Author Alfred Lansing published this book in 1959 and it has been a best seller through the years. Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on The Family, published a new edited edition in 1999 with a foreword and an afterword written by Dr Dobson which includes material showing a spiritual emphasis that was not included in the original book.
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton and his
crew embarked on an expedition in 1914, seeking to be the first humans to cross
the South Polar continent. It is difficult to overstate the challenges of such
an undertaking. The Weddell Sea, through which they were about to sail on a
three-masted wooden vessel, would batter them with gale-force winds up to 150
miles per hour and waves 80 feet high. Temperatures would regularly plunge to minus
100 degrees Fahrenheit. Ultimately, the men would have to deal with Drake
Passage, which is described as the ‘worst bit of ocean on the globe.’ They
would also suffer the oppressive darkness of the Antarctic winter, which is
almost incomprehensible. Lansing described it this way: ‘In all the world there
is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the ice
age-no warmth, no life, no movement. Only those who have experience it can
appreciate what it means to be without the sun day after day and week after
week. Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects altogether, and it
has driven some men mad.’
Shackleton understood fully the
hazards that would assail him [and wrote,] ‘The expedition was not going (to
be) a peaceful cruise to the South Sea Islands, but a most dangerous,
difficult, and strenuous work that has nearly always involved a certain
percentage of loss of life.’ Despite this candor, Shackleton received more than
5,000 applications from which he selected 27 courageous and determined men.
With that the crew and its courageous captain set sail for the most desolate
and lonely region on earth.
The wooden ship named Endurance
was 144 feet long. Her keel members were
four pieces of solid oak, one above the other, adding to a total thickness of 7
feet, 1 inch. Her bow, where she would
meet the ice head-on had received special attention. Each of the timbers there
had been fashioned from a single oak tree especially selected so that its
natural growth followed the curve of her design. When assembled, these pieces
had a total thickness of 4 feet, 4 inches.
The Endurance got
stuck in an ice pack and finally the crew had to abandon the ship. They spent
months living on a giant ice flow. Eventually when the ice began to break up
they were able to launch the lifeboats and miraculously were able to land on
the small and treacherous Elephant Island.
From there Shackelton took 5 of his men in one of the
lifeboats and sailed for the Island of South Georgia to get a boat to come and
rescue his men.
This was an 800-mile journey across the stormiest ocean on
the globe. Well; they did reach South Georgia Island on the uninhabited side.
No one had ever hiked across it and it was considered impossible. Nevertheless
Shackleton and two of his men undertook to make the hike. It took 36 hours.
Shackleton in telling of his
experiences said, ‘I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across
the snowfields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island
from our landing-place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and
racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of
South Georgia it seemed to me often that
we were four, not three.’ Shackleton appears in this instance to have been referencing
the Bible story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when the Hebrew captives
were thrown into the fiery furnace. The ‘fourth man’ seen walking in the midst
of the fire on that occasion was ‘like the Son of God’ (Daniel 3:25).
Shackleton was able to return to Elephant Island with a ship
and rescue all of the men left there.
I would encourage you to read this entire book. Check at
your favorite book store or click here to read more
about this book and to order a copy on line.
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