Shackleton was a famous south polar explorer who led three successful expeditions to Antarctica. On his fourth expedition, he died of a heart attack in his cabin while the ship was at anchor. This was in 1922. The ship itself stayed in service for various purposes until in 1962, it sank off the coast of Canada (the crew all survived). Now the wreck has been found, which is cool. But for those of us who only half remembered the Shackleton story, no it wasn't like Shackleton himself was aboard the ship when it sank. Shackleton had already been deceased for 40 years at that time.
I suppose not. His expeditions to the Antarctic failed their objectives. His business ventures were never successful. And he died in debt.
BUT. He successfully sailed one of the greatest and most perilous ocean journeys ever in recorded history, and rescued every member of his 28-man crew from certain death.
Funny in a cruel way. The world basically forgot about the voyage of the James Caird shortly after he returned home, since WWI had broken out during his time in Antarctica. He wasn't adequately recognized in his lifetime. I think he was one of humanity's finest.
> He successfully sailed one of the greatest and most perilous ocean journeys ever in recorded history, and rescued every member of his 28-man crew from certain death
It’s incredible feat of human survival. For all 28 men to survive the ordeal, is nothing short of fantastic. For months they were camped on floating sea ice, and then to tack on a 800 mile journey through open, stormy sea in a battered whaling boat, and finally a trek through the interior of a mountainous island to reach a whaling port and rescue, is incredible to say the least. I’d highly encourage people to read his own memoir of it.
Kind sad sad how we have the tendency to equal success with wealth. There are way more ways to be successful than money, or fame (and hey Shackleton is one of the big four arctic / antarctic explorers, so fame-wise he did good).
I would agree with you today but at that time his wife and family would have been reliant on his income in a way that isn't true now. If you consider her and his responsibility to her then this attitude becomes quite selfish. Keep in mind he accepted this responsibility when taking on the marriage.
I wouldn't outright call him a failure, no, and I wasn't doing that. But I do believe it's healthy for us today to examine ways that women were disadvantaged in the past if we want to fight against such things in the future.
If his wife was dismayed by his unwillingness to fulfil his promises then we could in fact say he was a failure in that way. Whether you choose to look at it that way or not is of course up to you. At the end of the day he took on the responsibility of supporting other people in a material sense and then chose to prioritise his own good feelings over that support. The issue is of course systemic at the core, in that she was limited in her choices, but he understood this when agreeing to marry.
I agree with you that things in the US are not as good today as they could be in ensuring that people can live independently, but the freedom of women to support themselves is certainly much improved in the last 100 years. I also have to say that the US is not the whole world and Shakleton and his family were in fact normally based in British territories where the modern welfare system is significantly more developed.
I founded 6 businesses that were more / less failures and lucky number 7 paid off. But if I had founded 20 failures and retired I wouldn’t have cared in terms of whether my life was a failure or not. Some people just live to try, win or lose. If you aren’t trying then it’s an auto-fail.
Yup. As opposed to the voyage of the karluk where the leader simply abandoned his crew to die and the captain of the ship heroically saved half of them. It's a tragic story. I read it a little after I read Endurance and was struck by the contrast.
Martin Gutmann's recent talk ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Z9IpTVfUg ) supports your point. While Shackleton is celebrated for overcoming disaster, Admunsen reached the south pole by avoiding disaster in the first place. Yet despite Admunsen being more effective, he is not celebrated to the same degree (at least in the US) as Shackleton.
According to this ted talk[1] he wasn’t. He led dangerously unprepared missions and ignored locals advice. Roald Admudsen was more successful and did it without the drama.
This business professor, selling his books on leadership in a Ted x (!) talk lost me when he called Amundson "forgotten". Like hell, no, Amundson is not at all forgotten. And Shackleton is famous for saving everyone on his doomed Endurance expedition under extreme circumstances.
Only measuring leadership, as im the Ted x(!) talk, with achievement of a stated, and up to then impossible, goals and ignoring a leader who saves everyone from death is at best short sighted, at worst ignorant. Did I mention the guy in the talk is a business professor with a book on leadership?
This was the the age of exploration. Doing things first just because.
Shackleton may not have made the pole (a somewhat everyday accomplishment now). What he -did- do though will, I suggest never be repeated.
He (and 5 of his crew) crossed the southern ocean, from Elephant Island to South Georgia in an open life boat. A distance of 1500km in 16 days. Nothing comes close to this. Then, on arrival, he crosses South Georgia on foot with woeful equipment. This leg alone is a rare feat even today - usually done by well equipped special forces of planned expeditions.
His ocean crossing though stands alone. Nobody is lining up to repeat it - its almost certainly suicide.
I enjoyed “Endurance” by Alfred Lansing, and would recommend it if anyone wants to read a riveting and mostly accurate account of Shackleton’s famous voyage.
I recommend this book to anyone that will give me a few moments of their ear. It's such an incredible story that if it weren't true I wouldn't believe it could be.
