History RaeTold

The Epic Survival of Ernest Shackleton and the Crew of the Endurance; or, Even in Dire Circumstances, Men Struggle to Express their Emotions because Toxic Masculinity is Real

RIGHT SO.

Let’s talk about Ernest Shackleton. My guy was a professional explorer, which is a career path created for men with university degrees, enough money to never need to get a real job and no sense of their own mortality. After failing to be the first man to reach the South Pole (pipped to the post by a Norwegian called Roald), he decided, instead of getting a real job, to go “RIGHT LADS, LET’S HIKE ACROSS ANTARCTICA”. Why? Because it was 1910, he was a white man and he could do whatever he goddamn wanted.

Normal people get jobs. Rich people do whatever the fuck they like. Hashtag capitalism.

So he gets this old collier and refits it and gets over 5,000 volunteers from which he picks out 27 guys and they set the fuck off across the ocean to Antarctica. At one point, he stops and offers to go to war instead, but the King is like “nah bro on you go, go trek across some ice for some reason. We are English and you are rich so this is a good use of money and resources”. So off he fucks. They sail for 4 months. When they stopped to get provisions, the Norwegian whalers who kicked around the Antarctic Sea were like “nah bro, don’t do it. The pack ice is insane. Like, the worst in living history. You’re going to get stuck and die if you go any further south”. But did Shackleton listen? No. Because he was a rich white man in 1914 and he don’t stop his adventuring for no common sense.

And then, in a plot twist that ABSOLUTELY NOBODY COULD HAVE PREDICTED, the pack ice gets hella thick. And they get stuck.

For a year.

So there are 28 guys with a bunch of dogs and pigs just sort of chilling out on this old refitted boat, stuck in sea ice, for fucking months with not much to do. They play football a bunch, because they’re Men, and they build little igloos for their dogs and pigs (dogloos and pigloos), but then the ice shifts and crushes the dogloos and pigloos and they have to put the dogs and pigs back on the ship. And I guess they read and have some chats and, let’s be honest, they almost definitely bone because they’re in the navy in 1914 and what else are you going to do on a stationary boat with a bunch of sailors for a year?

They also eat a bunch of penguins.

AND THEN.

And then there’s this hella dramatic creaking noise, and they realise the ice is shifting again and is about to crush the shit out of their boat. So they strip the boat of supplies and lifeboats and dogs (they’d eaten the pigs by this point) and all the photo plates for some reason, which was probably a lot of unnecessary weight but the ship’s photographer was pretty fucking insistent and it turned out to be very useful for non-fiction editors making a book about it in 2018, and noped off across the ice as their ship was crushed. They drag the lifeboats and all their shit for ages until they get onto this nice little strip of land called Elephant Island for some reason (there are no elephants in Antarctica). They try to sleep in tents but Antarctica famously does not have the best weather and they get shredded. So they flip the lifeboats and sleep under there. 

Then Shackleton is like “RIGHT LADS. ONLY ONE THING TO DO”. And he decides he’s going to take 5 dudes on a lifeboat and go to South Georgia to find some fisherman. So they set off on their little boat, leaving the rest of them to sleep under the remaining lifeboats. They do this for several months. 

They eat a bunch more penguins.

Shackleton and his pals, in the meantime, sail through stormy Antarctic seas in this tiny little rowing boat and eventually hit land (I would like to take a moment to acknowledge how FUCKING UNLIKELY it was that they made it, because they had no navigational equipment and they were basically in a dingy, and the waves were several feet high, and if they were even a tiny bit off course they would have just been swept out to sea and killed forever). And they’re like “right, we can sail around the coast but frankly, at this point, fuck boats” so instead they decide to trek like 32 km across the mountains.

Nobody has ever trekked across these mountains before, and it’s about 30 years before a highly-trained and heavily-equipped mountaineering team ever manage it again.

Our boy Shackleton leaves three of his pals at the other side of the island, just chilling (pun intended), and takes the other two with him across the mountains. When they get to the other side of the mountains, with literally none toes left on their feet because of all the frostbite, and major hallucinations going on because they haven’t eaten or slept for like 7 days, they sit and listen out for any sign of civilisation.

And then they hear a whistle.

This is the work whistle of a whaling station. They lose their absolute shit, but because they’re middle class English men in 1916 “losing their shit” entails firmly shaking each other by the hand.

I am not fucking kidding. A year at sea and over a year trapped in the ice, followed by a suicide mission across deadly frozen seas in a rowing boat, and a massive trek across these mad fucking frozen mountains, and they finally see human civilisation and they just shake hands. This is recorded in history books. This is what toxic masculinity is. Not even a quick cuddle. Jesus.

But they’re about to make up for this pathetic display of stupid masculine bollocks, because instead of walking down the mountain, which will take several more hours, what do they do? They coil their climbing ropes together, sit on them, and fucking sledge down the side of the mountain. All three of them together. At breakneck speed. They cover over a kilometre in under a minute. This is also recorded in history books.

They show up at this whaling station, frostbitten and filthy and looking like fucking monsters, and the children run in fear (also recorded in history books), and WHAT ARE THE FUCKING ODDS our boy, our hero Ernest Shackleton is pals with the boss. So the boss is like “oh hey Ernest my old pal, fancy seeing you here” and gives them a bath and a haircut and some new clothes (because I know your friends are freezing to actual death in Antarctica, but you’ve gots to gets a haircut). And then they set off to go get his pals from the other side of the island. 

So now the six of them are back together with the Norwegians, but the remaining 22 sailors are still chilling (pun intended) across the sea in their little boat huts eating penguins, so they plan their rescue. It takes three attempts, because despite Shackleton and his boys managing it in a tiny, ill-equipped lifeboat, the actual ships designed for this shit struggle. Eventually, they manage it in a Chilean tugboat called Yelcho. 

They make it back to Elephant Island and rescue their pals. On rescue, they give three rousing cheers because, again, middle class white men in the 1910s do not understand how to express emotions.

And then they go home.

After 597 days.

And nobody died.

Apart from the pigs, and a fuckton of penguins.

SHACKLETON OUT.