Shackleton: The Greatest Story of Survival (2023) Movie Script

1

(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.
(Explosive 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 climax 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 killed 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 killers
blowing.
Their short, sharp hisses,
sounding like sudden escapes
of steam.
(Hissing)
The killers 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 killers,
of course, killer 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 killer 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.