Scott's Thoughts

Endurance - Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Sometimes a story or book will so completely engross you that it is impossible not to dwell on it for days afterward. I can't remember ever reading a book that had so drawn me into the story and then left me there long after I finished it, as much as this book did. "Endurance - Shackleton's Incredible Voyage," by Alfred Lansing, had been recommended to me by a couple of different people. So, as we were about to take a week's vacation between Christmas and New Year's, I figured I'd pick it up at the library for some leisure reading.

"Endurance" is about the 1914 British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition that attempted the first-ever overland crossing of the Antarctic continent, from one end to the other. It was an almost impossible undertaking from the beginning; it wasn't until forty-three years, and much technological advance, later, that a team of explorers was able to accomplish the feat.

Merely reaching the South Pole was not enough, since that feat had been accomplished in 1912 by the Norweigian Roald Amundsen. Ernest Shackleton, the Irish-born leader of the Trans-Antartic Expedition, wanted to accomplish a new first that would restore wounded British honor after having been beaten by the Norweigians to the Pole. So, he hatched and organized the almost insane plan to cross the continent from west to east.

Of course, Shackleton also knew very well that fame and fortune would be his should he succeed. These motives were not absent, as Lansing informs us. However, whatever may have driven Shackleton to undertake such an adventure, the reader cannot help but have tremendous admiration for the man's incredible courage and leadership by the end of the book. The real story is not the motives behind the expedition, but how the men survived it when everything went wrong.

The expedition never even made it to the Antarctic continent before their ship, the Endurance, got trapped in the polar ice pack in which it was eventually crushed and downed into the sea below. What follows is an almost unbelievable account of the survival of the 28 men left marooned in the middle of the Weddell Sea, with absolutely no contact with the outside world. After drifting northwards on the ice floes for five months, the party eventually made it to Elephant island after a tortuous seven-day journey in the three life boats they had saved from the Endurance.

Even this would make a great survival story. But it only gets more incredible - as the title of the book aptly describes it. From Elephant island, Shackleton and five others made a desparate, near-suicidal, 800 mile journey across the notoriously tempestuous Drake Passage to South Georgia island, the nearest outpost of civilization. Seventeen days later, and almost miraculously, they arrive safely to the island. From there Shackleton and two others had to cross over the island to reach the whaling station nearly 30 miles away. They were the first ever to do so, simply because it was thought such a journey was humanly impossible due to the extreme conditions of weather and terraine.

Lansing's account is just riveting, and the intensity of the story increases with each page. It is a testimony to the human will to survive despite even the most impossible circumstances. Of course, that they did survive is also a testimony to the provision and providence of God. It would be hard to imagine any one those men not acknowledging the good hand of the Lord upon them to deliver them out of such desperate straits. I read the book wanting to know more about the spiritual life of the men, what was going on in their hearts and minds as they endured such an ordeal. The diaries they wrote give some insight, but I wonder how God may have used the experience in their lives to draw them to seek the greater salvation in Christ. Evidently they did have some kind of hymn sings and worship services. However, very little is said about prayer for deliverance. It's hard to imagine that that wasn't also a big part of their lives, despite the fact they were tough, self-reliant men.

Whatever the story may be of the spiritual life and growth of the men, this story of their survival is worth reading and reflecting upon. As strange as it sounds, it makes one actually want to go to the Weddell sea, see the icebergs and glaciers and seals and penguins, feel the ice-cold hurricane-force gales, be overwhelmed by the vast expanse of white and ice, experience the utter remoteness of the place, and wonder, "How did they do it?"