Shackleton - The Greatest Story of Survival reveals the true story of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and the crew of the Endurance, told by the man who lead the only team ever to have repeated their incredible feat - explorer and adventurer Tim Jarvis.
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00:00:00I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
00:00:30Exploration has been the greatest driving force in my life since I was young.
00:00:58And exploring this alien landscape of Antarctica is a challenge unlike anywhere else on Earth.
00:01:13Over 100 years ago, Antarctica was more than just a challenge.
00:01:19It was the very limit of human knowledge and scientific understanding.
00:01:26The last unexplored continent on Earth.
00:01:37It's the beginning of the 20th century, the heroic era of polar exploration.
00:01:46These are the astronauts of their time, and Antarctica was their moon.
00:01:57Explorers from around the world pit themselves against the immense wilderness of Antarctica
00:02:03in search of glory and discovery, but this is a vast, cold, isolated and entirely unforgiving
00:02:13place.
00:02:20What do you do when it all goes horribly wrong?
00:02:25The journals and film recorded by Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 27 answers that
00:02:31very question.
00:02:34The story of our attempt is the tale of the white warfare of the South.
00:02:41The struggles, the disappointments, and the endurance of this small party of Britishers
00:02:48make a story which is unique in the history of Antarctic exploration.
00:03:10I ask myself, why on Earth one comes to these parts of the Earth?
00:03:39I think we all have a sense of adventure in us, and it manifests in different ways
00:03:41with different people.
00:03:43Life's true adventure is understanding what the meaning of it all is, and I think that
00:03:47drives medical research, it drives artistic self-expression, it drives people's desire
00:03:53to cross ice caps or climb mountains.
00:03:55That has burnt brightly in me since childhood, and I've never grown out of it.
00:04:00I've always just had that desire to keep on discovering, and it's seen me go to the far
00:04:06limits of human endurance and to the ends of the world as a means to do that.
00:04:13In doing the expeditions the old way, essentially disadvantaging yourself by using a hundred-year-old
00:04:27equipment, you get about as close as you can to experiencing that which they experienced
00:04:32a hundred years prior.
00:04:35At least I can honestly say that I've been served up the same sorts of conditions as
00:04:40he had.
00:04:41Explorer Tim Jarvis is the only man to have ever recreated the harrowing journey of Ernest
00:04:46Shackleton, using the same inadequate clothing and equipment as they had back in 1914.
00:04:53There have been many instances along the way, some falls in the mountains where, you know,
00:04:59you do wonder whether it'd be the last move you make.
00:05:05I'm so excited about getting down here.
00:05:19I mean, I feel I really come alive when I'm in a place like this.
00:05:22You get much closer to the spirit of the great man if you're following in his footsteps,
00:05:26but also you get closer to this more resourceful version of you that emerges when you find
00:05:30yourself in these places.
00:05:32You know, they've been the theatre for so many fascinating journeys in the past that
00:05:37you can't help but be inspired.
00:05:40We are 830 nautical miles southeast of the Falkland Islands, headed to the whaling island
00:05:47of South Georgia, where Shackleton began his imperial trans-Antarctic expedition.
00:05:54There remained but one great main object of Antarctic journeyings, the crossing of the
00:06:00south polar continent from sea to sea.
00:06:04The distance will be roughly 1,800 miles, and the first half of this, from the Weddell
00:06:10Sea to the pole, will be over unknown ground.
00:06:15Every step will be an advance in geographical science, and this report will prove of great
00:06:21scientific interest.
00:06:24An expedition of this scale would require a budget of millions in today's money.
00:06:30To fund his dreams of the south, Shackleton would rely on his ability to convince people
00:06:35of the cause.
00:06:38Shackleton had this way of getting people excited about what they were going to do.
00:06:42You know, he offered them things that money couldn't buy, so if you were a wealthy benefactor
00:06:47thinking about maybe putting money into a business, you could do that.
00:06:50If you were a wealthy benefactor thinking about maybe putting money into a polar expedition,
00:06:54Shackleton could name a mountain range or a coastline after you, and you had immortality
00:06:58guaranteed, so it was a clever way of doing it.
00:07:04This wasn't Shackleton's first attempt to make history.
00:07:11In 1907, he was hired to lead the Nimrod expedition to the Antarctic.
00:07:16The mission was to be the first to reach the South Pole.
00:07:19Although this had a new record for the most southerly point ever reached, they were forced
00:07:24to turn back just 97 nautical miles short of their target.
00:07:30Shackleton and his men, starving and exhausted, returned to base inspired by what they'd seen,
00:07:36but frustrated with how close they'd come.
00:07:40It would take Shackleton almost seven years to raise the funding and plan this expedition.
00:07:46Personally putting everything on the line this time, the stakes couldn't be higher.
00:07:57Long days of preparation were over, and the adventure lay ahead.
00:08:03I gave the order to heave anchor at 8.45 a.m. on December the 5th, 1914,
00:08:10and the clanking of the windlass broke for us the last link with civilization.
00:08:23The fate of the expedition now rested on the shoulders of the 28 crew of the Endurance.
00:08:30Shackleton was a consummate leader of men in those days on those early expeditions,
00:08:35a leader of people, and he got about 3,000 applicants for the 27 places on the expedition team.
00:08:42And his recruitment process involved interviews that involved him throwing really curly,
00:08:48interesting questions at people just to see how they would react.
00:08:52And if there was someone who was too rigid in their thinking,
00:08:55perhaps, again, they weren't the kind of person who had the capacity for lateral thinking
00:08:59and problem-solving ability that he was looking for.
00:09:02He always wanted people who saw a positive in any situation,
00:09:07and you need that for successful expeditioning, or indeed life.
00:09:14And in the end, how relevant those skills turned out to be.
00:09:25The crew seemed a strong one, and as I looked at the men, I felt confidence increasing.
00:09:44The Weddell Sea was notoriously inhospitable, and already we knew that its sternest face
00:09:51was turned towards us.
00:09:57But welcome was the Weddell Sea preparing for us.
00:10:22To navigate these southern waters, timing is everything.
00:10:28In the relative warm months of summer, the sea is less frozen,
00:10:32and large lanes of open water provide passage to the continent.
00:10:44I'm just staring out on a scene of brass ice and pancake ice.
00:10:49Brass ice and pancake ice is when the surface just starts to freeze over,
00:10:53and that's what we're starting to see.
00:10:55And it's the beginning of the formation, of course, of pack ice.
00:11:04As Endurance went south, they, of course, started to experience pack ice,
00:11:08initially probably very much like this, and then, of course, became thicker and thicker and thicker.
00:11:14Worsley on board Endurance was a wonderful skipper, and Shackleton was no slouch himself,
00:11:18and some of the other sailors on board, they knew what they were doing in terms of getting through pack ice,
00:11:23but you're really pushing through leads, which are the gaps between the bits of larger pack,
00:11:29and you're trying to force the ship through there to push the pack ice apart.
00:11:40Expedition cameraman Frank Hurley recorded the efforts of the crew
00:11:44as they navigated their way through the ice.
00:11:49The fearless Australian would perch himself almost anywhere
00:11:53to capture the dynamic imagery he was so famous for.
00:12:00The last 250 miles had been through close pack,
00:12:04alternating with fine, long leads and stretches of open water.
00:12:09Under the bows and alongside, great slabs of ice were being turned over
00:12:14and slid back on the flow or driven down and under the ice or ship.
00:12:19In this way, the Endurance would spit a two-foot to three-foot flow a square mile in extent.
00:12:29It was important that we should make progress towards our goal as rapidly as possible.
00:12:36In order to keep the expedition on schedule,
00:12:39Shackleton had to make land before the ocean froze over for winter.
00:12:55When the pack ice starts to form on the surface of the sea,
00:12:58ultimately, it's going to be a very difficult task.
00:13:02When the pack ice starts to form on the surface of the sea,
00:13:05ultimately, it forms an apron around Antarctica
00:13:07which actually almost doubles the size of the continent,
00:13:10which is incredible when you think of it.
00:13:12The ice can be anything from 20 centimetres thick
00:13:15all the way through to three or four metres thick.
00:13:18And, of course, the further south you go, the thicker it gets.
00:13:22And it comes a point where you need to make a judgment
00:13:25about whether you're prepared to keep the engines running
00:13:28and push further south, or try and push further south
00:13:31into the teeth of this incredibly thick ice.
00:13:35All the while thinking, you know, how are we going to get home at the end of this?
00:13:44I was anxious for certain reasons to winter the Endurance in the wet El C.
00:13:49But the difficulty of finding a safe harbour might be very great.
00:13:54It was as though the spirits of the Antarctic
00:13:56were pointing us to the backward track,
00:13:59the track we were determined not to follow.
00:14:03Our desire was to make Easting as well as Southing
00:14:06so as to reach the land, if possible,
00:14:09east of Ross's farthest south and well east of Coatsland.
00:14:16The unusually abundant sea ice ground their progress to a crawl,
00:14:21constantly freezing seawater, trapping them time after time.
00:14:26The ice was only getting thicker and open water was slowly disappearing.
00:14:38They were reaching dead ends, having to turn around,
00:14:41chip their way through the ice, sit and wait it out sometimes
00:14:45when they became completely stuck for the ice to open up again,
00:14:49and it was a pretty torturous process trying to get through.
00:15:00The name of the game was to keep pushing south as best one could
00:15:04and sometimes open leads of water in amongst the pack ice
00:15:08would force you to go left and right,
00:15:10not doing much in the way of southerly travel,
00:15:13but you were constantly focused on trying to get south as best you could.
00:15:20The situation became dangerous that night.
00:15:23We pushed into the pack in the hope of reaching open water beyond
00:15:27and found ourselves after dark in a pool which was growing smaller and smaller.
00:15:35Ultimately, they reached a dead end.
00:15:41Pack ice closed in around the vessel and no more leads were opening up.
00:15:46The weather was getting colder and it was very clear
00:15:49that that was where they would remain.
00:15:58I could not doubt now that the Endurance was confined for the winter.
00:16:09The abandonment of the attack was a great disappointment to all hands.
00:16:16The men had worked long hours without thought of rest,
00:16:19and they deserved success, but the task was beyond our powers.
00:16:29The land showed still in fair weather on the distant horizon,
00:16:33but it was beyond our reach now.
00:16:47CLICK
00:16:55Much like the Endurance, we've reached as far south as the ice will allow us.
00:17:07When it's clear the Endurance is not going to go any further south,
00:17:11it was one of those real defining moments of the expedition
00:17:14I think you're hopeful always right to the end that you could just push,
00:17:19find a lead, push far enough to actually make landfall on the continent
00:17:23and set up your winter camp to be prepared for the land crossing
00:17:27of the continent the following summer.
00:17:29So the decision to ultimately stop short and set up winter camp on the ice
00:17:33must have been a really difficult moment.
00:17:38Life is all about playing a bad hand of cards well,
00:17:41and I think that sums it up fairly accurately.
00:17:43You've got to look positively at any situation you find yourself in.
00:17:49In many people's minds, many of the expedition team felt,
00:17:51well, that's it, that's the expedition gone, the rest is all about survival.
00:17:56And Shackleton managed to keep them motivated through a sort of combination
00:18:00of suggesting that, you know, things could still improve,
00:18:03you know, think the ice might break up, there might be an opportunity
00:18:06to push south, you know, as the ice began to thaw.
00:18:10But in the meantime, he had them doing language lessons
00:18:13and gathering food and playing soccer matches on the ice,
00:18:17and these are all sort of things that you don't do if you're expecting to die.
00:18:24And it was clever because the men felt that Shackleton had the measure
00:18:28of the circumstances in which they found themselves.
00:18:34The flat flows and frozen leads in the neighbourhood of the ship
00:18:38made excellent training grounds.
00:18:40Hockey and soccer on the flow were our chief recreations,
00:18:44and all hands joined in many a strenuous game.
00:18:49Worsley took a party to the flow on the 26th
00:18:52and started building a line of igloos and dog loops around the ship.
00:18:59The dogs seemed heartily glad to leave the ship
00:19:02and yelped loudly and joyously as they were moved to their new quarters.
00:19:08MUSIC
00:19:24The sun, which had been above the horizon for two months,
00:19:28set at midnight on the 17th,
00:19:31and although it would not disappear until April,
00:19:34its slanting rays warned us of the approach of winter.
00:19:41Pools and leads appeared occasionally,
00:19:44but they froze over very quickly.
00:19:57Psychologically, the unending nature of Antarctica
00:20:00is always difficult to deal with,
00:20:02but even more so when you've got the darkness of winter to deal with.
00:20:06So the sun disappears quite literally for,
00:20:09when you get further south to the pole itself,
00:20:12six months of the year you're in brutally low temperatures
00:20:16and complete darkness.
00:20:21More important than that, psychologically,
00:20:23your whole world shrinks back into that little area of light
00:20:27around the stove at night, or candles, or blubber stove.
00:20:31Lit fires that you could keep going,
00:20:34and, you know, it would be very difficult in that situation
00:20:37to think positively about the journey ahead.
00:20:41You're there, it's cold, you know, the chances of your survival are low,
00:20:46and the chances of you sailing out when the ice is getting thicker
00:20:50and thicker rather than the other way round,
00:20:52it would have been a very bleak time for many of them.
00:20:57Trapped on the frozen surface of the sea,
00:21:00isolated and cut off from the world,
00:21:03they may as well have been on the surface of the moon.
00:21:08The disappearance of the sun is apt to be a depressing event
00:21:12in the polar regions,
00:21:14but the Endurance's company refuse to abandon their customary cheerfulness
00:21:19in strange contrast with the cold, silent world that lay outside.
00:21:31Shackleton knew they had no control over the situation they were in,
00:21:36so he focused the men's attention on the things they could control.
00:21:44All crew, regardless of rank, were required to clean the ship.
00:21:50Ongoing scientific research was collected and catalogued.
00:21:55The sharing of duties kept everybody on an even keel.
00:21:58Most of the men, regardless of their position,
00:22:01feel that everyone was in this together.
00:22:05Shackleton had a genius.
00:22:07It was neither more nor less than that
00:22:10for keeping those about him in high spirits.
00:22:13We loved him.
00:22:16The men had felt the cold, that is true,
00:22:19but he had inspired the kind of loyalty which prevented them
00:22:22from allowing themselves to get depressed over anything.
00:22:26And they had stood up to the hardships,
00:22:29inseparable from Antarctic exploration without a murmur.
00:22:35A form of midwinter madness has manifested itself.
00:22:39All hands being seized with the desire to have their hair removed.
00:22:44It caused much amusement.
00:22:47We are likely to be cool-headed in the future, if not neuralgic.
00:22:52During the night, I took a flash-lit photograph
00:22:55of the ship beset by pressure.
00:22:59This necessitated some 20 flashes.
00:23:04One behind each salient pressure hummock
00:23:07to satisfactorily illuminate the ship herself.
00:23:22Half-blinded by the successive flashes,
00:23:25I lost my bearings amidst hummocks,
00:23:28bumping shins against projecting ice points
00:23:31and stumbling into deep snowdrifts.
00:23:45All hands are cheered by the indication
00:23:48All hands are cheered by the indication
00:23:51that the end of the winter darkness is near,
00:23:5479 days after our last sunset.
00:24:00All the winter the drifting pack changes,
00:24:03grows by freezing,
00:24:05thickens by rafting
00:24:07and corrugates by pressure.
00:24:10If finally, in its drift, it impinges on a coast
00:24:14such as the western shore of the Weddell Sea,
00:24:17terrific pressure is set up
00:24:19and an inferno of ice blocks, ridges and hedgerows results,
00:24:24extending possibly for 150 or 200 miles offshore.
00:24:30The effects of the pressure around us were awe-inspiring.
00:24:34Mighty blocks of ice gripped between meeting flows
00:24:38rose slowly till they jumped like cherry stones
00:24:42squeezed between thumb and finger.
00:24:45The pressure of millions of tons of moving ice
00:24:48was crushing and smashing inexorably.
00:24:51If the ship was once gripped firmly, a fate would be sealed.
00:24:59We could see from the bridge
00:25:01that the ship was bending like a bow under titanic pressure.
00:25:06The onslaught was all but irresistible.
00:25:11Well, the noise of thousands and thousands of tons
00:25:14pushing in around the beams of a ship creaking and groaning
00:25:18and desperately trying to withstand that pressure
00:25:21would have been like the final death throes of an animal or a person
00:25:25and indeed I think that's the way they tended to think of it.
00:25:28It was this guttural kind of roars
00:25:31and almost pleas for help coming from the vessel
00:25:34as it tried to withstand this pressure
00:25:36as these sort of unseen forces are closing in around them.
00:25:39It must have been a really hellish kind of situation to find themselves in.
00:25:47The roar of pressure could be heard all around us,
00:25:51almost like a living creature.
00:25:54She resisted the forces that would crush her,
00:25:58but it was a one-sided battle.
00:26:01Millions of tons of ice pressed inexorably upon the little ship
00:26:06that had dared the challenge of the Antarctic.
00:26:14The men were listening to the structural damage for weeks
00:26:17as the pressure of the pack closed in around the hull.
00:26:21Fearing the ship was not going to take them home,
00:26:24they were powerless to do anything.
00:26:27It must have felt hopeless.
00:26:31The plans for abandoning the ship in case of emergency
00:26:35had been made well in advance,
00:26:37and men and dogs descended to the flow
00:26:40and made their way to the comparative safety
00:26:43of an unbroken portion of the flow without a hitch.
00:26:47It was a sickening sensation
00:26:50to feel the decks breaking up under one's feet.
00:26:53She is crushed and abandoned
00:26:56after drifting more than 570 miles
00:26:59during the 281 days since she became locked in the ice.
00:27:08It is hard to write what I feel.
00:27:14The attack of the ice reached its climax at 4 p.m.
00:27:18The flows with the force of millions of tons of moving ice behind them
00:27:24were simply annihilating the ship.
00:27:35The men were left with quite literally a pile of driftwood.
00:27:39The images Hurley captured are dramatic.
00:27:43Everything above the hull just fell to pieces,
00:27:46leaving a collection of cables and wires,
00:27:49ropes and split timber on the ice.
00:27:53It was barely recognizable as a vessel.
00:28:01The task is to reach land with all the members of the expedition,
00:28:06and to that I must bend my energies and mental power
00:28:09and apply every bit of knowledge
00:28:11that experience of the Antarctic had given me.
00:28:23The task was likely to be long and strenuous,
00:28:27and an ordered mind and a clear program are essential
00:28:31if we were to come through without loss of life.
00:28:53Once the endurance had sunk
00:28:55and they hadn't obviously managed to make landfall on the continent,
00:28:59the original expedition goal was off,
00:29:01and so this required a complete reframing.
00:29:03And as Shackleton famously said,
00:29:05a man must adjust to a new mark,
00:29:07directly the old one goes to ground.
00:29:09And it was all about then looking positively
00:29:12at the changing circumstances,
00:29:14and this is where I think there was just a critical,
00:29:17kind of inflection point really,
00:29:19where he said, look, you know,
00:29:21the original goal of crossing Antarctica is not possible,
00:29:24the new goal is saving ourselves,
00:29:26but the good news is that even though our mission has changed,
00:29:29our vision of doing something memorable together,
00:29:32surviving, testing ourselves,
00:29:34pushing ourselves beyond the limits of human endurance,
00:29:38to in this case now save ourselves
00:29:40rather than cross Antarctica as was the original goal,
00:29:43will still allow us to come home as heroes.
00:29:46We will achieve our vision, it's just that the mission has changed.
00:29:49And I think this was really a kind of masterstroke
00:29:52in the way that he managed to reframe
00:29:54and reposition the direction of the whole endeavour.
00:29:57Essential supplies had been placed on the flow
00:30:00about 100 yards from the ship,
00:30:02and there we set about making a camp for the night.
00:30:06Now it's a case of, you know,
00:30:09Now it's a case of anything we take off the ship, we've got to carry.
00:30:12So weight was critical,
00:30:14and Shackleton said each man has two pounds, two pounds of gear.
00:30:18And he set a wonderful example here
00:30:21by basically discarding a whole series of things
00:30:23that might in the normal world be perceived as valuable,
00:30:26things like watches and rings and jewellery,
00:30:29and chucked them down on the ice and said,
00:30:31none of this matters, you know,
00:30:33we need to just take what we need to survive.
00:30:36And indeed, the guitar made it.
00:30:38Just a masterstroke in thinking about what really makes somebody tick.
00:30:42And it made the men feel that, again, at some level,
00:30:45they had circumstances under control.
00:30:47You know, they're taking a musical instrument.
00:30:49What a thing to take.
00:30:51We are now 346 miles from Pollitt Island,
00:30:55the nearest point where there is any possibility
00:30:58of finding food and shelter.
00:31:01I mustered all hands and explained the plan.
00:31:05I mustered all hands and explained the position to them briefly,
00:31:08and I hope clearly,
00:31:10and have stated that I propose to try to march with equipment
00:31:13across the ice in the direction of Pollitt Island.
00:31:16I thank the men for the steadiness and good morale
00:31:19they have shown in these trying circumstances,
00:31:22and told them I had no doubt that,
00:31:24provided they continue to work their utmost and to trust me,
00:31:28we will all reach safety in the end.
00:31:36You know, the first thought was, you know, the ship's gone down,
00:31:39we have these lifeboats, let's take a couple of them,
00:31:43and with the 28 men we have,
00:31:4514 men to a boat, pull them like a sled
00:31:48and see if we can find our way to the continent.
00:31:51And that was the original plan.
00:31:56We're going to have to do a lot of digging.
00:31:58We're going to have to do a lot of digging.
00:32:00We're going to have to do a lot of digging.
00:32:02That was the original plan.
00:32:08It was with the utmost difficulty that we shifted our two boats.
00:32:13The surface was terrible,
00:32:15like nothing that any of us had ever seen around us before.
00:32:19We were sinking at times up to our hips
00:32:22and everywhere the snow was two feet deep.
00:32:25And this they pursued for a couple of days
00:32:27until they realised it was just completely futile.
00:32:31You know, people's morale very, very quickly,
00:32:33just the physical effort of pulling these heavy,
00:32:36heavy 22½-foot keel-less whale boats through the ridges of ice.
00:32:49In 2007, I drank a wooden sled across Antarctica
00:32:52in a bid to honour Australian explorer Sir Douglas Mawson,
00:32:56and it almost killed me.
00:33:01Taking on such a physical challenge
00:33:03really is a race against time to achieve your goal.
00:33:06The sled you're dragging is carrying all the food and fuel
00:33:09you need to survive,
00:33:11but the energy just to move that weight to make those miles,
00:33:14it can exceed your daily rations.
00:33:16You can easily run out of food.
00:33:23Mentally, there's lots of places you go to when things are really tough.
00:33:27You know, sometimes you're able to really appreciate
00:33:30the grandeur of what it is you're undertaking.
00:33:33Other times, you retreat back into just the routine
00:33:36of doing things in a really kind of robotic way.
00:33:42Anything that helps you take the next step.
00:33:46RUMBLING
00:33:56Considering how little result we had to show
00:33:59for all our strenuous efforts of the past four days,
00:34:03it would be impossible to proceed for any great distance.
00:34:07Taking into account also the possibility of Leeds opening close to us,
00:34:12and so of our being able to row north-west to where we might find land,
00:34:17I decided to find a more solid flow
00:34:20and there camp until conditions were more favourable for us
00:34:24to make a second attempt to escape from our icy prison.
00:34:28We call this Ocean Camp.
00:34:31This floating lump of ice, about a mile square at first,
00:34:35but later splitting into smaller and smaller fragments,
00:34:39was to be our home for nearly two months.
00:34:45The consoling feature of the situation was that our camp was safe.
00:34:51We could endure the discomforts.
00:34:58Having only travelled four miles from the crushed endurance,
00:35:02dog teams were sent back to the wreckage
00:35:05to salvage timber, rope, fuel and the third lifeboat.
00:35:11When the weather permitted, pieces of the ship and her cargo
00:35:14were ferried across to Ocean Camp,
00:35:17where the men set about building a supply depot and even a kitchen.
00:35:24But this is a precarious existence.
00:35:27There's not enough food to survive unless they can find seals or penguins.
00:35:32At any time, the ice on which they camped could break up.
00:35:36A storm could wipe away their little tented encampment on the ice.
00:35:41These are miserable conditions for the 28 men.
00:35:47Our meals had to consist mainly of seal and penguin,
00:35:51and though this was valuable as an anti-scorbutic,
00:35:54so much so that not a single case of scurvy occurred amongst the party,
00:35:59it was a badly adjusted diet and we felt rather weak and enervated in consequence.
00:36:04The cook deserves much praise for the way he has stuck to his job
00:36:08through all this severe blizzard.
00:36:10His galley consists of nothing but a few boxes arranged as a table
00:36:14with a canvas screen erected around them on four oars,
00:36:18and the two blubber stoves within the protection afforded by the screen
00:36:22is only partial,
00:36:24and the eddies drive the pungent blubber smoke in all directions.
00:36:29We live well, but perhaps it's that hunger that's the best condiment.
00:36:34Even the fact that our seals and penguins are full of internal parasites
00:36:38of the nastiest or most loathsome kind does not deter us.
00:36:46The collection of food was now the all-important consideration,
00:36:51owing to this shortage of food
00:36:54and the fact that we needed all that we could get for ourselves.
00:36:57They had to order all the dogs to be shot.
00:37:00It was the worst job that we had had throughout the expedition
00:37:04and we felt their loss keenly.
00:37:11This evening, as we were lying in our tents,
00:37:15we heard the boss call out,
00:37:17She's going, boys!
00:37:19There was our poor ship, a mile and a half away,
00:37:23struggling in a death agony.
00:37:26It made the scene even more desolate and depressing.
00:37:32Weeks turned into months.
00:37:35Of all the dangers these men faced,
00:37:38the cold, starvation,
00:37:41the unfathomed depths beneath them,
00:37:44loss of morale was the greatest threat of them all.
00:37:51There were 28 men on our floating cake of ice
00:37:55which was steadily dwindling under the influence of wind,
00:37:59weather, charging flows and heavy swell.
00:38:04I confess that I felt the burden of responsibility
00:38:08sit heavily on my shoulders.
00:38:11Loneliness is the penalty of leadership.
00:38:16Shackleton took on a lot of the responsibility
00:38:19for keeping men's morale up,
00:38:21in normalising the circumstances
00:38:23and always seeming to have a plan for what would happen next.
00:38:26It was always a next step.
00:38:28It wasn't all going to end here and now
00:38:30with their death on the ice as failures.
00:38:32The boss would sort something out and all would be well.
00:38:40Rather than sitting in ocean camp any longer,
00:38:43with nothing but time to think,
00:38:45Shackleton organised another march towards the peninsula.
00:38:50Another march meant abandoning
00:38:52a significant amount of their provisions.
00:38:56For the lifeboats and sleds
00:38:58to travel over this now heavily distorted surface,
00:39:01they would have to travel as light as possible.
00:39:04Extra food, timber, fuel,
00:39:06even their tent canvas flooring,
00:39:09would all be left behind at ocean camp.
00:39:13I informed all hands
00:39:15that I intended to try and make a march to the west
00:39:18to reduce the distance between us and Pollard Island.
00:39:22I could not but hope that this time
00:39:25the fates would be kinder to us
00:39:27than in our last attempts
00:39:29to march across the ice to safety.
00:39:43At this rate, it would take us over 300 days
00:39:47to reach the land away to the west.
00:39:50As we only had food for 42 days,
00:39:54there was no alternative,
00:39:56therefore, but to camp once more
00:39:59on the island of Pollard Island.
00:40:03I had no other choice.
00:40:05I had no other choice.
00:40:07I had no other choice.
00:40:09There was no alternative, therefore,
00:40:12but to camp once more on the flow
00:40:15and to possess our souls with what patience we could.
00:40:19Our new home, which we were to occupy
00:40:22for nearly three and a half months,
00:40:25we called Patience Camp.
00:40:32They must now sit and wait, helplessly,
00:40:35as their camp drifts slowly north.
00:40:38The winds have disappeared,
00:40:40leaving the men low on food and blubber.
00:40:43All they could do was hope
00:40:46the warming Weddell Sea was pushing them closer to land.
00:40:52The flow had become our home.
00:40:56During the early months of the drift,
00:40:59we had almost ceased to realize
00:41:01that it was but a sheet of ice
00:41:03floating on unfathomed seas.
00:41:09Our drifting home had no rudder to guide it,
00:41:13no sail to give it speed.
00:41:15We were dependent upon the caprice of wind and current.
00:41:19We went wither those irresponsible forces listed.
00:41:23The longing to feel solid earth under our feet
00:41:27filled our hearts.
00:41:31Now our home was being shattered under our feet.
00:41:36The warmer water that was taking them closer to land
00:41:39had reduced their ice flow to a thin sheet.
00:41:43The tents, the lifeboats, and the crew
00:41:45could easily disappear into the one-degree Celsius water.
00:41:57Some intangible feeling of uneasiness
00:42:00made me leave my tent about 11 o'clock.
00:42:03And glance around the quiet camp.
00:42:06I started to walk across the flow
00:42:08in order to warn the watchmen
00:42:10to look carefully for cracks.
00:42:12And as I was passing the men's tent,
00:42:14the flow lifted on the crest of the swell
00:42:17and cracked right under my feet.
00:42:22The men were in one of the dome-shaped tents
00:42:24and it began to stretch apart as the ice opened.
00:42:28Peering into the darkness,
00:42:30I could just see the dark figures on the other flow.
00:42:37I hailed Wilde, ordering him to launch the Stankham Wills.
00:42:44The only thing they could do
00:42:45was jump into their lifeboats and start paddling.
00:42:49The spring thaw was destroying the solid sea ice
00:42:52and time was running out.
00:43:20So this is brash ice.
00:43:21This can be anything from the size of a car
00:43:23down to the size of a basketball.
00:43:25Trying to paddle through this stuff
00:43:27would have been really difficult.
00:43:29They were just desperate to make landfall wherever they could.
00:43:32And of course, tantalizingly,
00:43:33they could see the peninsula close by,
00:43:35but they would have been prevented to get there
00:43:38from the sea ice.
00:43:40It was a very, very dangerous place.
00:43:43It was a very, very dangerous place.
00:43:46They would have been prevented to get there
00:43:48from the sea of this kind of stuff,
00:43:50plus the currents that were pushing them up
00:43:52into the open ocean.
00:43:53It must have been pretty desperate to see salvation so close.
00:44:02They knew from their compass readings
00:44:04that they were drifting, perhaps 20 miles a day.
00:44:07What awaits you is the storm-tossed southern ocean.
00:44:12And if you don't get it right and find somewhere to land,
00:44:15you've got thousands and thousands of miles of nothing
00:44:19in every direction and certain death.
00:44:33These rowboats were not built to withstand an open ocean crossing.
00:44:38They were designed to take someone from ship to shore.
00:44:42All three lifeboats were keel-less, prone to capsize,
00:44:46and they are in some of the roughest oceans known to man.
00:45:00A strong easterly breeze was blowing,
00:45:03but the fringe of pack lying outside
00:45:06protected us from the full force of the swell,
00:45:09just as the coral reef of a tropical island
00:45:11checks the rollers of the Pacific.
00:45:16Elephant Island was the nearest land,
00:45:19but it lay outside the main body of pack.
00:45:25And even if the wind had been fair,
00:45:28we would have hesitated to face the high sea
00:45:31that was running in the open.
00:45:40A big flowberg resting peacefully ahead caught my eye,
00:45:44and half an hour later we had hauled up the boats
00:45:47and pitched camp for the night.
00:45:50Everyone was in need of rest after the troubles of the previous night
00:45:54and the unaccustomed strain of the last 36 hours of the oars.
00:46:00But it was not as safe as it looked.
00:46:04Your prospects if you were drifting out into the deep South Atlantic,
00:46:08blown by the winds and the currents on a piece of ice like this one,
00:46:12no-one would ever find you.
00:46:13Your home would melt beneath your feet
00:46:15and you'd be condemned to the sea forever.
00:46:20As each swell lifted around our rapidly dissolving berg,
00:46:24it drove flow ice onto the ice foot, reducing the size of our camp.
00:46:34I made up my mind that we should try to reach Deception Island.
00:46:42No longer were we drifting helplessly
00:46:46at the mercy of wind and current.
00:46:52The men paddled for almost four days.
00:46:56Worsley took the first navigational sight the overcast skies had allowed
00:47:01and determined their progress.
00:47:04It was a grievous disappointment.
00:47:07Instead of making a good run to the westward,
00:47:10we had made a big drift to the southeast.
00:47:13We were actually 30 miles to the east of the position we had occupied
00:47:18when we left the flow on the ninth.
00:47:23To us, it was a day that seemed likely to lead to no more days.
00:47:32We could hear the killers blowing.
00:47:41Their short, sharp hisses sounding like sudden escapes of steam.
00:47:54The killers were a source of anxiety,
00:47:57for a boat could easily have been capsized by one of them coming up to blow.
00:48:02Shipwrecked mariners might appear on closer examination
00:48:06to bid tasty substitutes for seal and penguin.
00:48:12We've got a pod of orca off the ship here, which is incredible to see.
00:48:17For Shackleton, of course, the orca were something to be feared.
00:48:20We didn't really understand much about them.
00:48:22They called them killers, of course, killer whales,
00:48:25and they talked of the hissing noises they'd make
00:48:28and the fact they were being stalked by these creatures
00:48:31and it created this real sense of unease.
00:48:33They really regarded them as something to be feared.
00:48:44I think the killer whales circling Shackleton and his men
00:48:47as they headed towards Elephant Island
00:48:49was just a continuation of a sort of recurring theme,
00:48:53which is that Antarctica respects no person, really.
00:48:56It's just this untamed wilderness
00:49:00where you are just a bit player in the scheme of things.
00:49:07If you are not fit enough or mentally or physically well-prepared enough,
00:49:11you won't survive.
00:49:13If you're seen to be a food source for an animal,
00:49:18you know, it's just the way of nature.
00:49:23We're not above it, we're just part of it.
00:49:26And I think Antarctica teaches you that when you go there.
00:49:36The men were left with only one choice.
00:49:40Their drift meant they could no longer reach the islands
00:49:43inside the relative shelter of the Pacays.
00:49:47They were going to have to brave the open sea.
00:49:52Obviously, we must make land quickly,
00:49:55and I decided to run for Elephant Island.
00:50:01Our way was across the open sea,
00:50:04and soon after noon, we swung round the north end of the pack.
00:50:13Immediately, our deeply laden boats began to make heavy weather.
00:50:18The ship's frays, which are freezing as they fell,
00:50:21covered men and gear with ice.
00:50:34It seemed that the general discomfort of our situation
00:50:37could scarcely have been increased.
00:50:40But the land looming ahead was a beacon of safety.
00:50:48We had now had 108 hours of toil,
00:50:51tumbling, freezing, and soaking with little or no sleep.
00:50:57Progress was slow.
00:50:59Gradually, Elephant Island came nearer.
00:51:03All this time, we were coasting along beneath towering rocky cliffs
00:51:07and sheer glacier faces,
00:51:10which offered not the slightest possibility of landing anywhere.
00:51:15You can tell just what the conditions could get to here.
00:51:18I mean, we've got about 30 or 40 knots of wind.
00:51:21We're going to have to keep pushing along.
00:51:24The sea is very, very warm,
00:51:26and the wind is not going to stop,
00:51:28but we're going to have to keep pushing on.
00:51:31The wind has got to be strong,
00:51:33and it's going to be hard to stop.
00:51:35It's going to be a very, very hard time.
00:51:38We're going to have to keep pushing on.
00:51:41winds could get to here.
00:51:43I mean, we've got about 30 or 40 knots of gust
00:51:46at the moment, but the wind speeds, of course,
00:51:49can get two or three times that.
00:51:51The trouble here is that you get not only
00:51:53the winds coming off the ocean,
00:51:55but you get the katamatic winds,
00:51:56the cold, dense masses of air pouring down
00:51:58off the high ground in the interior of the island.
00:52:01And so you get it from both sides.
00:52:04When the wind is blowing in the same direction,
00:52:06you've got the wind coming off the land
00:52:07and the wind from the sea.
00:52:09You can really end up with hurricane-force winds.
00:52:14What we're looking at here is Cape Valentine,
00:52:16where Sackleton first arrived.
00:52:18They landed here and realized they couldn't hope
00:52:20to survive with the prospect of all the ice
00:52:23and rocks tumbling down on them from above,
00:52:26and so were forced to move further around the island.
00:52:33Wild, Worsley, and Hurley accompanied me
00:52:36on an inspection of our beach.
00:52:40The outlook we found to be anything but cheering.
00:52:43Obvious signs show that at spring tides,
00:52:46the little beach would be covered by the water
00:52:48right up to the foot of the cliffs.
00:52:50The interior of the island was quite inaccessible.
00:52:53We climbed up one of the slopes
00:52:55and found ourselves stopped soon by overhanging cliffs.
00:52:59The rocks behind the camp were much weathered,
00:53:02and we noticed the sharp, unworn boulders
00:53:05that had fallen from above.
00:53:06Clearly, there was a danger from overhead.
00:53:09We must move on.
00:53:13Sackleton managed to find
00:53:15just about the only place you could land,
00:53:17which is a place called Point Wild,
00:53:19which is just over there between that small triangle
00:53:22of rock on the right-hand side
00:53:23and the face on the left-hand side.
00:53:25In between those two is a shingle beach
00:53:28that they managed to land.
00:53:31At 9.30 a.m., Sackleton and Hurley
00:53:35At 9.30 a.m., we spied a narrow, rocky beach
00:53:39at the base of some very high crags and cliff
00:53:42and made for it.
00:53:52Another stage of the homeward journey had been accomplished,
00:53:56and we can afford to forget for an hour
00:53:59the problems of the future.
00:54:01Life was not so bad.
00:54:18We've got a whettle seal
00:54:21basking in this sub-zero temperature just behind me,
00:54:24and, you know, the men were forced to bludgeon it
00:54:29to bludgeon these seals and eat them,
00:54:31both for the meat they provided,
00:54:33but also for the blubber,
00:54:36which they rendered down and used to power their stoves.
00:54:41Not very palatable, not too good for the seal either.
00:54:47You know, trying to survive on Elephant Island
00:54:49would have just been a brutal experience.
00:54:50You're living in a space between two glaciers, really,
00:54:54just eking out what existence you can.
00:54:56And we've got a glacier behind us here,
00:54:58a snow slope in the middle there
00:55:00with a steep rock cliff behind it,
00:55:02and another glacier in the distance.
00:55:04You know, they couldn't go
00:55:05more than 50 metres in one direction
00:55:07and perhaps 100 metres in the other direction
00:55:09before that was the end of their world.
00:55:11They were literally stuck
00:55:13and trying to eke out its existence
00:55:15in this tiny, tiny area in the middle here.
00:55:21It was heavy work carrying our goods
00:55:23over the rough pebbles and rocks to the foot of the cliff.
00:55:27When the work was done,
00:55:28we pulled the three boats a little higher up on the beach
00:55:32and turned gratefully to the hot drink
00:55:35that the cook had prepared.
00:55:38In order to provide shelter for the men,
00:55:40we turned the Dudley docker upside down
00:55:42and wedged up the weathered side with boulders.
00:55:47A consideration that had weight with me
00:55:50was that there was no chance at all
00:55:52of any search being made for us on Elephant Island.
00:55:57A boat journey in search of relief was necessary
00:56:00and must not be delayed.
00:56:03That conclusion was forced upon me.
00:56:10The nearest inhabited land to Elephant Island
00:56:12is South America or the Falkland Islands.
00:56:16But the strong winds and currents of the Southern Ocean
00:56:19made reaching those places impossible.
00:56:22Their only hope was to sail with the wind
00:56:25back to the whaling stations of South Georgia,
00:56:29over 800 nautical miles away.
00:56:34South Georgia was over 800 miles away
00:56:38that lay in the area of the west winds.
00:56:41And I could count upon finding whalers
00:56:43at any of the whaling stations on the East Coast.
00:56:48The hazards of a boat journey across 800 miles
00:56:51of stormy sub-Antarctic ocean were obvious,
00:56:55but I calculated that at worst the venture
00:56:57would add nothing to the risks of the men left on the island.
00:57:01There would be fewer mouths to feed during the winter
00:57:04and the boat would not require to take
00:57:06more than one month's provisions for six men.
00:57:09For if we did not make South Georgia in that time,
00:57:12we were sure to go under.
00:57:16Shackleton decided to take five of the men
00:57:18in the most seaworthy lifeboat, the James Caird.
00:57:22I told Wilde at once he would have to stay behind.
00:57:26I relied on him to hold the party together
00:57:29while I was away.
00:57:32The men who were staying behind
00:57:34made a pathetic little group on the beach
00:57:36with the grim heights of the island behind them.
00:57:40But they waved to us and gave three hearty cheers.
00:57:45There was hope in their hearts
00:57:47and they trusted us to bring the help that they needed.
00:57:52I had all sails set and the James Caird
00:57:55quickly dipped the beach and its line of dark figures.
00:58:00I decided to run north for at least two days
00:58:03while the wind held and so get into warmer weather
00:58:07before turning to the east
00:58:09and laying a course for South Georgia.
00:58:15The tale of the next 16 days
00:58:17is one of supreme bravery.
00:58:21A storm's strife amid heaving waters.
00:58:26A sub-Antarctic ocean lived up to its evil winter reputation.
00:58:52Southern Ocean is the roughest ocean in the world.
00:58:55This is typical Southern Ocean weather we're facing here.
00:58:58We've got about 40, maybe 50 knot gusts of wind
00:59:01and quite a big sea state.
00:59:03We're heading up towards South Georgia.
00:59:05You've got the Pacific basically draining
00:59:07into the Atlantic from west to east
00:59:09and when the wind blows in the other direction
00:59:11you get big standing waves.
00:59:14Very, very tough conditions.
00:59:16It's a very, very tough situation.
00:59:18We're in a 110-metre ice-strengthened ship here
00:59:22and Shackleton in his 22.5-foot keel-less rowboat
00:59:26in these kind of conditions,
00:59:28sitting only a foot and a half above the surface of the sea.
00:59:31Very intimidating, noisy, rough, waves crashing in,
00:59:35soaking you, threatening to sink you.
00:59:38Survival time if you go in here, sub-10 minutes.
00:59:41It's a very, very tough condition.
00:59:43It's a very, very tough condition.
00:59:45Survival time if you go in here, sub-10 minutes,
00:59:48but frankly in rough sea state like this, two or three.
00:59:51You'd freeze, you'd lose the ability to tread water and down, you'd go.
01:00:01Shackleton's boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia
01:00:05is widely considered the most dangerous
01:00:08and difficult ocean crossing ever attempted.
01:00:12In 2013, I had the brilliant idea to recreate the journey
01:00:16using the same inadequate clothing and tiny rowboat that they had.
01:00:21I wanted to experience it for myself.
01:00:28It's the hardest physical and mental endeavour
01:00:31I've ever been involved in.
01:00:37I remember being borderline hypothermic
01:00:41with frostbite stalking us all.
01:00:46In amongst these sorts of conditions,
01:00:48down in the ditch between one set of waves and the next.
01:00:56Waves crashing in.
01:00:59Standing in one degree Celsius seawater.
01:01:03There's a chance.
01:01:06I have lasting memories of how that felt from our journey.
01:01:13Deep seemed the valleys when we lay between the rain and sea.
01:01:18High were the hills when we perched momentarily
01:01:21on the tops of giant comers.
01:01:26Nearly always there were gales.
01:01:29So small was our boat and so great were the seas
01:01:32that often our sail flept idly in the calm
01:01:35between the crests of two waves.
01:01:39Then we would climb the next slope
01:01:42and catch the full fury of the gale
01:01:45where the wool-like whiteness of the breaking water
01:01:48surged around us.
01:01:53We were a team.
01:01:55We were a tiny speck in the vast vista of the sea.
01:01:59The ocean that is open to all
01:02:02and merciful to none.
01:02:07When you're down in amongst it
01:02:10in a keel-less rowboat,
01:02:12believe me,
01:02:14it's a...
01:02:17it's a very interesting experience.
01:02:20It's all part of my therapy,
01:02:22It's all part of my therapy,
01:02:24coming back here and experiencing this.
01:02:26Get it out of my system.
01:02:31The living conditions inside the boat were also challenging.
01:02:35The six men were living off a hot drink called hoosh,
01:02:38a delightful mixture of animal fat and cereal.
01:02:43Their reindeer sleeping bags were so constantly wet
01:02:47they began to fall apart,
01:02:49extending the prickly hair all throughout the boat,
01:02:52getting into their clothing, food and drinking water.
01:02:56Our water had long been finished.
01:02:59The last was about a pint of hairy liquid
01:03:02which we strained through a bit of gauze from the medicine chest.
01:03:08Their only means of navigation was by the sun
01:03:11using a sextant and compass.
01:03:14Worsley New South Georgia Island sat on the 54th degree latitude.
01:03:19They only need to travel north to that point
01:03:21then allow the strong southern ocean current to push them east.
01:03:31I think most of us had a feeling that the end was very near.
01:03:35The morning of May the 8th broke thick and stormy
01:03:38with squalls from the northwest.
01:03:41We searched the waters ahead for a sign of land
01:03:45and though we could see nothing more
01:03:48than had met our eyes for many days
01:03:50we were cheered by a sense that the goal was near at hand.
01:03:55We gazed ahead with increasing eagerness
01:03:58and at 12.30pm through a rift in the clouds
01:04:02McCarthy caught a glimpse of the black cliffs of South Georgia.
01:04:12It was a glad moment.
01:04:14Thirst ridden, chilled and weak as we were
01:04:17happiness irradiated us.
01:04:20The job was nearly done.
01:04:31Incredibly after 16 days at sea
01:04:34the men had survived 800 miles of 30 foot waves
01:04:39and hurricane force winds
01:04:41in a 23 foot robo.
01:04:47Well the sensation Shackleton had as he approached South Georgia
01:04:51must have been one of pure relief
01:04:53after 17 days at sea
01:04:55and the James cared much of it
01:04:57not expecting to make it at all.
01:05:01It's a pretty emotional feeling to actually be back here
01:05:03it's just exciting again to be following close on his heels.
01:05:09We've got a big storm coming up
01:05:12and we're going to have to be careful
01:05:14We've got a big king penguin colony
01:05:18with hundreds of thousands of breeding pairs
01:05:20in the foreground here
01:05:22that's the thing about South Georgia
01:05:24you smell it before you can see it
01:05:26you can smell the stench of urea
01:05:28coming off the king penguins
01:05:30it's quite something
01:05:32you never quite get used to it
01:05:34and you certainly don't get it out of your clothes.
01:05:44Millions of penguins and seals
01:05:46crowd the beaches of South Georgia
01:05:48these are some of the densest concentrations
01:05:50of wildlife on the planet.
01:05:56This is the most spectacular place
01:05:58in the world
01:06:00South Georgia
01:06:02it's hundreds of thousands
01:06:04of breeding pairs
01:06:06of king penguins
01:06:08it's just amazing
01:06:10it's just amazing
01:06:12breeding pairs of king penguins
01:06:14it's just teeming with life
01:06:16it's just spectacular
01:06:18it never ceases to amaze
01:06:20I think seeing all these animals
01:06:22on the beach would have been a welcome sight
01:06:24frankly after the conditions
01:06:26down in the Antarctic
01:06:28in the final analysis
01:06:30you can eat them
01:06:32and it would have been sustenance
01:06:34for Shackleton.
01:06:42There were hundreds of sea elephants
01:06:44lying about
01:06:46and their anxieties
01:06:48with regard to food disappeared
01:06:55meat and blubber
01:06:57enough to feed our party
01:06:59for years was in sight
01:07:01a sea elephant
01:07:03provided us with fuel and meat
01:07:05and that evening
01:07:07found a well fed
01:07:09and fairly contented party
01:07:11at rest in Pegaty camp
01:07:13abundant meals
01:07:15of sea elephant steak
01:07:17and liver increased our contentment
01:07:25the men were grateful
01:07:27for the safety of land
01:07:29and the abundance of food
01:07:31however they still needed
01:07:33to reach the whaling station
01:07:35on the other side of the island
01:07:37the James Caird
01:07:40the island was badly damaged
01:07:42after the crossing
01:07:44it would be too dangerous
01:07:46to sail around the coast
01:07:48they were going to have to
01:07:50cross the island on foot
01:07:52to Stromnes Bay
01:07:5425 miles
01:07:56across the treacherous
01:07:58mountains and glaciers
01:08:00of South Georgia
01:08:04the interior of the island
01:08:06had never been traversed
01:08:08flowing down from the peaks
01:08:10at almost 3000 meters high
01:08:12even for the most experienced
01:08:14mountaineer
01:08:16this was an extremely dangerous prospect
01:08:20Shackleton decided to take
01:08:22the two strongest men
01:08:24Tom Crane and Frank Worsley
01:08:26and attempt this final task
01:08:33soon we were ascending a snow slope
01:08:35heading due east
01:08:37to the last lap of our long trail
01:08:43after two hours steady climbing
01:08:45we were 2500 feet
01:08:47above sea level
01:08:51we roped ourselves together
01:08:53as a precaution against holes
01:08:55crevasses and precipices
01:08:59and I broke trail through the soft snow
01:09:07the central facet of Shackleton's leadership
01:09:09was that he never asked someone to do
01:09:11something he wasn't prepared to do himself
01:09:13and indeed he really demonstrated that
01:09:15at this stage of their journey
01:09:27well I've just come up
01:09:29Shackleton Gap
01:09:31from King Harkin Bay
01:09:33where Shackleton landed more than 100 years ago
01:09:35weather is beginning to deteriorate
01:09:37as is always the case
01:09:39in South Georgia
01:09:41and you've got this incredible terrain behind you
01:09:43just shows what the place is like
01:09:45and we're heading off to the Trident Mountains
01:09:47through there where
01:09:49Shackleton, Crane and Worsley went
01:09:51and that's the access point
01:09:53to the interior of the island
01:09:55and the whaling stations beyond
01:10:01when Shackleton, Crane and Worsley
01:10:03no one had ever been into the interior
01:10:05of the island
01:10:07their clothing was inadequate
01:10:09they had no real climbing experience
01:10:11one length of rope
01:10:13they were now faced with one of the most treacherous
01:10:15mountain crossings on earth
01:10:19the interior was broken
01:10:21tremendously
01:10:23high peaks
01:10:25impossible cliffs
01:10:27steep snow slopes
01:10:29and sharply descending glaciers
01:10:32in all directions
01:10:34with stretches of snow plain overlaying
01:10:36the ice sheet of the interior
01:10:40the slope we were ascending mounted to a ridge
01:10:42and our course lay
01:10:44direct to the top
01:10:46I had hoped
01:10:48to get a view of the country ahead of us
01:10:50from the top of the slope
01:10:52but as the surface became more level
01:10:54beneath our feet
01:10:56a thick fog drifted down
01:10:58the moon became obscured
01:11:00and produced a diffused light
01:11:02that was more trying
01:11:04than darkness
01:11:06since it illuminated the fog
01:11:08without guiding our steps
01:11:10we noticed the thin beginnings
01:11:12of crevasses
01:11:14soon they were increasing
01:11:16in size and showing fractures
01:11:18indicating that we were travelling
01:11:20on a glacier
01:11:30it's extremely dangerous
01:11:32travelling across glaciers
01:11:34thin snow bridges
01:11:36across deep crevasses
01:11:38are like hidden trap doors
01:11:40that at any moment
01:11:42could cave in
01:11:44the crevasses we are encountering
01:11:46are particularly bad
01:11:48but I suspect they've got worse here
01:11:50over time
01:11:52had Shackleton, Green and Worsley
01:11:54experienced these conditions
01:11:56they would have been
01:11:58I wonder how they would have fared
01:12:16the key thing with crossing crevasses
01:12:18is that you don't want to fall in
01:12:20and the best way to avoid that
01:12:22is to cross them at right angles
01:12:24so if you are going down
01:12:26a river of ice
01:12:28which a glacier is
01:12:30you're doing things the right way
01:12:32because the likelihood is
01:12:34the crevasses are going to go
01:12:36from left to right in front of you
01:12:38across your path
01:12:40and you want to be stepping over them
01:12:42what you don't want to be doing
01:12:44is following the length of a crevasse
01:12:46where you give yourself
01:12:48lots and lots of opportunities
01:12:50to fall in the same thing
01:12:52if you see one
01:12:54and just hope to hell that
01:12:56two people don't fall in
01:12:58because if you're the one left
01:13:00on the surface
01:13:02you probably haven't got the strength
01:13:04to hold everybody from falling in
01:13:06and injuring themselves
01:13:08or perhaps worse
01:13:24we were tired
01:13:26and the wind that blew down
01:13:28from the heights
01:13:30was chilling us
01:13:32we decided to get down
01:13:34under the lee of a rock
01:13:36for a rest
01:13:42within a minute
01:13:44my time was up
01:13:46and we were
01:13:48on our way back
01:13:50to the glacier
01:13:53within a minute
01:13:55my two companions were fast asleep
01:13:57I realised
01:13:59that it would be disastrous
01:14:01if we all slumbered together
01:14:03for sleep under such conditions
01:14:05merges into death
01:14:07a shack of them
01:14:09would have stopped in a shelter
01:14:11very much like this one
01:14:13out of the wind
01:14:15and knowing really
01:14:17that to stop for more than a small amount of time
01:14:19would have spelt certain death
01:14:21it generates heat
01:14:23and heat is what you need
01:14:25and to stop for too long
01:14:27spells disaster
01:14:29after five minutes
01:14:31I shook them into consciousness again
01:14:33told them that they had slept
01:14:35for half an hour
01:14:37and gave the word
01:14:39for a fresh start
01:14:41Shackleton was no mountaineer
01:14:43but he had a lot of experience
01:14:45of the cold in Antarctica
01:14:47and he would have known
01:14:49that he would not have them in to sleep any longer
01:15:01around twenty hours into their crossing
01:15:03Shackleton decided to head down
01:15:05towards what he thought would be
01:15:07Stromnest Bay
01:15:09and the whaling station
01:15:11Our high hopes
01:15:13were soon shattered
01:15:15crevasses warned us
01:15:17that we were on another glacier
01:15:19and soon we looked down
01:15:21almost to the seaward edge
01:15:23of the great riven ice mass
01:15:35I knew there was no glacier
01:15:37in Stromnest
01:15:39and realized
01:15:41this must be the Fortuna Glacier
01:15:45The disappointment was severe
01:15:49The glacier Shackleton found
01:15:51filled the valley
01:15:53and sheer ice cliffs fell into the ocean
01:15:55It was completely impassable
01:15:57and forced the men back
01:15:59up into the mountains
01:16:01It must have been
01:16:03a moment that almost broke them
01:16:09We've just completed
01:16:11a survey of the same glacier
01:16:13and it's clear that this landscape
01:16:15has changed dramatically
01:16:19Here I am on the turn back glacier
01:16:21that Sir Ernest Shackleton and his colleagues
01:16:23Worsley and Crean famously
01:16:25tried to use to descend to the valley
01:16:27beyond us here to get ultimately
01:16:29to Stromnest Whaling Station
01:16:31and look at what a hundred years of climate change have done
01:16:33This vast open space we're looking at
01:16:35here used to be occupied by glacier
01:16:38For them the level
01:16:40would have been above the level we can currently
01:16:42see now and if they were here and the ice were here
01:16:44we would see them trudging
01:16:46wearily across our eye line
01:16:48about midway across this valley here
01:16:50only to reach
01:16:52a precipitous ice cliff that they couldn't negotiate
01:16:54causing them to have to go back
01:16:56up the valley and round another way
01:16:58hence the name turn back glacier
01:17:00What a change
01:17:02there's been
01:17:08Ironically the turn back glacier
01:17:10is no longer an insurmountable
01:17:12barrier and we can simply
01:17:14walk down the melting glacial front
01:17:16to the valley floor
01:17:28After 26 hours
01:17:30of continuous marching
01:17:32there was one more major obstacle
01:17:34in Shackleton's path
01:17:36The Conic Glacier
01:17:38a feature that's virtually unrecognizable
01:17:40today
01:17:44Back in Shackleton's day
01:17:46they saw the ice of the
01:17:48Conic Glacier reaching almost
01:17:50to the breaking waves
01:17:52A hundred years later
01:17:54we'll have to hike around three miles
01:17:56from the coast to the new glacial front
01:18:07I've always been on two journeys
01:18:09really, one is the literal one
01:18:11crossing mountains, crossing glaciers
01:18:13and the other is more of a metaphorical one
01:18:15in other words you see those
01:18:17big rivers of ice
01:18:19and how badly they've been affected by climate change
01:18:21and realize they're a really good way of showing
01:18:23the problem, they're like the litmus paper
01:18:25for what we're doing to the planet
01:18:37The environment I'm standing on here
01:18:39looks like it's solid
01:18:41as you're stepping, you're sinking down
01:18:43quite a long way
01:18:45and these big piles of rubble
01:18:47again they look quite solid
01:18:49but beneath them is ice
01:18:51and the water is just eating into everything beneath
01:18:53as the ice melts
01:18:55the water is just eroding away the base
01:18:57of all these piles
01:19:07It's quite a freaky experience
01:19:09being here
01:19:11this whole landscape is just dynamic and changing
01:19:13and what we're seeing today
01:19:15will not look like this tomorrow
01:19:17Using a drone to capture
01:19:19a 360 degree image
01:19:21of the Konig Valley
01:19:23and the diary entries from Shackleton's Crossing
01:19:25we can recreate the world
01:19:27those three men traversed
01:19:37What a difference a hundred years can make
01:19:52This is just indicative of the way
01:19:54that climate change has impacted the glaciers
01:19:56of South Georgia
01:19:58where over 90% of the glaciers here
01:20:00are suffering the same fate
01:20:02all in wide scale retreat
01:20:06For Shackleton
01:20:08South Georgia was a very different world
01:20:12We were so stiff
01:20:14we marched
01:20:16with our knees bent
01:20:18a jagged line of peaks
01:20:20with a gap like a broken tooth
01:20:22confronted us
01:20:24and our course eastward to Stromness
01:20:26lay across it
01:20:30The very steep slope
01:20:32led up to the ridge
01:20:34and an icy wind
01:20:36burst through the gap
01:20:38but the worst
01:20:40was turning to the best for us
01:20:44Twisted wave-like rock formations
01:20:46of Husvik Harbour
01:20:48appeared right ahead in the opening of dawn
01:20:54In intense excitement
01:20:56we watched the chronometer for seven o'clock
01:20:58when the whalers would be summoned to work
01:21:04Right to the minute
01:21:06the steam whistle came to us
01:21:08born clearly on the wind
01:21:10never had any one of us
01:21:12heard sweeter music
01:21:14It was a moment
01:21:16hard to describe
01:21:18pain and ache
01:21:20boat journeys, marches
01:21:22hunger and fatigue
01:21:24seemed to belong to the limbo
01:21:26of forgotten things
01:21:30At 1.30pm
01:21:32we climbed around the final ridge
01:21:34and saw a steamer
01:21:36Minute figures
01:21:38moving to and fro about the boats
01:21:40caught our gaze
01:21:42and then we saw
01:21:44the sheds and factory
01:21:46of Stromness Whaling Station
01:21:50We had pierced the veneer
01:21:52of outside things
01:21:54We had suffered
01:21:56starved
01:21:58and triumphed
01:22:00Grovelled down yet
01:22:02grasped at glory
01:22:04grown bigger in the
01:22:06bigness of the whole
01:22:10We had seen God in his splendours
01:22:14heard the text that nature renders
01:22:24We had reached
01:22:26the naked soul
01:22:28of men
01:22:36That afternoon Shackleton, Crean and Worsley
01:22:38walked into Stromness Whaling Station
01:22:42The factory would have been busy
01:22:44with teams of men processing huge whale carcasses
01:22:46and the stench would have been
01:22:48thick in the air
01:22:52This was to be their first encounter
01:22:54with the outside world
01:22:56after 132 days
01:23:00We tried to straighten ourselves up a bit
01:23:02for the thought that there might be women at the station
01:23:04made us painfully conscious
01:23:06of our uncivilised appearance
01:23:10Our beards were long
01:23:12and our hair was matted
01:23:14Three more unpleasant looking
01:23:16ruffians could hardly
01:23:18have been imagined
01:23:26Well, Shackleton finally arrives
01:23:28with Crean and Worsley at the whaling station
01:23:30They celebrate momentarily
01:23:32but then Shackleton's focused on picking up
01:23:34all the people he's left behind
01:23:36and this is just fraught with problems
01:23:40After retrieving the men left
01:23:42on the other side of the island
01:23:44Shackleton sets off from South Georgia
01:23:46in a whaling ship
01:23:48with the intention of rescuing
01:23:50the 22 men left behind on Elephant Island
01:23:52and they get turned back
01:23:54by the pack ice
01:23:56which is just impassable
01:23:58They attempt this a second time
01:24:00and the same thing happens again
01:24:02Pack ice, too dense
01:24:04Driven back, unable to get
01:24:06any further south
01:24:08They resort to sailing to South America
01:24:10where Shackleton raises the funds
01:24:12for another ship to reach the men
01:24:14and that catches fire
01:24:16Back to South America they go
01:24:18tail between their legs
01:24:20On their fourth attempt
01:24:22they go south
01:24:24in a vessel called the Yelcher
01:24:26a final rescue effort
01:24:28funded by the Chilean government
01:24:30in what is essentially a tugboat
01:24:34This time Providence favoured us
01:24:38The little steamer made a quick run down
01:24:40in comparatively fine weather
01:24:44Worsley's keen eyes detected the camp
01:24:46The men ashore saw us at the same time
01:24:48and we saw tiny black figures
01:24:50hurry to the beach
01:24:52and wave signals to us
01:24:54I saw a little figure
01:24:56on a surf-beaten rock
01:24:58and recognised Wild
01:25:02I called out
01:25:04Are you all well?
01:25:06and he answered
01:25:08We are all well, boss
01:25:10Wild had no idea
01:25:12what was going on
01:25:15Wild had held the party together
01:25:17and kept
01:25:19hope alive
01:25:21in their hearts
01:25:25The men on Elephant Island had waited
01:25:27four and a half months for rescue
01:25:29and were down to just
01:25:31four days worth of rations
01:25:33The crew of Endurance
01:25:35were finally about to return to civilisation
01:25:37for the first time
01:25:39in over two years
01:25:45Against all odds
01:25:47Shackleton had managed to achieve
01:25:49the impossible
01:25:54All hands were rescued
01:25:56Not a single man perished
01:26:08Shackleton's story
01:26:10inspires me
01:26:12when I'm in these remote locations
01:26:14and face with the reality
01:26:16of the situation
01:26:18I believe Shackleton's leadership
01:26:20can be applied to almost any mission
01:26:22any goal
01:26:24For me, that is correcting
01:26:26our climate trajectory
01:26:28The changes we've witnessed here
01:26:30in South Georgia are sobering
01:26:32and I'm compelled to use what I've learned
01:26:34from Shackleton to make a difference
01:26:36I think the thing about glaciers
01:26:38is that they are tangible
01:26:40They're a physical thing
01:26:42You can't see 415 parts per million of CO2
01:26:44in the atmosphere
01:26:46but you can see a melting glacier
01:26:48South Georgia is such a remote place
01:26:50and of course Antarctica remoter still
01:26:52so not many people get to come here
01:26:54I think the work we're doing
01:26:56bringing these images back to people
01:26:58is just crucial in communicating
01:27:00both the beauty of these places
01:27:02but the fragility of them
01:27:04and the importance of doing something
01:27:06about climate change
01:27:08How to achieve the impossible
01:27:10These are skills we can apply
01:27:12to mammoth tasks
01:27:14like solving climate change
01:27:16We need to reframe the mission
01:27:18We need to set milestones
01:27:20We need to break down the big picture
01:27:22into smaller, bite-sized challenges
01:27:24We need to use emotional intelligence
01:27:26to convince everybody
01:27:28to pull together
01:27:30These are the skills that allow Shackleton
01:27:32to save all of his men from Antarctica
01:27:34Those same skills
01:27:36must now help us save
01:27:38Antarctica from man
01:27:46Our journey ends here
01:27:48at Gritvicken Whaling Station
01:27:50where Endurance
01:27:52and her crew of 28 first set off
01:27:54to conquer the ice
01:27:56Gritvicken
01:27:58where we are would have been a harsh, harsh place
01:28:00100 years ago
01:28:02Many whales hunted here
01:28:04Subsequently ended up on the brink
01:28:06of extinction, humpback whales, blue whales
01:28:10And thankfully we realized
01:28:12the error of our way before it was too late
01:28:14and managed to stop
01:28:16the whaling before we hunted them to extinction
01:28:18Fur seals are back at the numbers they were
01:28:20before we ever started hunting them
01:28:22which tells us that if we
01:28:24take our foot off
01:28:26the throat of nature, she can recover
01:28:34Six years
01:28:36after their daring escape
01:28:38from the ice, Shackleton,
01:28:40Wild, Worsley
01:28:42and several other crew of Endurance
01:28:44returned to South Georgia
01:28:46on another expedition
01:28:48to the south
01:28:54Before they could set off,
01:28:56Shackleton suffered a fatal heart attack
01:28:58and was laid to rest here on the island
01:29:05He just aspired to achieve
01:29:07something that was bigger than him
01:29:09He loved the whole romance
01:29:11and mystery of attaining
01:29:13things on the largest of levels
01:29:15and the biggest of stages
01:29:17He wanted to find out what he was capable
01:29:19of doing and what was out there
01:29:21and it was this kind of wonderful combination
01:29:23of geographical discovery
01:29:25and finding out what lies within yourself
01:29:27to enable you to do these things
01:29:29that really spurred him on
01:29:31I think we can all find leadership
01:29:33within ourselves, you know
01:29:35it's not a case of being born with it
01:29:37it's a case of finding it within ourselves
01:29:39and I think Shackleton found it within himself
01:29:41to save all his men from certain death
01:29:43and we can find it within ourselves
01:29:45it's just the issue is different
01:29:47but we must, we must find it within ourselves
01:29:49The key to our future
01:29:51might lie 100 years
01:29:53in our past
01:29:57truly making this
01:29:59the greatest story of survival
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