Endurance

I have just watched the most fascinating and inspiring movie! Endurance recounts Ernest Shackleton's doomed 1914 expedition to Antarctica

In 1914, at the outset of WWI, Sir Ernest Shackleton and 27 men headed south in an attempt to become the first men to cross Antarctica. Their ship The Endurance became trapped in pack ice and was eventually crushed. They were out of radio range and no one knew of their fate. Shackleton and his men spent nearly two years living on the pack ice and at Elephant Island.

Shortly after arriving at Elephant Island Shackleton and five other men heroically sailed, in an open 22' boat, approximately 850 miles across the most deadly ocean in the world. During the trip they were only able to make four sextant readings to determine their position. The rest of the time they navigated by "dead reckoning." They made for South Georgia Island in order to send a rescue party back to the 22 men left behind on Elephant Island.

When they reached South Georgia Island they landed on its opposite side away from the inhabited whaling stations. The men and their boat were in no condition to attempt to sail around the Island. Three of the six men were in no condition to attempt to cross the interior of the island. Thus, Shackleton and two other men walked across the unmapped interior mountains and glaciers until they reached a Norwegian whaling station. Shackleton later wrote:

Dispite overwhelming odds Shackleton brought all of his crew home alive. Not a single man was lost!

 

Yep,

I saw the A&E version first. It was titled Shackleton. I liked it except for the Hollywood artistic license where they made it appear that Shackleton was unfaithful to his wife.

The Imax version is titled Endurance. I rented it on DVD. It has great extra material that shows the descendants of Shackleton and some of the Endurance crew members at the Endurance exhibit in New York. It was very moving to see Chippy McNish's son reach out and touch the side of the James Caird where his father had raised her gunnels for the 850 mile treck across the raging Antarctic seas. I found it very interesting that the men who survived this ordeal never spoke about it to their own families.