"The Lost Men"

As I posted in a previous entry, I am a big fan of Earnest Shackleton and the story of his expedition to Antarctica. I read the book, Endurance, about his expedition while I was in Antarctica and it has become one of my all-time favorites.

Shackleton had traveled to Antarctica in 1914 to be the first to cross the entire continent. The original plan was for him to sail down, take a team of men and begin the journey. A second team was sent to the other side of the continent to travel into the interior to set-up supply depots for Shackleton and his men for the second half of their journey.

Unfortunately, Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, got trapped and eventually destroyed by ice. Shackleton’s journey has been described in great detail in the book Endurance and is one of the most remarkable survival stories of all time.

I had always wondered what happened to the other team of men, sent to supply Shackleton’s team for their planned crossing. This Sunday’s New York Times reviews a book that supplies the answers:

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Ten men, stranded without supplies in the Antarctic in 1915, battle starvation, disease and temperatures floundering in the minus 70's. Some do not change their clothes for two years. Yet somehow they march 1,300 miles in relay to cache vital food and fuel depots for colleagues about to sledge in from the opposite direction. And looming over them all, unseen yet omnipresent, is the Homeric figure of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the leader they call the Boss. It is a gripping story embracing both tragedy and triumph, and Kelly Tyler-Lewis tells it well in "The Lost Men."

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“The Lost Men” definitely looks like a book I'd like to read!

See pictures and a video I took during my own journey to Antarctica in February/March 2005.

Other posts in which I mention Antarctica can be found here and here.