Ernest Shackleton is a central figure to my Long View Project which draws heavily on his Nimrod Expedition at Cape Royds. So I’ve been reading more about him (and by him) to gain insight into his legendary status in history. Most recently I read Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage which became a bestseller on its publication in 1959. Still in print, it’s perhaps the most popular book about Shackleton ever written.

A brief synopsis, spoiler and all:

Lansing’s story opens with a ship’s demise in the frozen Weddell Sea; its crew of 28 evacuate onto the pack ice that is crushing their vessel. The stranded party, we learn, is Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–17 (better known as the Endurance Expedition) whose initial objective was to attempt the first land crossing of Antarctica. Denied of even reaching land, the Endurance crew quickly shift their sights to surviving atop drifting ice floes.

Months later as the ice breaks up, they take to three lifeboats which they’d mercifully salvaged from their ship before it sank. In the face of relentless hardship and weather, the team, still miraculously intact, reaches tiny Elephant Island in the sub-Antarctic Ocean. They are on land for the first time in 497 days but the isolated frozen crag offers no hope of passing ships or rescue.

Consequently, Shackleton sets off with five of his men in the lifeboat James Caird for South Georgia Island to bring relief. The 800-mile journey succeeds against all odds, but lands them on the uninhabited side of the mountainous island, necessitating the first overland trek ever to the other side. Through more ice and snow, this too they survive — barely.

By this time winter has set in, surrounding Elephant Island in ice. Another four months pass before Shackleton can access it by rescue ship. When he does, he finds his entire party still alive, concluding one of the most incredible survival stories of all time.

Alfred Lansing wasn’t the only one to chronicle the Endurance adventure. Shackleton and at least four of his crew members published accounts of the voyage upon returning home, and there’s been a steady flow of literature since. But Lansing’s narrative stands apart for the sheer amount of research involved in piecing it together. According to his publisher, Lansing consulted with ten of the surviving expedition members and gained access to diaries and personal accounts by eight others. It shows in the nuanced descriptions of the men and their personalities, opinions, emotions, and relationships. These real-life human perspectives color the story, move it forward, and lend credibility to an extreme tale that could otherwise pass for fiction.

With Shackleton at the center of each unfolding drama, a comprehensive profile of his leadership emerges: ‘The Boss,’ as his men called him, was immensely respected for his generous character and principles of fairness. He shunned preferential treatment and partook in the grunt work equally. His ability to remain positive and decisive under the most challenging circumstances brought out the best in his team, and he maintained morale by keeping everyone occupied and essential to the effort. Perhaps most importantly, he possessed a sense of humanity that placed his crew’s mental and physical well-being ahead of all else.

Which isn’t to say that The Boss was infallible. He made his share of misjudgements along the way which Lansing readily points out. Readers may wonder why the voyage proceeded at all, given that the Weddell Sea’s ice conditions that year were the worst in memory and that veteran whalers there tried dissuading Shackleton from sailing until the following season.

My guess is that quitting simply went against Shackleton’s grain. Also, the trip was a limited-time opportunity: World War I was just erupting, reducing the chance of another try at the expedition anytime soon. And most certainly, his assessment of the situation differed from that of the whalers. As his granddaughter Alexandra points out: “He was a very practical person, and he would have never attempted anything that he thought could not be done. The main reason was that, above all, he had the lives of his men to consider.”

The first edition of Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage is shown in the photos above. It was published in 1959 by McGraw-Hill New York and Hodder & Stoughton, London. It’s desirable for the annotated endpaper map and a collection of captioned photos by expedition photographer Frank Hurley. A subsequent edition published by Carroll & Graf (1986/1996), pictured below, lacks the map and interior photos. The latest edition, issued by Basic Books (1999), announces a map and illustrations as part of the package.

Expect a wave of interesting new print and online material to emerge as the Endurance centenary approaches. There are a number of exciting events and celebrations in the works too, including adventurer Tim Jarvis’s Shackleton Epic which will attempt to recreate the journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia in a replica of the James Caird using similar materials, clothing, food and equipment to that of the 1916 crossing. It should be a good one to follow.

One of my favorite Antarctic photo books wasn’t photographed in Antarctica at all. It was
shot in the Northeastern United States to create a highly unique representation of the southernmost continent. The project is titled Imagining Antarctica, authored by roaming photographer, urbanist, and writer Sandy Sorlien.

Left: Peak, New Jersey; Right: Birdbath, Philadelphia.

Sorlien conceived of this photo essay upon having been denied an NSF Artists and Writers Program award to visit Antarctica. In lieu of photographing there, she turned her lens on winter terrain closer to home — New England and her resident state of Pennsylvania. Her pictures were taken with a plastic Holga camera known for its quirky distortion of light, focus, and perspective. These effects were deftly put to work in capturing isolated patches of snow, ice, rocks and sky of ambiguous distance and scale to create a brilliantly convincing series of pseudo-polar landscapes.

Snow, New York.

As it happens, Sorlien’s brother Christopher, a geologist, was dispatched to Antarctica on an NSF research mission soon after she embarked on this project. Sandy seized the opportunity to collaborate and add dimension to her photo essay by juxtaposing his emailed descriptions of the actual Antarctic coast with her imagined vistas.

The similarities between image and text are often striking, lending odd credibility to Sorlien’s photographs even as her true subjects and locations are revealed in the captions. This playful blurring of truth and perception serves to put two seemingly disparate regions of Earth in direct dialogue with each other, lyrically revealing their connectedness.

Left: Landscape, Rhode Island; Right: Ice, Philadelphia.

Imagining Antarctica was published on the occasion of Sandy Sorlien’s exhibition at List Gallery, Swarthmore College, January 21- February 20, 2000. The book is now out of print but with much perseverance I was able to obtain a (signed!) copy from photo-eye. [Update: Copies are readily obtainable by querying through the author's website.]

Many thanks to my friend Susan West for introducing me to this imaginative project.

This post is the second entry in my Antarctic Bookshelf series covering notable polar-themed books. The first was Antarctica by Emil Schulthess.

There’s nothing quite like sharing a favorite book, or better yet, a collection of favorite books around a theme. Today I’m introducing a new category to the Long View Project blog that does just that. It’s called Antarctic Bookshelf whose posts will feature polar-related editions that inspire me in one way or another. Some of the titles are popular, some obscure; some in print, others out-of-print; ranging from trade books to artists’ books.

My selections follow no hard set of criteria. A book may have strong writing, concept, design, photography, artwork, historical significance, or any combination of these. At least one in the lineup has an outlandish sense of humor and most are rich in creativity and imagination. In the end, what ties these books together (besides their references to Antarctica) is each one’s ability to address the continent in a unique and memorable way.

The first on my list is Antarctica by Emil Schulthess. This photo-documentary book provides an uncommonly artful portrait of Antarctica and U.S. polar research in the late 1950s.

A striking feature of this book is its ‘wide-and-narrow’ format, lending itself to sweeping panoramas and lavish detail. This approach has since been imitated by other Antarctic photography books, but never as cohesively. This book is set apart by an exquisite sense of composition, color and design in its photography and layout alike. The reason is that Schulthess (1913-1996) was both an accomplished graphic designer and Life magazine photographer, overseeing every aspect of his books. Antarctica is but one of several handsome publications he authored, including photo-surveys of Africa, China, the Amazon, Soviet Union, USA, and his Swiss motherland.

Another thing I love about this book is its informative text. Schulthess’s captions are incredibly thorough (often paragraphs long) and well-researched. Yet he skillfully groups and places them unobtrusively apart from the photos, allowing the images to take center stage. In this way Antarctica functions equally well as a coffee-table book and historical resource depending on where the reader turns.

Schulthess introduces the project in an essay: “When the plans for an extensive exploration of the Antarctic continent on the occasion of the International Geophysical Year 1957/58 became known, an old dream of mine appeared to come within reach: a photographic documentation of Antarctica. Such a project had been in my mind for many years. I was particularly anxious to take photographs of the sun and its course in this extreme Southern part of the world. Thanks to American friends, who gave me every possible help, I obtained permission to join the American Naval Operation Deep Freeze IV.”

Operation Deep Freeze was the codename for a series of United States missions to Antarctica beginning in 1955–56, and International Geophysical Year was a collaborative effort between forty nations to carry out earth science studies from the North Pole to the South Pole and at points in between. The term ‘Operation Deep Freeze’ still endures, now signifying general U.S. operations in Antarctica, particularly the regular missions coordinated by the military to resupply research bases.

Schulthess set out in October 1958, flying from Christchurch to McMurdo and on to the South Pole. He then traveled by icebreaker from Marble Point in the Dry Valleys around the Ross Ice Shelf to Little America V — the biggest American scientific station in Antarctica at the time. Little America V was two years old and covered in ten feet of snow but still stationed 250 men when Schulthess visited. From there he voyaged deep inland by snow tractor to Byrd Station and into hitherto unexplored territory to capture more extraordinary images. He wrapped his voyage up along the coast of Victoria Land and Wilkes Land, setting course for Australia in March 1959.

Antarctica was first published in 1960 by Artemis Verlag, Zürich and by Simon & Schuster, New York (U.S. issue pictured here). Both editions are long out of print but copies can be found online with a bit of digging. I’d like to extend a big thanks to my friend Steve Woodall at Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book and Paper Arts for sending this treasure my way.