Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure

Big thanks to Navneet for tipping me off on ‘Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure’.

I believe that the final stretch of road at Ushuia is the only gateway to the next world. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have walked down that road, got into a vessel and stood on the deck only to set sail to the Isle of South Georgia. We’d then wade our way through 800 miles of rough sea to reach the Elephant Island. I’d pose there and get a picture clicked with 2 penguins on either side. The ice bergs were gigantic (an understatement), and it did really feel like end of the earth and the end of all of our understanding. I did this over and over again in my head. And I still do so today; and will keep at it till I can make it in flesh. You know like they say in The Secret: “If you’ve been there in the mind, you’ll go there in there in the body.”

I got a category A recommendation to watch a documentary on Sir Ernest Shackleton, called Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. I had heard about this brave man’s expeditions to the southern most continent before. My admiration for him and one Hiram Bingham grew by leaps as I read through the literature of places that these men explored. But more on Hiram Bingham in a later post.

Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure retraces the tale of 28 brave men led by the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton on the 1914-1916 British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition aboard the ship Endurance (named after Shackleton’s family motto: by endurance, we conquer). This epic journey has been considered for long as "the greatest survival story of all time." The story is a testimony to what can happen to the human spirit when one does not give up and continues to push for survival against all odds. The film features breathtaking shots on location in Antarctica with near exact recreations of situations that the crew faced nearly a century ago. It also features motion-picture footage of Frank Hurley, the official photographer for the Endurance expedition (“who would go to any lengths to get a shot”, as described in the narration).

The audience is thrust into a feeling of awe, respect, pain and relief for the men who took the journey. But like all great tales, it is that mixture of emotions that makes it worth talking about nearly a century after the event.

I was reminded of the i-see-clearer-because-i-have-stood-on-the-shoulders-of- great-men philosophy.

To the Polar Explorer and his men,
In his shadows, we walk.

For info on the movie: http://main.wgbh.org/imax/shackleton/