Shackleton: The Greatest Story of Survival (2023)

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(Snow crunches)

Exploration has been the

greatest driving force in my

life, since I was young.



And exploring this alien

landscape of Antarctica

is a challenge unlike anywhere

else on Earth.

Over 100 years ago, Antarctica

was more than just a challenge.

It was the very limit of human

knowledge and scientific

understanding.

The last unexplored continent

on Earth.

It's the beginning of the 20th

century,

the heroic era of polar

exploration.

These are the astronauts of

their time,

and Antarctica was their moon.

DISTANT VOICE OF CONTROLLER:

Lift off, we have a lift off!

Explorers from around the world,

pit themselves against the

immense wilderness of

Antarctica,

in search of glory and

discovery.

But this is a vast, cold,

isolated and entirely

unforgiving place.

(Loud rumbling)

What do you do when it

all goes horribly wrong?

The journals and film recorded

by Sir Ernest Shackleton and

his crew of 27,

answers that very question.

AS SHACKLETON: The story of our

attempt, is the tale of the

white warfare, of the south.

The struggles, the

disappointments and the

endurance of this small party

of Britishers,

make a story which is unique,

in the history of Antarctic

exploration.

I ask myself, 'why on earth one

comes to these parts of the

earth?'

(Loud crashing)

(Radio chatter)

I think we all have a sense of

adventure in us,

and it manifests in

different ways with different

people.

Life's true adventure is

understanding what the meaning

of it all is,

and I think that drives medical

research, it drives artistic

self expression,

it drives people's desire to

cross ice caps or climb

mountains.

That has burnt brightly in me

since childhood, and I've never

grown out of it.

I've always just had that

desire to keep on discovering.

And it's seen me go to the far

limits of human endurance

and to the ends of the world as

a means to do that.

VARIOUS NARRATIONS:

Environmental scientist Tim

Jarvis.

Australian explorer Tim Jarvis

lost more

than 50 pounds of body weight,

recreating the journey of Sir

Douglas Mawson.

In doing the expeditions the

old way, essentially

disadvantaging yourself

by using 100 year old

equipment, you get about as

close as you can

to experiencing that which they

experienced 100 years prior.

At least I could honestly say

that I've

been served up the same sorts

of conditions as he had.

REPORTER: Explorer Tim Jarvis

is the only man

to have ever recreated the

harrowing journey of Ernest

Shackleton,

using the same inadequate

clothing and equipment as they

had back in 1913.

There have been many instances

along the way,

some falls in the mountains,

where you do wonder whether

it'd be the last move you make.



I'm so excited about getting

down here, I mean,

I feel I really come alive

when I'm in a place like this,

you get much closer to the

spirit of the great man if

you're following

in his footsteps, but also you

get closer to this more

resourceful version of you

that emerges when you find

yourself in these places.

They've been the theater for so

many

fascinating journeys in the

past that you can't help but

be inspired.

We are 830 nautical miles

southeast of the Falkland

Islands,

headed to the whaling island of

South Georgia

where Shackleton began his

imperial trans antarctic

expedition.

SHACKLETON: There remained but

one great main object

of antarctic journeyings, the

crossing of the south polar

continent from sea to sea.

The distance will be roughly

1,800 miles,

and the first half of this,

from the Weddell Sea to the

pole, will be over unknown

ground.

Every step will be an advance

in geographical science

and this report will prove of

great scientific interest.

An expedition of this scale

would require a budget of

millions in today's money.

To fund his dreams of the South,

Shackleton would rely on his

ability to convince people of

the cause.

Shackleton had this way of

getting people

excited about what they

were going to know.

He offered them things

that money couldn't buy.

So if you were a wealthy

benefactor

thinking about maybe putting

money into a polar expedition

Shackleton could

name a mountain range or a

coastline after you and you had

immortality guaranteed.

So it was a clever way of doing

it.



This wasn't Shackleton's

first attempt to make history.

In 1907, he was hired to lead

the Nimrod expedition to the

Antarctic.

The mission was to be the first

to reach the south pole.

Although they set a new record

for the most southerly point

ever reached,

they were forced to turn back

just 97 nautical miles short of

their target.

Shackleton and his men,

starving and exhausted,

returned to base inspired by

what they'd seen,

but frustrated with how close

they'd come.

It would take Shackleton almost

seven years to raise the funding

and plan this expedition,

personally putting

everything on the line this

time.

The stakes couldn't be higher.

SHACKLETON: Long days of

preparation were over, and the

adventure lay ahead.

I gave the order to heave

anchor at 08:45 a.m.

on December 5 1914,

and the clanking of the

windless broke for us, the last

link with civilization.

(Dogs barking)

The fate of the expedition

now rested on the shoulders

of the 28 crew of the Endurance.

Shackleton was a consummate

leader of men

in those days on those early

expeditions, a leader of

people.

And he got about 3,000

applicants for the 27 places on

the expedition team.

And his recruitment process

involved interviews that

involved him throwing

really curly, interesting

questions at people, just to

see how they would react.

And if there was someone who

was too rigid in their

thinking,

perhaps again they weren't the

kind of person who had the

capacity for lateral thinking

and problem solving ability

that he was looking for.

He always wanted people who saw

a positive in any situation,

and you need that for

successful expeditioning, or

indeed, life.

And in the end, how relevant

those skills turned out to be.

The crew seemed a strong one,

and as I looked at the men,

I felt confidence increasing.

(Birds squawking)

The Weddell Sea was

notoriously inhospitable,

and already we knew that its

sternest face was turned

towards us.

What welcome was the Weddell

Sea preparing for us?



To navigate these southern

waters,

timing is everything.

In the relative warm months of

summer, the sea is less frozen

and large lanes of open water,

provide passage to the

continent.

I'm just staring out on a scene

of brash ice and pancake ice.

Pancake ice is when the surface

just

starts to freeze over,

and that's what we're starting

to see.

And it's the beginning of the

formation, of course, of pack

ice.

As Endurance went south, they,

of course,

started to experience pack ice,

initially probably very much

like this,

and then, of course,

became thicker and thicker and

thicker.

Worsley on board Endurance was

a wonderful

skipper and Shackleton

was no slouch himself.

So between them and some of the

other sailors on board,

they knew what they were

doing in terms of getting

through pack ice,

but you're really pushing

through leads, which are the

gaps between

the bits of larger pack, and

you try to force the ship

through there,

push the pack ice apart.

(Cracking)

Expedition cameraman Frank

Hurley, recorded the efforts of

the crew

as they navigated

their way through the ice.

The fearless Australian would

perch himself

almost anywhere, to capture

the dynamic imagery he was so

famous for.

The last 250 miles had been

through close pack,

alternating with fine long

leads and stretches of open

water.

Under the boughs and alongside,

great slabs of ice were being

turned over

and slid back on the flow, or

driven down and under the ice

or ship.

In this way, the Endurance

would split a two foot to three

foot flow

a square mile in extent.

(Cracking)

It was important that we should

make

progress towards our goal

as rapidly as possible.

(Wind whistles)

In order to keep the expedition

on schedule,

Shackleton had to make land

before the ocean froze over

for winter.

When the pack ice starts to

form on the surface of the

sea,

ultimately it forms an apron

around Antarctica, which

actually almost doubles

the size of the continent,

which is incredible when you

think of it.

The ice can be anything from 20

cm thick

all the way through

to three or 4 meters thick.

And of course, the further

south you go,

the thicker it gets,

and it comes a point where you

need

to make a judgment about

whether you're prepared to keep

the engines running

and push further south, or try

and push further south

into this incredibly thick ice,

all the while thinking, how are

we going to get home at the

end of this?

I was anxious, for certain

reasons, to winter the

Endurance in the Weddell Sea.

But the difficulty of finding

a safe harbour might be very

great.

It was as though the spirits

of the Antarctic were pointing

us

to the backward track, the

track we were determined not

to follow.

Our desire was to make easting

as well as southing,

so as to reach the land, if

possible,

east of Ross's, farthest south

and, well east of Coats Land.

The unusually abundant sea ice,

ground their progress to a

crawl,

with the rapidly freezing

seawater trapping them time

after time.

The ice was only getting

thicker and open water

was slowly disappearing.

They were reaching dead ends,

having to turn around, chip

their way through the ice, sit

and wait it out sometimes,

when they became completely

stuck,

for the ice to open up again,

break up and move.

And it was a pretty torturous

process trying to get through.



The name of the game was to

keep pushing south as best one

could,

and sometimes open leads of

water in amongst the pack ice,

would force you to go left

and right,

not doing much in

the way of southerly travel,

but you were constantly

focused on trying to get south

as best you could.

The situation became dangerous

that night.

We pushed into the pack in the

hope of reaching open water

beyond,

and found ourselves after dark

in a pool which was growing

smaller and smaller.

Ultimately, they reached a dead

end.

Pack ice closed in around the

vessel,

and no more leads were

opening up.

The weather was getting colder

and it was

very clear that that was

where they would remain.

I could not doubt now that the

Endurance was confined for the

winter.

The abandonment of the attack

was a great disappointment to

all hands.

The men had worked long hours

without thought of rest, and

they deserved success.

But the task was beyond our

powers.

The land showed still in fair

weather on the distant horizon,

but it was beyond our reach,

now.

(Metal whirring)

(Wind blowing)

Much like the endurance,

we've reached as far south

as the ice will allow us.

When it's clear, the Endurance

is not going to go any further

south,

it was one of those real

defining moments of the

expedition where I think you're

hopeful, always right to the

end,

that you could just push,

find a lead,

push far enough to actually

make landfall on the continent

and set up your winter camp,

to be prepared for the land

crossing of the continent the

following summer,

so the decision to ultimately

stop short and set up winter

camp on the ice

must have been a really

difficult moment.

Life is all about playing

a bad hand of cards well,

and I think that sums

it up fairly accurately.

You've got to look positively

at any situation you find

yourself in.

In many people's minds,

many of the expedition team

felt, well, that's it, that's

the expedition gone,

the rest is all about survival.

And Shackleton managed to keep

them motivated through a sort

of combination

of suggesting that things

could still improve,

the ice might break up,

there might be an opportunity

to push south, as the ice began

to thaw.

But in the meantime he had them

doing

language lessons and gathering

food and playing soccer matches

on the ice.

And these are all sort of

things that you don't do, if

you're expecting to die.

And it was clever because the

men felt that Shackleton had

the measure

of the circumstances

in which they found themselves.

The flat flows and frozen leads

in the neighbourhood of the

ship, made excellent training

grounds.

Hockey and soccer on the flow

were our chief recreations,

and all hands joined in many a

strenuous game.

Worsley took a party to the

flow on the 26th,

and started building a line

of igloos, and dog loos around

the ship.

The dogs seemed heartily glad

to leave the ship,

and yelped loudly and joyously,

as they were moved to their new

quarters.

The sun, which had been above

the horizon for two months,

set at midnight on the 17th.

And although it would not

disappear until April,

its slanting rays warned us of

the approach of winter.

Pools and leads appeared

occasionally,

but they froze over very

quickly.



Psychologically, the unending

nature of Antarctica is always

difficult to deal with

but more so when you've got

the darkness of winter to deal

with,

so the sun disappears, quite

literally for,

when you get further,

further south to the pole

itself,

six months of the year you're

in brutally low temperatures,

and complete darkness.

More important than that,

psychologically,

your whole world shrinks back

into that little area of light

around

the stove at night.

Or candles or blubber stove lit

fires that you could keep

going.

And it would be very difficult

in that situation to think

positively about

the journey ahead.

You're there, it's cold,

the chances of your survival

are low.

And the chances of you

sailing out when

the ice is getting thicker and

thicker rather than the other

way around.

It would have been a very

bleak time for many of them.

Trapped on the frozen surface

of the sea,

isolated and cut off from

the world,

they may as well have been

on the surface of the moon.

The disappearance of the sun is

apt to be a depressing event in

the polar regions.

But the Endurance's company

refused to abandon their

customary cheerfulness

in strange contrast with the

cold, silent world that lay

outside.

Shackleton knew they had no

control over the situation they

were in.

So he focused the men's

attention on the things they

could control.

All crew, regardless of rank,

were required to clean the ship.

Ongoing scientific research

was collected and catalogued.

The sharing of duties kept

everybody on an even keel.

It made all of the men,

regardless of their position,

feel that everyone was in this

together.

Shackleton had a genius,

it was neither more nor less

than that, for keeping those

about him in high spirits.

We loved him.

The men had felt the cold, that

is true,

but he had inspired the kind

of loyalty which prevented them

from allowing themselves

to get depressed over anything.

And they had stood up to the

hardships

inseparable from

antarctic exploration,

without a murmur.

A form of midwinter madness has

manifested itself.

All hands being seized with

the desire to have their hair

removed.

It caused much amusement.

We are likely to be cool headed

in the future, if not

neuralgic.

During the night, I took a

flashlit photograph of the ship

beset by pressure.

(expl*sive sound)

This necessitated some 20

flashes...

...one behind each

salient pressure hummock

to satisfactorily

illuminate the ship herself.

Half blinded by the successive

flashes,

I lost my bearings amidst

hammocks bumping

shins,

against projecting ice

points

and stumbling into deep snow

drifts.

(Triumphant music)

SHACKLETON: All cheered, by the

indication that the end

of the winter darkness is near,

79 days after our last sunset.

All the winter, the drifting

pack changes,

grows by freezing, thickens by

rafting, and corrugates by

pressure.

If finally in its drift it

impinges on a coast such as the

western shore of the

of the Weddell Sea,

terrific pressure is

set up, and an inferno of ice

blocks,

ridges and hedgerows results,

extending possibly for 150 or

200 miles offshore.

The effects of the pressure

around us, were awe inspiring.

Mighty blocks of ice,

gripped between meeting flows,

rose slowly, till they jumped

like cherry stones squeezed

between thumb and finger.

The pressure of millions of

tons of moving ice,

was crushing and smashing

inexorably.

If the ship was once gripped

firmly, a fate would be sealed.

(Rumbling)

We could see from the bridge,

that the ship was bending like

a bow under titanic pressure.

The onslaught was all but

irresistible.

Well, the noise of thousands

and thousands

of tons pushing in around the

beams of a ship,

creaking and groaning and

desperately trying to

withstand that pressure would

have been like

the final death throes

of an animal, or a person,

and indeed, I think that's the

way they tended to think of it,

it was this guttural kind of

roars

and almost pleas for help

coming from the vessel as it

trying to withstand

this pressure,

because these sort of unseen

forces are closing in around

them

and it must have been a really

hellish kind of situation to

find themselves in.

(Creaking)

The roar of pressure could

be heard all around us.

Almost like a living creature.

She resisted the forces

that would crush her.

But it was a one sided battle.

Millions of tons of ice pressed

inexorably upon the little

ship,

that had dared the challenge of

the Antarctic.

The men were listening to the

structural damage for weeks,

as the pressure of the pack

closed in around the hull.

Fearing the ship was not going

to take them home,

they were powerless to do

anything.

It must have felt hopeless.

The plans for abandoning the

ship in case of emergency had

been made well in advance,

and men and dogs

descended to the flow and made

their way

to the comparative safety of an

unbroken portion of the flow,

without a hitch.

It was a sickening sensation to

feel the decks breaking up

under one's feet.

She is crushed and abandoned

after drifting more than 570

miles during the 281 days,

since she became locked in the

ice.

It is hard to write what I

feel.

The attack of the ice reached

its cl*max at 04:00 p.m.

The flows, with the force of

millions of tons of moving ice

behind them,

were simply annihilating the

ship.

The men were left with,

quite literally a pile of

driftwood.

The images Hurley captured are

dramatic.

Everything above the hull just

fell to pieces,

leaving a collection of cables

and wires,

ropes and split timber on the

ice.

It was barely recognizable as a

vessel.

The task is to reach land

with all the members of the

expedition,

and to that I must bend my

energies and mental power and

apply every bit

of knowledge that experience

of the Antarctic had given me.



The task was likely to be long

and strenuous,

and an ordered mind and a clear

program are essential,

if we were to come through

without loss of life.

Once the Endurance had sunk and

they hadn't obviously managed

to make landfall

on the continent, the original

expedition goal was off.

And so this required a complete

reframing.

And as Shackleton famously

said, 'a man must adjust to a

new mark directly

'the old one goes to ground.'

And it was all about then

looking positively at the

changing circumstances.

And this is where I think there

was just a critical,

kind of inflection point,

really, where he said, 'look,

'the original goal of crossing

Antarctica is not possible.

'The new goal is saving

ourselves,

'but the good news is that even

though our mission has changed.

'our vision of doing something

memorable together,

'surviving, testing ourselves,

pushing ourselves beyond the

limits

'of human endurance

to, in this case, now save

ourselves

'rather than cross Antarctica,

as was the original goal,

'will still allow us to come

home as heroes.

'We will achieve our vision.

'It's just that the mission has

changed.'

And I think this was really a

kind of masterstroke, in the

way that he managed

to reframe and reposition

the direction of the whole

endeavour.

Essential supplies had been

placed on the flow about 100

yards from the ship,

and there we set about

making a camp for the night.

Now it's a case of anything we

take off the ship, we've got to

carry.

So weight was critical,

and Shackleton said, each man

has two pounds, two pounds of

gear.

And he set a wonderful example

here

by basically discarding a whole

series of things that might, in

the normal world,

be perceived as valuable things

like watches and rings and

jewelry,

and chucked them down on the

ice and said, 'none of this

matters.

'We need to just take

what we need to survive.'

And indeed, the guitar made it,

just a masterstroke in thinking

about what really makes

somebody tick.

And it made the men feel that,

again,

at some level, he had

circumstances under control.

They're taking a musical

instrument.

What a thing to take.

We are now 346 miles from

Paulet island,

the nearest point where there

is any possibility of finding

food and shelter.

I mustered all hands and

explained the position to them

briefly,

and I hope clearly, and have

stated that I propose to try to

march with equipment

across the ice in the direction

of Paulet Island.

I thanked the men for the

steadiness and good morale they

have shown in these

trying circumstances and told

them I had no doubt that

provided they continued

to work their utmost and to

trust me, we will all reach

safety in the end.

The first thought was,

the ship's gone down.

We have these lifeboats,

let's take a couple of them.

And with the 28 men,

we have 14 men to a boat,

pull them like a sled and see

if we can find our way to the

continent.

And that was the original plan.

It was with the utmost

difficulty that we shifted our

two boats.

The surface was terrible,

like nothing that any of us

had ever seen around us before.

We were sinking at times up

to our hips and everywhere

the snow was 2ft deep.

And this they pursued for a

couple of days

until they realized it was

just completely futile.

In fact, it started to erode

away people's morale very, very

quickly,

just the physical effort of

pulling these heavy,

heavy 22-and-a-half foot

keelless whale boats through

the,

through the ridges of ice.

In 2007 I dragged a wooden sled

across Antarctica

in a bid to honour Australian

explorer Sir Douglas Mawson,

and it almost k*lled me.

Taking on such a physical

challenge

really is a race against time

to achieve your goal.

The sled you're dragging is

carrying all the food and fuel

you need to survive.

But the energy just to move

that weight,

to make those miles,

it can exceed your daily

rations.

You can easily run out of food.

Mentally, there's lots of

places you go to when things

are really tough.

Sometimes you're able to really

appreciate

the grandeur of what it

is you're undertaking.

Other times, you retreat back

into just

the routine of doing things in

a really kind of robotic way.

Anything that helps

you take the next step.



Considering how little result

we had to show

for all our strenuous

efforts of the past four days,

it would be impossible to

proceed for any great distance.

Taking into account also the

possibility of leads opening

close to us and so of our

being able to row northwest to

where we might find land,

I decided to find a more solid

flow

and their camp until conditions

were more favourable for us to

make

a second attempt to escape

from our icy prison.

We call this 'Ocean Camp',

this floating lump of ice,

about a mile square at first,

but later splitting into

smaller

and smaller fragments, was to

be our home for nearly two

months.

The consoling feature of the

situation, was that our camp

was safe.

We could endure the

discomforts.

(Dogs barking)

Having only travelled 4 miles

from the crushed Endurance,

dog teams were sent back to the

wreckage

to salvage timber, rope,

fuel, and the third lifeboat.

When the weather permitted,

pieces of the ship and her

cargo were ferried across to

Ocean Camp,

where the men set about building

a supply depot,

and even a kitchen.

But this is a precarious

existence.

There's not enough food to

survive unless

they can find seals or

penguins.

At any time, the ice on which

they camped could break up.

A storm could wipe away their

little tented encampment on the

ice.

These are miserable

conditions for the 28 men.

Our meals had to consist

mainly of seal and penguin.

And though this was valuable as

an antiscorbutic,

so much so that not a single

case

of scurvy occurred amongst the

party,

yet it was a badly

adjusted diet,

and we felt rather weak

and innovated in consequence.

The cook deserves much praise

for the way

he has stuck to his job through

all this severe blizzard.

His galley consists of nothing

but a few

boxes arranged as a table, with

a canvas screen erected around

them on four oars,

and the two blubber stoves

within the protection afforded

by the screen is only partial,

and the eddies drive the

pungent blubber smoke in all

directions.

We live well, but perhaps it's

that hunger that's the best

condiment.

Even the fact that our seals

and penguins are full of

internal parasites

of the nastiest or most

loathsome kind does not deter

us.

The collection of food was now

the all important

consideration,

owing to this shortage of food

and the fact that we needed all

that we could get for

ourselves.

I had to order all the dogs to

be shot.

It was the worst job that we

had had

throughout the expedition,

and we felt their loss keenly.

This evening, as we were lying

in our tents,

we heard the boss call

out, 'she's going, boys!'

There was our poor ship, a mile

and a half away,

struggling in a death agony.

It made the scene even more

desolate and depressing.

Weeks turned into months.

Of all the dangers these men

faced,

the cold, starvation,

the unfathomed depths beneath

them

loss of morale was the greatest

threat of them all.

There were 28 men on our

floating cake of ice, which was

steadily dwindling under

the influence of wind, weather,

charging flows and heavy swell.

I confess that I felt the

burden of responsibility sit

heavily on my shoulders.

Loneliness is the penalty of

leadership.

Shackleton took on a lot of the

responsibility for keeping

men's morale up,

in normalizing the

circumstances

and always seeming to have a

plan for what would happen

next.

It was always a next step.

It wasn't all going to end here

and now with their death on

the ice as failures.

The boss would sort something

out.

And all would be well.

Rather than sitting in ocean

camp any longer with nothing

but time to think,

Shackleton organised another

march towards the peninsula.

Another march meant abandoning a

significant amount of their

provisions.

For the lifeboats and sleds

to travel over this now heavily

distorted surface,

they would have to travel as

light as possible.

Extra food, timber, fuel, even

their tent, canvas flooring

would all be left behind.

at Ocean camp.

I informed all hands that I

intended to try and make a

march to the west

to reduce the distance between

us and Paulet Island.

I could not but hope that this

time the fates would be kinder

to us than

in our last attempts to march

across the ice to safety.



At this rate, it would take us

over 300 days

to reach the land away to

the west

as we only had food

for 42 days.

There was no alternative,

therefore but to camp once more

on the flow,

and to possess our souls with

what patience we could.

Our new home which we were to

occupy for nearly three and a

half months,

we called Patience Camp.

They must now sit and wait,

helplessly, as their camp drifts

slowly north.

Seals and penguins have

disappeared, leaving the men low

on food and blubber.

All they could do was hope

the warming Weddell Sea, was

pushing them closer to land.

The flow had become our home.

During the early months of the

drift, we had almost ceased to

realise that it

was but a sheet of ice

floating on unfathomed seas.

Our drifting home had no rudder

to guide it, no sail to give

its speed.

We were dependent upon

the caprice of wind and

current.

We went whither those

irresponsible forces listed.

The longing to feel solid earth

under our feet filled our

hearts.

Now our home was being

shattered under our feet.

(Cracking)

The warmer water that was

taking them closer to land,

had reduced their ice flow to a

thin sheet.

The tents, the lifeboats, and

the crew

could easily disappear

into the one degrees Celsius

water.



Some intangible feeling of

uneasiness made me leave my

tent

about 11pm that night,

and glance around the quiet

camp.

I started to walk across the

flow in order

to warn the watchman to look

carefully for cracks.

And as I was passing the man's

tent,

the flow lifted on the crest of

the swell, and cracked right

under my feet.

The men were in one of the dome

shaped tents

and had began to stretch

apart as the ice opened.

Peering into the darkness, I

could just see the dark figures

on the other flow.

I hailed Wilde, ordering him

to launch the Stancombe wills.

The only thing they could do

was jump into their lifeboats

and start paddling.

The spring thaw was destroying

the solid sea ice, and time was

running out.

(Motor whirring)

This is brash ice.

This can be anything from the

size of a car down to the size

of a basketball.

Trying to paddle through this

stuff would have been really

difficult.

They were just desperate to make

landfall wherever they could.

And of course, tantalizingly,

they could see the peninsula

close by,

but they would have been

prevented to get there from the

sea of this kind of stuff,

plus the currents that were

pushing them up into the open

ocean.

It must have been pretty

desperate to see salvation so

close.

They knew from their compass

readings that they were

drifting,

perhaps 20 miles a day.

What awaits you, is the storm

tossed southern Ocean,

and if you don't get it right

and find somewhere to land,

you've got thousands and

thousands of miles of nothing

in every direction

and certain death.



These rowboats were not built

to withstand an open ocean

crossing.

They were designed to take

someone from ship to shore.

All three lifeboats were

keelless,

prone to capsize, and they are

in some of the roughest oceans

known to man.



(Birds squawking)

A strong easterly breeze was

blowing,

but the fringe of pack

lying outside

protected us from the full

force of the swell, just as the

coral reef

of a tropical island checks

the rollers of the Pacific.

Elephant Island was the nearest

land

but it lay outside the main

body of pack.

And even if the wind had been

fair,

we would have hesitated to face

the high sea that was running

in the open.

A big flow berg resting

peacefully ahead caught my eye

and half an hour later we

had hauled up the boats

and pitched camp for the night.

Everyone was in need of rest

after the troubles of the

previous night

and the unaccustomed strain

of the last 36 hours of the

oars.

But it was not as safe as it

looked.

Your prospects, if you were

drifting out

into the deep South Atlantic

blown by the winds and the

currents on a piece

of ice like this one, no

one would ever find you,

your home would melt beneath

your feet and you'd be

condemned to the sea forever.

As each swell lifted around our

rapidly dissolving berg,

it drove flow ice onto the

ice foot, reducing the size of

our camp.

I made up my mind that we

should try to reach Deception

Island.

No longer were we drifting

helplessly,

at the mercy of wind and

current.

The men paddled for almost four

days.

Worsley took the first

navigational site

the overcast skies had allowed,

and determined their progress.

It was a grievous

disappointment.

Instead of making a good run

to the westward we had made

a big drift to the southeast.

We were actually 30 miles to

the east of the position

we had occupied when we left

the flow on the 9th.

To us, it was a day that seemed

likely to lead to no more days.

We could hear the K*llers

blowing.

Their short, sharp hisses,

sounding like sudden escapes

of steam.

(Hissing)

The K*llers were a source of

anxiety,

for a boat could easily have

been capsized by one of them

coming up to blow.

Shipwrecked mariners might

appear on closer examination,

to be tasty substitutes for

seal and penguin.

Got a pod of orca off the ship

here, which is incredible to

see.

For Shackleton, of course,

the orca were something to be

feared.

We didn't really

understand much about them.

They called them K*llers,

of course, k*ller whales.

And they talked of the hissing

noises they'd make,

and the fact they were

being stalked by these

creatures.

And it created this real sense

of unease.

They really regarded them

as something to be feared.

(Blowing)

I think the k*ller whales

circling Shackleton and his men

as they headed towards Elephant

Island

was just a continuation

of a sort of recurring theme,

which is that Antarctica

respects no person, really.

It's just this untamed

wilderness where

you are just a bit player

in the scheme of things.

If you are not fit enough or

mentally or

physically well prepared

enough, you won't survive.

If you're seen to be a food

source for an animal,

you know, it's just the way

of nature.

We are not above it,

we're just part of it.

And I think Antarctica teaches

you that, when you go there.

The men were left with only one

choice.

Their drift meant they could no

longer reach the islands

inside the relative shelter of

the pack ice,

they were going

to have to brave the open sea.

Obviously, we must make land

quickly,

and I decided to run

for Elephant Island.

Our way was across the open

sea,

and soon after noon, we swung

round the north end of the

pack.

(Waves crashing)

Immediately, our deeply laden

boats began to make heavy

weather.

The ship's sprays, which are

freezing as they fell, covered

men and gear with ice.

(Loud crashing of waves)

It seemed that the general

discomfort of our situation,

could scarcely have been

increased.

But the land looming ahead,

was a beacon of safety.

We had now had 108 hours of

toil,

tumbling, freezing and soaking

with little or no sleep.

Progress was slow.

Gradually, Elephant Island came

nearer.

All this time, we were coasting

along beneath towering rocky

cliffs and sheer glacier faces,

which offered not the slightest

possibility of landing

anywhere.



(Birds squawking)

You can tell just what

the conditions can get to here.

I mean, we've got about 30 or

40 knots of gusts at the

moment,

but the wind speeds, of course,

can get two or three times

that.

The trouble here is that you

get not only the winds coming

off the ocean,

but you get the Katabatic

winds, the cold, dense,

masses of air pouring down off

the high ground in the interior

of the island.

And so you get it from both

sides,

and when the wind is

blowing in the same direction,

you've got the wind coming

off the land and the wind from

the sea,

you can really end up

with hurricane force winds.

What we're looking at here is

Cape Valentine, where

Shackleton first arrived.

They landed here and realized

they

couldn't hope to survive with

the prospect of all the ice and

rocks tumbling down

on them from above, and so were

forced to move further around

the island.

Wilde, Worsley and Hurley

accompanied me on an inspection

of our beach.

The outlook we found to be

anything but cheering.

Obvious signs show that at

spring tides,

the little beach would be

covered by the water right up

to the foot of the cliffs.

The interior of the island,

was quite inaccessible.

We climbed up one of the slopes

and found

ourselves stopped soon

by overhanging cliffs.

The rocks behind the camp were

much weathered,

and we noticed the sharp,

unworn boulders that had fallen

from above.

Clearly there was a danger from

overhead.

We must move on.

Shackleton managed to find just

about

the only place you could land,

which is a place called Point

Wild, which is just over there

between that small

triangle of rock on the right

hand side and the face

on the left hand side.

In between those two is a

shingle beach that they

managed to land.

At 09:30 a.m.,

we spied a narrow, rocky beach

at the base

of some very high crags and

cliff and made for it.

Another stage of the homeward

journey had been accomplished

and we can afford to forget

for an hour the problems of the

future.

Life was not so bad.

We got a Weddell seal

basking in this sub zero

temperature just

behind me, and the men were

forced to bludgeon these seals

and eat them both for the

meat they provided,

but also for the blubber

which they rendered down

and used to power their stoves.

Not very palatable, not too

good for the seal, either.

Trying to survive on Elephant

Island would have just been a

brutal experience.

You're living in a space

between two glaciers really,

really just eking out what

existence you can.

And we've got a glacier behind

us here,

a snow slope in the

middle there,

with a steep rock cliff behind

it, and another glacier in the

distance.

They couldn't go more than 50

meters in one direction,

and perhaps 100 meters in the

other direction,

before that was the end of

their world.

They were literally stuck and

trying to eke out its existence

in this tiny, tiny area in the

middle here.

It was heavy work, carrying our

goods over

the rough pebbles and rocks

to the foot of the cliff.

When the work was done,

we pulled the three boats a

little higher up on the beach,

and turned gratefully to the

hot drink that the cook had

prepared.

In order to provide shelter for

the men,

we turned the Dudley docker

upside down

and wedged up the weathered

side with boulders.

A consideration that had weight

with me was that there was no

chance at all of any

search being made for us

on Elephant Island.

A boat journey in search of

relief was necessary and must

not be delayed.

That conclusion was forced upon

me.

The nearest inhabited land to

Elephant Island,

is South America

or the Falkland Islands.

But the strong winds and

currents of the Southern Ocean,

made reaching those places

impossible.

Their only hope was to sail

with the wind

back to the whaling stations of

South Georgia

over 800 nautical miles away.

South Georgia was over 800

miles away,

but lay in the area of the west

winds.

And I could count upon

finding whalers

at any of the whaling

stations on the east coast.

The hazards of a boat journey

across 800 miles of stormy

sub Antarctic ocean were

obvious.

But I calculated that at worst,

the venture would add nothing

to the risks of the men left

on the island.

There would be fewer mouths to

feed during the winter,

and the boat would not require

to take more than one month's

provisions for six men.

For if we did not make South

Georgia in that time, we were

sure to go under.

Shackleton decided to take five

of the men in the most

seaworthy lifeboat,

The James Caird.

I told Wilde at once he

would have to stay behind.

I relied on him to hold the

party together while I was

away.

The men who were staying behind

made a pathetic little group on

the beach

with the grim heights

of the island behind them.

But they waved to us

and gave three hearty cheers.

(Men cheering)

There was hope in their hearts

and they

trusted us to bring

the help that they needed.

I had all sails set, and the

James Caird quickly dipped the

beach

and its line of dark figures.

I decided to run north for at

least two days,

while the wind held and so get

into warmer weather

before turning to the

east, and being a course for

South Georgia.

The tale of the next 16 days

is one of supreme strife amid

heaving waters.

A sub Antarctic Ocean, lived up

to its evil winter reputation.

(Waves lapping)





Southern Ocean is the roughest

ocean in the world.

This is typical Southern Ocean

weather we're facing here.

We've got about 40, maybe 50

knot gusts of winds and quite

big sea states.

We're heading up towards South

Georgia.

You've got the Pacific

basically draining into the

Atlantic from west to east.

And when the wind blows in the

other direction

you get big standing

waves...very, very tough

conditions.

(Waves crash loudly)

We're in 110 meters, ice

strengthened ship here

and Shackleton and his 22 and

a half foot keelless rowboat

in these kind of conditions,

sitting only a foot and a half

above the surface of the sea,

very intimidating, noisy, rough

waves crashing in, soaking you,

threatening to sink you.

Survival time if you go in

here, sub, ten minutes,

but frankly, in rough sea state

like this, two or three.

You'd freeze, you'd lose the

ability to tread water and down

you'd go.

Shackleton's boat journey from

Elephant Island to South Georgia

is widely

considered the most dangerous

and difficult ocean crossing

ever attempted.

In 2013, I had the brilliant

idea to recreate the journey

using the same

inadequate clothing

and tiny robot that they had.

I wanted to experience it for

myself.

It's the hardest physical and

mental endeavour I've ever been

involved in.

I remember being borderline

hypothermic,

with prospects stalking us all

in amongst these sorts of

conditions,

down in the dips between one set

of waves and the next,

waves crashing in.

Standing in one degree celsius

seawater.

Charts.

I have lasting memories of how

that felt from our journey.

Deep seemed the valleys when we

lay between the rain and sea.

High were the hills when we

perched momentarily on the tops

of giant combers.

Nearly always there were gales.

So small was our boat and so

great were the seas, that often

our sail flapped idly

in the calm between

the crests of two waves.

Then we would climb the next

slope and catch the full fury

of the gale,

where the wool like whiteness

of the breaking water, surged

around us.

We were a tiny speck in the

vast vista of the sea,

the ocean that is open to all,

and merciful to none.

When you're down

in amongst it in a keelless

rowboat,

believe me, it's eh...

...it's a very interesting

experience.

It's all part of my therapy,

coming back here and

experiencing this.

Get it out of my system.

The living conditions inside

the boat were also challenging.

The six men were living off a

hot drink called 'hoosh',

a delightful mixture of animal

fat and cereal.

Their reindeer sleeping bags

were so constantly wet, they

began to fall apart,

sending the prickly hair all

throughout the boat,

getting into their clothing,

food and drinking water.

Our water had long been

finished.

The last was about a pint of

hairy liquid

which we strained through a bit

of gauze from the medicine

chest.

Their only means

of navigation was by the sun.

Using a sextant and compass.

Worsley, new South Georgia

island sat on the 54th degree

latitude.

They only need to travel north

to that point,

then allow the strong

Southern Ocean current to push

them east.

I think most of us had a

feeling that the end was very

near.

The morning of May the 8th

broke thick and stormy with

squalls from the northwest.

We searched the waters ahead

for a sign of land,

and though we could

see nothing more than had met

our eyes for many days,

we were cheered by a sense

that the goal was near at hand.

We gazed ahead with increasing

eagerness,

and at 12:30 p.m.

through a rift in the clouds,

McCarthy caught a glimpse

of the black cliffs of South

Georgia.

It was a glad moment.

Thirst ridden, chilled and weak

as we were,

happiness irradiated us,

the job was nearly done.

Incredibly, after 16 days at

sea,

the men had survived 800

miles of 30 foot waves,

and hurricane force winds,

in a 23 foot rowboat.

Well, the sensation Shackleton

had as he approached South

Georgia,

must have been one of pure

relief, after 17 days at sea in

the James Caird,

much of it, not expecting to

make it at all.

It's a pretty emotional feeling

to actually be back here.

It's just exciting again to be

following close on his heels.

We've got a big king penguin

colony

with hundreds of thousands of

breeding pairs in the

foreground here.

And that's the thing about

South Georgia,

you smell it before you can see

it.

You can smell the stench of urea

coming off the king penguins.

It's quite something,

you never quite get used to it,

and you certainly don't get it

out of your clothes.

Millions of penguins and seals

crowd the beaches of South

Georgia.

These are some of the densest

concentrations of wildlife on

the planet.

The most spectacular place

in the world, South Georgia.

It's hundreds of thousands

of breeding pairs of king

penguins.

It's just teeming with life.

It's just spectacular.

Never ceases to amaze.

(Penguins squawking)

I think seeing all these animals

on the beach would have been a

welcome sight frankly,

after the conditions down

in the Antarctic and

in the final analysis,

you can eat them

and would have

been sustenance for Shackleton.

(Growling)

There were hundreds of sea

elephants lying about.

And their anxieties with

regard to food disappeared.

Meat and blubber, enough to

feed our party for years, was

in sight.

A sea elephant provided us with

fuel and meat

and that evening found a well

fed and fairly contented party

at rest in Peggotty Camp.

Abundant meals of sea

elephants, steak and liver

increased our contentment.

The men were grateful for the

safety of land and the abundance

of food.

However, they still needed to

reach the whaling station, on

the other side of the island.

The James Caird was badly

damaged after the crossing.

It would be too dangerous

to sail around the coast.

They were going to have to cross

the island on foot to Stromness

Bay,

25 miles across the treacherous

mountains and glaciers of South

Georgia.

The interior of the island had

never been traversed,

and with winds blowing down

from the peaks at almost 3,000

meters high,

even for the most experienced

mountaineer, this was an

extremely dangerous prospect.

Shackleton decided to take the

two strongest men,

Tom Crean and Frank Worsley,

and attempt this final task.

Soon we were ascending a snow

slope

heading due east on the last

lap of our long trail.

After 2 hours steady climbing,

we were 2,500ft above sea

level.

We roped ourselves together as

a precaution against holes,

crevasses and precipices,

and I broke trail through the

soft snow.

The central facet of

Shackleton's leadership was

That he never asked someone to

do something he wasn't

prepared to do himself.

And indeed, he really

demonstrated that at this stage

of their journey.

Well, just come up Shackleton

Gap From King Haakon Bay

where Shackleton landed more

than 100 years ago.

Weather is beginning to

deteriorate as is always the

case in South Georgia.

You've got this incredible

terrain behind you.

Just shows what the place is

like.

We're heading off to the

Trident mountains

through there where Shackleton,

Crean and Worsley went.

And that's the access point

to the interior of the island

and the whaling stations beyond.

When Shackleton, Crean and

Worsley passed this point,

no one had ever been into the

interior of the island.

Their clothing was inadequate,

they had no real climbing

experience,

one length of rope.

They were now faced with one of

the most treacherous mountain

crossings on earth.

The interior was broken

tremendously.

High peaks, impassable cliffs,

steep snow slopes and sharply

descending glaciers

were prominent features in all

directions.

With stretches of snow plain

overlaying the ice sheet of

the interior.

The slope we were ascending

mounted to a ridge,

and our course lay direct to

the top.

I had hoped to get a view of

the country ahead of us from

the top of the slope

but as the surface became more

level beneath our feet, a thick

fog drifted down.

The moon became obscured and

produced a diffused light,

that was more trying than

darkness, since it illuminated

the fog

without guiding our steps.

We noticed the thin beginnings

of crevasses.

Soon they were increasing in

size and showing fractures

indicating that we were

travelling on a glacier.



It's extremely dangerous

travelling across glaciers.

Thin snow bridges across deep

crevasses

are like hidden trap doors

that at any moment could cave

in.

The crevasses we are

encountering are particularly

bad,

but I suspect they've got worse

here over time.

Had Shackleton,

Crean and Worsley experienced

these conditions,

I wonder how they would have

fared.



The key thing with crossing

crevasses is that you don't

want to fall in obviously,

and the best way to avoid

that is to cross them at right

angles.

So if you are going down a

river of ice, which a glacier is

you're doing things kind of the

right way

because the likelihood is the

crevasses are going

to go from left to right

in front of you across your

path,

and you want to be sort.

Of stepping over them.

What you don't want to be doing

is following the length of a

crevasse

where you give yourself lots

and lots opportunities

to fall in the same thing.

If you see one, tighten the rope

between you so that if somebody

falls in

the other one will hold you.

And just hope to hell that two

people don't fall in because if

you're the one left,

on the surface you probably

haven't got the strength to hold

everybody

from falling in and injuring

themselves or perhaps worse.





We were tired, and the wind

that blew down from the heights

was chilling us.

We decided to get down under

the lee of a rock for a rest.

Within a minute, my two

companions were fast asleep.

I realized that it would be

disastrous if

we all slumbered together,

for sleep under such conditions

merges into death.

Shackleton would have stopped

in a shelter very much like this

one out of the wind,

and knowing really that to stop

for more

than a small amount of time

would have, would have spelt

certain death.

You just cannot stop.

Movement generates heat and

heat is what you need obviously.

And to stop for too long spells

disaster.

After five minutes,

I shook them into consciousness

again,

told them that they had slept

for half an hour,

and gave the word for a fresh

start.

Now, Shackleton was no

mountaineer but he

had a lot of experience

of the cold in Antarctica and

he would

have known full well what would

happen if he'd allowed the men

to sleep any longer.

Around 20 hours into their

crossing, Shackleton decided to

head down towards

what he thought would be

Stromness Bay, and the whaling

station.

Our high hopes were soon

shattered.

Crevasses warned us that we

were on another glacier and

soon we looked down

almost to the seaward edge

of the great riven ice mass.

I knew there was no glacier in

Stromness,

and realized this must

be the Fortuna glacier.

The disappointment was severe.

The glacier Shackleton found

filled the valley

and sheer ice

cliffs fell into the ocean.

It was completely impassable

and forced the men back up into

the mountains.

It must have been a moment

that almost broke them.

We've just completed a survey

of the same glacier,

and it's clear that this

landscape has changed

dramatically.

Here I am on the Turnback

Glacier that Sir Ernest

Shackleton and his

colleagues Worsley and Crean,

famously tried to use to descend

to the valley

beyond us, here to get

ultimately to Stromness whaling

station.

And look at what a hundred years

of climate change have done.

This vast open space we're

looking at here used to be

occupied by glacier.

For them, the level would have

been above the level we can

currently see now

and if they were here and the

ice were here,

we would see them trudging

wearily across our eyeline,

about midway across this valley

here,

only to reach a precipitous ice

cliff that they couldn't

negotiate,

causing them to have to go back

up the valley and round another

way.

Hence the name Turnback Glacier.

What a change there's been.

Ironically, the Turnback

Glacier is no longer an

insurmountable barrier.

And we can simply walk down the

melting glacial front to the

valley floor.

After 26 hours of continuous

marching,

there was one more major

obstacle in Shackleton's path...

...the Konig Glacier,

a feature that's virtually

unrecognizable today.



Back in Shackleton's day,

they saw the ice of the Konig

Glacier reaching almost to the

breaking waves.

A hundred years later,

we'll have to hike around 3

miles from the coast to the new

glacial front.



I've always been on two

journeys really.

One is the literal one, crossing

mountains, crossing

glaciers,

and the other is more of a

metaphorical one.

In other words, you see those

big rivers of ice and how badly

they've been affected

by climate change and realise

they're a really good way of

showing the problem.

They're like the litmus paper

for what we're doing to the

planet.



The environment I'm standing

on here looks like it's solid.

As you're stepping,

you're sinking down quite a

long way

and these big piles, rubble,

again, they look quite solid,

but beneath them is ice

and the water is just eating

into everything beneath.

As the ice melts, the water is

just eroding away the base of

all these piles.

It's quite a freaky

experience being here.

This whole landscape is

just dynamic and changing.

And what we're seeing today will

not look like this tomorrow.

Using a drone to capture a 360

degree image

of the Konig Valley and

the diary entries from

Shackleton's crossing,

we can recreate the world

those three men traversed.

What a difference 100 years can

make.

This is just indicative of the

way

that climate change has impacted

the glaciers of South Georgia,

where over 90% of the glaciers

here are suffering the same fate

all in wide scale retreat.

For Shackleton, South Georgia

was a very different world.

We were so stiff,

we marched with our knees bent.

A jagged line of peaks with a

gap like a broken tooth

confronted us,

and our course eastward to

Stromness lay across it.

A very steep slope led up

to the ridge

and an icy wind burst

through the gap.

But the worst was turning

to the best for us.

Twisted, wavelike rock

formations of Husvik Harbour,

appeared right ahead in the

opening of dawn.

In intense excitement,

we watched the chronometer for

07:00, when the whalers would

be summoned to work.

Right to the minute,

the steam whistle came to us,

borne clearly on the wind,

never had any one of us heard

sweeter music.

It was a moment hard to

describe.

Pain and ache.

Boat journeys, marches, hunger

and fatigue,

seemed to belong to the limbo

of forgotten things.

At 01:30 p. m.

we climbed around the final

ridge and saw a steamer.

Minute figures moving to and

fro about the boats caught our

gaze

and then we saw the sheds and

factory of Stromness whaling

station.

We had pierced the veneer

of outside things.

We had suffered, starved and

triumphed.

Grovelled down, yet grasped of

glory,

grown bigger in the

bigness of the whole.

We had seen God in his

splendours,

heard the text that

nature renders.

We had reached the naked soul

of men.

That afternoon, Shackleton,

Crean and Worsley walked

into Stromness whaling station.

The factory would have been busy

with teams of men processing

huge whale carcasses

and the stench would

have been thick in the air.

This was to be their first

encounter with the outside

world,

in 532 days.

We tried to straighten

ourselves up a bit

for the thought that there

might be women at the station,

made us painfully

conscious of our uncivilized

appearance.

Our beards were long

and our hair was matted.

Three more unpleasant looking

ruffians could hardly have

been imagined.

Well, Shackleton finally

arrives with Crean and

Worsley at the whaling station.

They celebrate momentarily,

but then Shackleton's focused

on picking up

all the people he's left

behind.

And this is just fraught

with problems.

After retrieving the men left

on the other side of the island

Shackleton sets off from South

Georgia in a whaling ship

with the intention of rescuing

the 22 men left behind on

Elephant Island.

And they get turned back by the

pack ice, which is just

impassable.

They attempt this a second time,

and the same thing happens

again.

Pack ice, too dense, driven

back, unable to get any further

south,

they resort to sailing to South

America, where Shackleton raises

the funds

for another ship to reach the

men.

And that catches fire.

Back to South America,

they go, tail between their

legs.

On their fourth attempt,

they go south in a vessel called

the Yelcho, a final rescue

effort funded

by the Chilean government,

in what is essentially a

tugboat.

This time, Providence favored

us.

The little steamer made a quick

rundown in comparatively fine

weather.

Worsley's keen eyes detected

the camp.

The men ashore saw us at the

same time

and we saw tiny black figures

hurry to the beach and wave

signals to us.

I saw a little figure on a surf

beaten rock

and recognized Wilde.

(Cheering)

I called out, 'are you all

well?.

And he answered, 'we are all

well, boss!'

Wilde had held the party

together,

and kept hope alive in their

hearts.

The men on Elephant Island had

waited four and a half months

for rescue

and were down to just

four days worth of rations.

The crew of Endurance were

finally about to return to

civilization

for the first time in over two

years.

Against all odds, Shackleton had

managed to achieve the

impossible.

All hands were rescued.

Not a single man perished.

Shackleton's story inspires me,

especially when I'm in these

remote

locations and faced with the

reality of the situation.

I believe Shackleton's

leadership can be applied to

almost any mission,

any goal.

For me, that is correcting our

climate trajectory.

The changes we've witnessed

here in South Georgia are

sobering

and I am compelled to use what

I've learned from Shackleton, to

make a difference.

I think the thing about glaciers

is that they are tangible.

They're a physical thing.

You can't see 415 parts per

million of CO2 in the

atmosphere,

but you can see a melting

glacier.

South Georgia is such a remote

place and of course, Antarctica

remoter still,

so not many people get to come

here.

I think the work we're doing

bringing these images back to

people

is just crucial in communicating

both the beauty of these places

but the fragility of them

and the importance of doing

something about climate change.

If Shackleton's leadership has

taught us anything,

it's how to achieve the

impossible.

And these are skills we can

apply to mammoth tasks like

solving climate change.

We need to reframe the mission.

We need to set milestones.

We need to break down the big

picture into smaller, bite sized

challenges.

We need to use emotional

intelligence to convince

everybody to pull together.

These are the skills that

allowed

Shackleton to save all

of his men from Antarctica.

Those same skills must now help

us save Antarctica from man.

Our journey ends here at

Grytviken whaling station,

where Endurance and her

crew of 28 first set off to

conquer the ice.

Grytviken and where we are would

have been a harsh, harsh place

hundred years ago.

Many whales hunted here

subsequently ended up on the

brink of extinction.

Humpback whales, blue whales.

And thankfully, we realized the

error of our ways before it was

too late

and managed to stop the whaling

before we hunted them to

extinction.

Fur seals are back at the

numbers they were before we ever

started hunting them.

Which tells us that if we take

our foot off the throat of

nature, she can recover.

Six years after their daring

escape from the ice,

Shackleton, Wilde,

Worsley,

and several other crew of

Endurance,

returned to South Georgia, on

another expedition to the south.

Before they could set off

Shackleton

suffered a fatal heart attack

and was laid to rest here on

the island.

He just aspired to achieve

something that was bigger than

him.

He loved the whole romance and

mystery

of attaining things on the

largest of levels and the

biggest of stages.

And he wanted to find out what

he was capable of doing and what

was out there.

And it was this kind of

wonderful combination,

of geographical discovery,

and finding out what lies

within yourself

to enable you to do these things

that really spurred him on.

I think we can all find

leadership within ourself, you

know?

It's not a case of being born

with it.

It's a case of finding

it within ourselves.

And I think Shackleton found it

within himself

to save all his men from

certain death,

and we can find it within

ourselves.

It's just the issue is

different. But we must.

We must find it within

ourselves.

The key to our future, might lie

100 years in our past.

Truly making this

the greatest story of survival.