, organized a rescue team, and saved all of the men he had left behind. 

The ordeal lasted 20 months. 

Look closely at the Expedition timeline:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/1914/timeline.html

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the significance of the date the Endurance set sail? 
2. How many people formed Shackleton’s crew?
3. Where were they headed?
4. How long did the entire expedition last?
5. What does “ordeal” mean? 
6. What was the aim of the expedition?
7. Did they ever achieve this aim?
8. Why is the Endurance a fitting name for the ship?

This is the ad that Shackleton placed in a London newspaper seeking recruits for his 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition:

"MEN WANTED: FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS. SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON"

Who do you think would answer such an ad?  Would you answer it? 

Shackleton actually received more than 5000 replies.  Click on the following link to read one of them: 

http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/library/archives/shackleton/articles/1537,2,30,5-6.html

There are even pictures of the original document!  Click on them to enlarge them.  What do you think Shackleton might have replied?  Read the genuine reply to see whether you were right. 

The following link shows you a picture of the team Shackleton chose.  Meet each member of the team by clicking on his name, and find out what credentials you would have had to bring to the table to gain the respect of Sir Ernest Shackleton – and a berth (bed on a ship) on the Endurance. 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/1914/team.html

Task 2

As a class, make a list of the crew’s qualities.  Next to each quality, explain why Shackleton might have chosen someone with the given quality.  Why might it have been an asset on a perilous journey?  As a class, vote on the 3 most important qualities for a crew member of the Endurance. 

Task 3

Imagine that just before setting off, Shackleton decided to ask one more person along (for luck).  Make up a fictional character and write a letter of application from this character to join the Endurance expedition. Emphasise the qualities that you now know are important.  Try to include examples of instances in which you have shown bravery, loyalty and physical prowess. 

What else might make you stand out? Do you have any medical knowledge?  Experience at sea?  Think carefully about your character because you will have to assume his or her identity again in a later exercise. 

Task 4

Read the following 4 extracts from the diary kept by Thomas Orde-Lees and answer the questions below each extract.  Orde-Lees was the ski expert and storekeeper.  He was in charge of the motor-sledges that would have helped carry Shackleton’s team across the continent.  As a graduate of the English public-school system, he was a bit of a prima donna and generally disliked, though his diary is one of the more perceptive kept by Shackleton’s crew. 

Diary of a Survivor

Night of 9^th - 10^th April 1916

Whilst hauling up the boats, which took a good hour to do, the cook had got our blubber stove going on blubber that we had brought with us and produced a fine beverage of hot milk (36 ozs. Trumilk powder for 28 persons) which we stood in much need of. As we had had a quarter of a pound of dog-pemmican and two biscuits each, in the boats for tea, it was not considered necessary to supplement this, so we made do with the milk, and having erected the tents turned in.

One or two of us whose turn it was to do night watchman from 11 p.m. to midnight lay down in the bottom of one of the boats.

The night was fairly mild so that they did not get particularly cold before all hands were awakened, just before 11 p.m., by the now familiar cry of "crack." We jumped up just in time to see, as much as it was possible to do so in the dark, the floe separate into two halves and to hear the cry and commotion of a man in the water. The latter was the sailor Holness and his position was one of extreme danger, for apart from the usual restrictions of clothing, boots, etc., and the fact that his sleeping bag had fallen in on top of him, he was in imminent peril of being crushed between the two halves of the floe, for as a general rule when a floe splits and there is a swell running the two portions of the floe surge to and fro, the crack opening and closing rythmically [sic] with the swell, the edges thereof coming together with a crash and grinding against each other. Providentially, on this occasion, the two fragments merely parted company, separated about six feet from each other and thereafter did not approach with a yard of one another. This was well enough for the rescue of the drowning man but greatly impeded subsequent events.

It appeared that the crack had occurred immediately underneath the sailors' tent -- the large 8 man hoop tent -- right through the spot where Holness was sleeping. How he extricated himself from his sleeping bag is a marvel as he got clear of it before he actually fell into the water for his bag did not go entirely in but remained hanging over the ice edge.

Vincent, another of the sailors, also had a narrow shave, he did not fall in but his bag did.

Strange to say the tent sustained no damage whatever.

This was not all by any means, for the crack had cut off Sir Ernest’s tent and the "J. Caird" from the rest of our little floating camp and it was a question whether we could contrive to "bridge" the boat over the now widening crack, the first care, the rescue of Holness, having been satisfactorily accomplished.

Curiously enough it was Sir Ernest himself who rescued Holness. No doubt he was spending one of his usual wakeful nights and so was up and out in an instant. First he saved Holness's sleeping bag and then the man himself, whose chief lament was that he had thus lost all the "baccy" out of his bag. We have since learned from the victim of this accident that he attributes his escape to the precaution he had taken to sleep with only the lowest one of the three buttons on the flap of the bag fastened, owing to the scare that previous crackings of the floe had given him. Lt. Hudson very generously divested himself of some of his own clothing and also a spare suit of combinations in order to provide Holness with a dry change, for, as the temperature was only 18°, he would soon have been frozen in his wet things.

Answer these questions:

1. What did the crew eat?
2. What did the watchmen call out during the night?  What was happening?
3. What is a ‘floe’? 
4. Why do you think the writer, Orde-Lees, thinks it ‘curious’ that Sir Ernest Shackleton himself rescued Holness? 
5. What does Lt. Hudson do?  How would you describe his actions? 
6. What does ‘to extricate’ mean?  Replace the word by another word that means the same thing. 
7. What does ‘providentially’ mean?  Replace the word by another word that means the same thing. 
8. What does ‘lament’ mean?  Replace the word by another word that means the same thing. 

11 April 1916

Snow set in during the night; the wind increased and so did the swell.

The floe we were on appeared to be a piece of an old ice foot (ice formed during the winter and attached to the shore). It was very thick averaging 3 ft. above water and probably 20 ft. or so below, but in spite of this it proved to be very rotten being in process of disintegration by rotting and the action of the waves. We had noticed, before getting on to it that it was much eroded at the water level and that in places the water was making inroads into it and as we hauled the boats up on it the edges crumbled away rather more than usual under their weight but we had paid little heed to it. In size and shape it was approximately circular and about 20 yards across.

Shortly after 5 a.m. a piece 8 yards square broke clean out of the face leaving a small gulf ominously near to one of our provision stacks and we had to hurriedly turn out in the dark and shift the cases.

The gap was also uncomfortably near to the side of one of the tents, but the occupants decided to chance it and sleep on, as we all needed every scrap of rest we could get.

A little later the carpenter, who was on watch, happened to be standing on one corner of the floe which broke off with him on it so that for a time he was marooned, but fortunately he had previously called the next watchman and when the latter came out to take his watch he retrieved the carpenter by throwing him a line whereby they drew the two parts of the floe together until it was possible to jump the crack between them.

All night long the floe had been drifting towards the rest of the pack and before dawn, not only had it become part of the pack-edge but it was rapidly being included in the pack itself. By 7 a.m. we were so surrounded by broken pack that we were cut off from the edge of the pack by at least 100 yds of intervening ice. Our position began to look anything but satisfactory, but there was no alternative but to await events. There was now a huge swell running.

The whole pack was undulating in a vast series of crests and troughs with a distance of over 100 yds between the summits of succeeding waves. Now we formed the top of the wave and the next minute we were in a deep valley with mighty undulations rising some 12 ft or so on either side of us. It was a wonderfully impressive, awe-inspiring sight to thus see the whole ice covered ocean in motion.

We waited and waited, hour by hour, watching the wonderful conflict of the elements, at times unmindful of our desperate position, spell-bound by the imposing majesty of the spectacle.

Meanwhile the storm was raging and our little floe was gradually getting smaller and smaller, the edges being ground away by the attrition of the surrounding floes and "growlers."

At first, the pack was "close" i.e. there were practically no interstices between the floes which composed it. Gradually it became loose until at last there seemed to be a reasonable chance of our getting the boats through the intervening belt and so reach open water. We took it.

The intermittent snow-squalls began to get less frequent. In a lull of the storm we launched and loaded the boats with the utmost despatch, and got them clear of the small channel beside the flow just in the nick of time to see the two floes forming the side of our late haven come together with a splitting, pulverising crash; but we were safe and in a very few minutes had navigated through the hundred yard belt of floes and were again in open water.

Whilst loading the boats, Sir Ernest had as narrow a shave as ever he had of an impromptu ducking. The edge of the floe [gave] way right underneath him, but several of us were close by and pulled him up before he had quite disappeared below the edge to the floe. It was to his advantage that he had his back to the water for he was in a position somewhat to retard his fall, an advantage of which he was not slow to avail himself. There was time for neither condolences nor congratulations and treating it as an ordinary, every day occurrence he merely expedited proceedings with redoubled energy.

We were glad enough to see the last of that floe for it was all the while rapidly becoming untenable. At 9 a.m., seas were every now and again washing right on to its surface in such a menacing way that we deemed it expedient to shift the boats and all the provisions on to the very thickest part of it.

Still it had at first been hospitable enough and had after all afforded us a night of comparative shelter rather than a night of terror.

Only one untoward occurrence took place in getting away, which might have been fraught with serious consequences. In launching the "Caird" she tipped over on her side owing to the height of the snow bank at the only place where the water permitted us to launch her and to our not having time to cut a proper launching slip, as we had been careful to do on previous occasions. She partly filled with water before she righted herself, but a few minutes and strenuous work by bailing soon saw her clear again ready to receive her complement of 9 men and stores.

It was nearly 1 p.m. by the time that we were clear of the turmoil of ice.



About 6 p.m. we were compelled to shove off and after an hour or two of paddling about came up to a piece of heavy old floe under the lee of which we lay for the remainder of the night. It was very dark, bitterly cold and a driving sleet added to our discomfort.

We took watches on the oars all through the night, those not on watch huddling together as best they could in the stern for mutual warmth, cheering each other up or squabbling for the favoured positions according as the primitiveness or the refinement of their natures asserted itself.

An unexpected horror was added to our already sufficient discomforts by the presence of a large school of killer whales, which surrounded us on every side like fat bulls of Basan.

Their blood-curdling blast, now coming from the distant darkness, now right alongside the boat, seemed to bring one face to face with "the great leviathan" and every now and again we could see their sinister black forms diving like submarines beneath our frail boats.

These deadly creatures, more rapacious than sharks, and the largest carnivorous animal that has ever lived, would have made short work of a boat's crew had they chanced to upset us, for they chase seals and swallow them whole, as many as eleven seals having been found in the stomach of a single killer.

Whether their unwelcome attentions were prompted by the curiousity or not it is impossible to say, but it is certain that for several hours each one of us was expecting every moment to become the "joint" at a whale's banquet.

Again, we owe to providence the fact that they did not molest us and that we, therefore, escaped scot free from another of the many dangers that beset the path of those who go down to the Antarctic seas in ships.

That they were killer whales we were certain by their short length, their white throats, which we occasionally saw, and by their unmistakable dorsal fins.

It was indeed a miserably spent night, with sea-sickness added to the other horrors for some. The sleet covered us at times half an inch deep, and the keen wind pierced us through and through.

Our Burberry suits were our greatest protection in preventing the penetration of the wind, but eventually even they got wet through with the continued driving sleet, and never was a poor shipwrecked crew more thankful than when dawn at last broke on us.

Answer these questions:

1. Find a sentence that shows that the setting is unpleasant
2. Find a sentence that shows that the crew is unhappy
3. What happens to the carpenter?  What does ‘marooned’ mean? 
4. What do you think the phrase ‘the wonderful conflict of the elements’ means?  Try to paraphrase it (Write an alternative in your own words). 
5. How could you describe the emotions of the crew ‘spell-bound by the imposing majesty of the spectacle’?
6. What might a ‘growler’ be in this context?  What are the connotations of the word – i.e., What does it make you think of?  What are its implied additional meanings? 
7. How does Ernest Shackleton react to his ‘narrow shave’ (very dangerous incident)? 
8. Name and describe the creatures that attack the crew? 

12 April 1916

By nightfall the weather was getting colder and wetter and once more we had to nerve ourselves up for another nightmare night to be spent in the boats. 

At first it looked as if we might be able to make some sort of a camp on a floe, to the lee side of which we moored ourselves for a time to take shelter, but on the floe swinging round, our side became the windward side and drift ice descended upon us so suddenly that we had to cut the painter in order to escape in time from the embraces of the ice blocks, thereby losing eight fathoms of good rope. We made the three boats fast to one another and so spent another wretched night in the open, improving matters a little by drawing the remains of a tent over us, but it was bitterly cold and no one got any sustained sleep. In spite of everything, Lees snored as usual and denied it in the morning.

Answer the following questions:

1. What does Orde-Lees mean when he says that they ‘made the tree boats fast to one another’? 
2. Can you find any humour in this diary entry?
3. Why do you think Orde-Lees decided to include this?  What effect does it have on the reader? 

13 April 1916

The obligation of having to have the oars ready for immediate use greatly restricted the accommodation available for those not on the oars, and the frequent changing of watches was very trying.

It is only natural that the general discomfort engendered a certain amount of "snappiness" amongst us, some contending that if everyone would only agree to fit themselves in back to front there would just be room for all to lie down together, the opposition, asserting that this was not a feasible arrangement, sat hunched up and so precluded the "lie-down" adherents from putting their plan into execution, so that neither faction was as comfortable as they might have been by a little more amicable co-operation.

The increasing cold made sleep impossible. The temperature was not recorded, but judging from experience, it must have been as low, if not lower than, +10 degrees, for the spray was freezing on the oars all night until they were caked with ice making them double their weight and three times their normal thickness and as slippery as great icicles. It is not to be wondered at that during the night two oars were lost. This, later, proved a more serious loss than at first supposed.

When daylight came we found that not only were the boats sheathed in ice both outside and inside but that the surface of the sea, too, had frozen over sufficiently to greatly hamper the progress of rowing boats.



By 4 p.m. it was half a gale and although the sea was rough we made good way. As evening closed it got so rough that Sir Ernest deemed it unsafe to sail on through the night as he had, at first, intended to, and ordering the "Docker" and Wills to come up and make fast to the "Caird," a sea anchor was improvised out of a couple of oars and we all "lay to" for the night. The preparation of any beverage was out of the question, so we made do the best we could by again eating ice and also had some nut food and biscuit.

It was difficult enough to prevent the water from getting into the provision boxes whilst they were opened up to get the food out of for spray was washing right over the boats and frequent bailing out became necessary.

The "Caird" being partly decked over forward and aft was the least affected by it. On the other hand the "Wills" not having had her gunwale raised, as had the "Caird" and "Docker," had much the worst time throughout.

As the water splashed into the boats it froze instantly forming thick incrustations of ice on the inside of the boat and over all the gear freezing up the sail as stiff as a piece of corrugated iron. Fortunately the water which ran into the bottom of the boat did not freeze at once so that by frequent bailing we were able to keep pace with it and prevent the accumulation of ice along the keels, where, had it once formed, it would have been next to impossible to eradicate it on account of the cargo.

Much sleet covered us, and what with this and the sea spray we were all more or less wet through and our outer clothing was frozen stiff. Our time was largely occupied in picking the ice off each other's backs. It would be a lie to say that we were at all happy under these circumstances but now and again we made a feeble effort to assume a cheerful, hopeful air in spite of ourselves.

We were being sorely tried, indeed, though.

Morning came in at last. About 4 a.m., the storm abated and a glorious glow of crimson mauve flashed up on the eastern horizon and presently the sun itself peeped over the brink of the waters in all his golden splendour and so began the finest day we had had for weeks; but far more thrilling still, there lay Clarence Island rising high and snow-clad from out the sea not a great way off.

Certainly it seemed much nearer than it really was. It really was nearly 40 miles off, and yet it seemed no more than ten; but all the distances are very deceptive in the Antarctic owing both to the clearness of the atmosphere and to the absence of trees and the works of man whereby to form a comparison to gauge the distance by.

The brilliant morning then of the 14^th amply compensated us for the misery of the night of the 13^th to 14^th April.

Answer these questions:

1. How would you describe the atmosphere?  How are the sailors behaving toward one another? 
2. Why do they have this attitude? 
3. What do they eat and drink?
4. What makes up for the miserable night? 

BONUS QUESTIONS

These questions refer to all of the diary entries. 

1.  Orde-Lees is described as a prima donna.  Can you find any words or sentences in his diary entries that support this view?

2.  Orde-Lees’s diary is considered to be very discerning.  Can you find any particularly perceptive passages?  What insights do these give you on the journey and the crew? 

If you are interested, more extracts from his diary are available from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/1914/diary.html

Task 5 – Masterpiece. 

Write two diary entries from your fictional character, describing some of the same events from your own point of view.  In what ways does your perspective differ from Orde-Lees’s?  Are there any details that he might have missed out?  Remember that your character is the same one as the one who wrote the letter, so try and keep the details consistent.   

Browse the website http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/surviving/danger.html for inspiration and to learn more about the conditions.  For example, you can read about the crew's feelings at having to eat their dogs.  

The following website has more diary entries, as well as some additional information on Shackleton and his crew.  Use it for your research before writing your two diary entries.  

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/shackleton/expedintro.html

As an extension piece, you might want to write a diary entry by your character upon returning.  Remember that you haven’t seen your family and friends for almost 2 years, but also that WWI has changed the face of Europe.  When you left on board the Endurance, everybody thought the war would be over by Christmas.  In fact it is still going on and is considered the bloodiest war in history.  How do you feel?