{"id":2267,"date":"2022-04-06T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2022\/04\/06\/why-the-loss-of-shackletons-endurance-became-a-timeless-narrative\/"},"modified":"2024-10-29T20:18:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T20:18:50","slug":"why-the-loss-of-shackletons-endurance-became-a-timeless-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2022\/04\/06\/why-the-loss-of-shackletons-endurance-became-a-timeless-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"Icy waters, lost treasures, timeless tales and the tricky route to immortality"},"content":{"rendered":"    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">How\u2019s this for a story? At the start of a bloody war that shocked the world, a ship braved Antarctic ice and sailors risked their lives, returning with a tale for the ages. That\u2019s the story of Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance<em>&nbsp;<\/em>a century ago \u2014&nbsp; but it\u2019s also what happened when a crew discovered the wreck of the Endurance a month ago (March 5, 2022) &nbsp;in near-pristine condition&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/09\/climate\/endurance-wreck-found-shackleton.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">almost two miles below the surface<\/a>&nbsp;of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>The original voyage was set to the sound of the wooden Endurance at the mercy of the ice cracking like a pistol shot. Boots filling with icy water again and again on a long march in subzero temperatures. Sailing hundreds of miles in in a 20-foot open boat amid waves that sank massive steamships. No wonder that readers in 2022 still thrilled to the announcement of the underwater discovery \u2014 Shackleton\u2019s legendary 1914 expedition has it all.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>As the author of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/01\/08\/books\/review\/icebound-andrea-pitzer.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Icebound<\/a>,\u201d an account of another polar expedition, I\u2019ve found that Shackleton is far and away the explorer that American and British readers most often bring up to me at book-signings or talks. Today, Shackleton, his crew, and the Endurance seem as if their immortality were guaranteed.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>In fact, their destiny was surprisingly unlikely.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-heading   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What makes for a timeless narrative?<\/h2>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>Shackleton\u2019s 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition had a setup that lent itself to epic status \u2014 a ship at sea with no GPS and not even a radio transmitter, sailing to the ends of the Earth to make a land crossing of the Antarctic continent.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>Yet it\u2019s the gap between the ambition of the mission and what actually happened that makes this story so powerful. Like the final expedition of 16<sup>th<\/sup>-century navigator William Barents, who failed to find a passage to China but overwintered in the high Arctic, or Aspley Cherry-Garrard\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/296981\/the-worst-journey-in-the-world-by-apsley-cherry-garrard\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">devastating Antarctic voyage<\/a>&nbsp;with Robert Falcon Scott three hundred years later, Shackleton\u2019s legendary expedition is a story of failure.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>The achievement for which Shackleton is most famous \u2014 sailing hundreds of miles in a tiny boat to a whaling station on the island of South Georgia in an attempt to save his crew \u2014 resulted from the loss of his ship. He never had a chance to attempt the land crossing he had planned to do.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>Talented people achieving the thing they set out to do, even if it\u2019s difficult, is rarely as good a story as what happens when things go wrong. Epic tales often depend on apocalyptic derailments; we love these stories in part for their surprise. The choices our heroic types \u2014 and even sometimes the anti-heroes \u2014 make in the face of new and unpredictable challenges often matters more than their original plans.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-pullquote mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>Epic tales often depend on apocalyptic derailments; we love these stories in part for their surprise.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>When unexpected crises arrive, readers can more deeply identify with the characters. Those who are sitting home in cozy armchairs may not know how to steer a dogsled or sail a ship or climb a sheer ice cliff, but they know that feeling of dread as the best-laid plans go wrong. They like to imagine that given a little more in the way of superhuman skills, maybe they, too, could survive such horrifying catastrophes.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>And what persistence Shackleton and his men showed in the face of the loss of the ship, and the desperate trek to land. As one by one each became unable to continue each under his own power, they began carrying and dragging each other along. Shackleton gave his mitts to Frank Hurley, the expedition\u2019s photographer, who had lost his. For his sacrifices, Shackleton would end up with frostbite and his crew\u2019s undying gratitude.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>But in order to gain immortality, it\u2019s rarely enough to launch an ambitious expedition, watch it fall apart, and somehow survive the ordeal honorably. There\u2019s a second level to becoming a legend. Someone not only have has to live to tell the tale, but at some point, someone has to tell the story astonishingly well.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-heading   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Preserving epic events through story<\/h2>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>Five years after the Endurance had set out on its final voyage, Ernest Shackleton\u2019s account, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/5199\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">South\u201d<\/a>, appeared, with the help of reporter Edward Saunders and expedition meteorologist Leonard Hussey. The rights of the book were traded to help clear lingering debts from the voyage.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-image mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"345\" src=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP_08101504045-scaled-e1649192354600.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his compass\" class=\"wp-image-9165\" style=\"width:300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP_08101504045-scaled-e1649192354600.jpg 500w, https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/03\/AP_08101504045-scaled-e1649192354600-300x207.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The compass used by Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, donated by his granddaughter to explorer Henry Worley, who led a 2008 expedition recreating Shackleton&#8217;s journey to the South Pole a century earlier. <small>Dominic Lipinski\/PA Wire URN<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>In the years that followed, Shackleton\u2019s accomplishments were not celebrated as widely as those of peers like Robert Falcon Scott. Without Alfred Lansing, who wrote \u201cEndurance,\u201d the definitive account of the voyage four decades later, Shackleton would not sit so firmly lodged in our collective memories.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>As author Nathaniel Philbrick writes in the introduction to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.basicbooks.com\/titles\/alfred-lansing\/endurance\/9780465058792\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a 2014 edition of Lansing\u2019s book<\/a>, Lansing came to his story with the right background to create something both accurate and riveting. He had served in the Navy and also worked as a journalist in Illinois and New York. To research his book, he met with surviving crew members and reviewed diaries and logbooks from the expedition. In the end, it was Lansing who not only preserved Shackleton\u2019s story for posterity, but who boosted his star higher with an account that made the man and the expedition unforgettable.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-quote mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>\u201cThe order to abandon ship was given at 5 pm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>In that opening line, Lansing reveals immediately that he will not be giving a simple recitation from the captain\u2019s log. Instead he starts his book fourteen months into the expedition, with \u201cthe pressure of ten million tons of ice\u201d bowing the hull and driving the crew off the ship.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-quote mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>\u201cShe was being crushed. Not all at once, but slowly, a little at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>And from there, the narrative hardly lets up. The story of Shackleton\u2019s expedition that Lansing forged out of endless documents, journals and interviews was unforgettable, and received widespread praise in early reviews. Yet after it was published in 1959, it went out of print quickly and vanished for a quarter-century.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-heading   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Raising both ship and story from the depths<\/h2>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>It\u2019s tempting to say that given the human impulse to tell stories, great stories are inevitable \u2014 or that they will live forever. But just as often, they drown \u2014 quickly or slowly \u2014 into obscurity. And given whose stories get told and who is discouraged from telling them, it\u2019s staggering to think of how much of human history we\u2019ve lost.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-spacer mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"block block-legacy-page-blocks legacy-page-blocks  \">\n\n    <h2 class=\"legacy-page-blocks-subhead\">Related reading<\/h2>\n\n    <div class=\" legacy-page-blocks-text\">\n            <p><a href=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/stories\/what-challenged-andrea-pitzer-to-write-what-she-calls-her-best-work-ever\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Andrea Pitzer on the story behind her book \u201cIcebound\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n    <\/div>\n\t\n<\/div>    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-spacer mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>But in the case of Shackleton, a publisher took a chance on Lansing\u2019s \u201cEndurance<em>\u201c<\/em>&nbsp;and brought out a new edition of the book in 1986. Even then, the story took awhile to catch on. But once it did, it never stopped. In time, it would spawn a documentary starring Liam Neeson, graphic novels, two television miniseries (one starring Kenneth Branagh), books modeling Shackleton\u2019s leadership for the corporate executives, biographies and coffee-table photographic narratives of the voyage.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>All this Shackleton fever drove interest in the fate of the ship nearly a century after it was swallowed by the sea. Modern technology\u2019s battery-powered submersibles make it possible to explore the ocean floor the way that sailors on wooden ships used to set sail across its surface. And sometimes fate assists with meaningful synchronicity: The 2022 search team found the Endurance&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-60759462\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a hundred years to the day<\/a>&nbsp;after Shackleton\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-classic mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"  core-block\">\n        <div class=\"block block--core block--core-paragraph mb-5   max-w-screen-full mx-auto\">\n            \n<p>On the level of fantasy, most of us would like to imagine that thrust into a situation that requires greatness, we might meet the challenge. And when thinking of what makes an epic tale, it\u2019s intriguing to remember that for better or worse, nothing is inevitable \u2014 not the destiny of the crew aboard the Endurance, the fate of the story that Lansing wrote, which stories get told, and maybe even what we do with our own lives.<\/p>\n\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A biographer of Arctic explorers writes about the discovery of Shackleton&#8217;s Endurance and why adventure narratives hold our attention through time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"topics":[],"authors":[24],"issue":[],"class_list":["post-2267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-notable-narratives","authors-andrea-pitzer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This 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