The tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Endurance would be lost. And fearless they were. While Ernest Shackleton and his 27-man crew did not succeed in being the first to cross Antarctica as they had hoped, their journey, nevertheless, made a mark in history. A tremendous tale of survival, Shackleton and his crew lived to tell a story of seal steak suppers, frostbitten fingers, and impossible, impassible ice.
It’s Friday night. The girls entrusted to my care for the evening are slumbering in their sleighbeds. I’m reading Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong. I’d like to say it’s the unfamiliar drafty house or the dreariness of the November night. However, I’m not convinced. Rather, the numbness creeping into my extremities is likely a byproduct of a spectacularly-told story. I can feel the howling of the hurricane-force winds on my bare skin. The blue hue of glaciers glimmering in the sun blind me. The pain of physical exhaustion and persistent cold permeates my being. The strength and power of Armstrong’s words induce sympathy in the reader: “When the sun finally rose in a brilliant pink sky, it shone on twenty-eight men who were more dead than alive. Saltwater boils on their faces were breaking open and dripping across the dead-white rings of frostbite. Their eyes were sunken and red, and they had the wild look of men driven to the end of their ropes by pain and exposure” (86). Even without a photograph, this description evokes a haunting and vivid image within the imagination of the reader.
After spending several months in the interior of Alaska with my brother’s family during his deployment, I have some semblance of understanding regarding the hardship experienced by the men on the Endurance. Last winter, the temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska plummeted to nearly 50 degrees below zero. I drove a red Toyota Tacoma with studded tires on the snowpacked roads and was often blinded by blizzard-like conditions. To ensure the power of my battery, I often plugged the truck into outlet, upon reaching the parking lot of Lathrop High School in the darkness of the early morning. Winter appeared neverending, with snow-covered lawns well into April and darkness that prevailed when my body told me that the sun should be shining. While this in no way compares to Shackleton’s epic journey, it’s the only way I can even begin to comprehend the physical and emotional struggle these men lived through.
A story and a science lesson in one, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, serves to educate its reader as well as entertain. From astronomy and chronometers to nautical history and the geography of Antarctica, there is a wealth of knowledge to be discovered within Shackleton’s story and not just in words. Living in the twenty-first century amidst e-mail, double decker airplanes, and lightning fast lifestyles, the collection of black-and-white photographs in this book is surreal. Thanks to Frank Hurley, the twenty-four year old photographer on the ship, even in 1915, the voyage could be thoroughly documented. The Endurance looks like a threatening pirateship out of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, rather than a sturdy seafaring vessel tackling the Southern Ocean in the dead of winter (40). The crew, fitted with individual harnesses, steadily pulls a boat on skis like a sled dog team, over snow drifts and broken ice (53) and finally… a rescue! Arms raised in exasperated joy, the men appear as silhouettes against the angry arctic shore, moments from being saved in August of 1916 (122).
Although a book of nonfiction, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, reads like a New York Times bestselling thriller. If not for books of nonfiction, events like this one would be lost in the passing of time and further, forgotten for fanciful fiction. Shackleton’s courage and resilience are powerful reminders of the immeasurable capability and potential of the human spirit. As my own struggle begins to feel frustrating and even normal(?), perhaps I should embrace the fortitude and self-assurance of those who lived before me. Is nothing really impossible?
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