Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage to the Antarctic

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Born in Chicago on July 21, 1921, Lansing served the U.S. Navy during the Second World War and received a Purple Heart for being wounded during his service. Afterward, he enrolled at North Park College and later at Northwestern University, where he majored in journalism. That happened in December 1911, when a highly prepared Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen decisively beat the (ironically) better-remembered one led by a British Royal Navy Officer named Robert Falcon Scott. The Endurance is trapped in the Antarctic ice. The ship’s condition worsens by the minute. Engineers are desperately trying to keep up with the rising water levels and failing pumps, but they know that it won’t be long before there’s no hope left for them or their comrades on board. His first experience of the polar regions came relatively early: he was in his 20s when he was assigned the role of third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s landmark Discovery expedition of 1901–1904 that was organized by the British Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society with the objective of carrying out scientific research and geographical exploration of the untouched continent. And then he adds something even more central about his character, something almost superhuman in an Ahab-or- Santiago-kind-of-way: “Whatever his mood—whether it was gay and breezy, or dark with rage—he had one pervading characteristic: he was purposeful.” The Objective and the Plan of the Expedition

Lansing was a native of Chicago, Illinois, the son of Edward (1896–1949), a Chicagoan who worked as an electrician, and his wife Ruth Henderson (1896–1975), a native of New Jersey. After serving in the U.S. Navy from 1940 to 1946, where he received a Purple Heart, he enrolled at North Park College and later at Northwestern University, where he majored in journalism. [2] He edited a weekly newspaper in Illinois until 1949, when he joined the United Press and in 1952 became a freelance writer. [3] He spent time in New York, writing for the books section of Reader's Digest and Time Inc., eventually returning to Chicago to become the editor of the Bethel Home News. [4] Lansing settled in Bethel, CT where he was the editor of the Bethel Home News. He died there in the mid-1970's. He edited a weekly newspaper between 1946 and 1949, before joining the United Press and becoming a freelance writer in 1952. First discovered by a Russian expedition in 1820, the continent of Antarctica became an object of fascination for numerous explorers around the world during the last years of the 19 th century and the first two decades of the 20 th century. To history buffs and readers of exploration literature, this period is mostly known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.But Endurance, his ship had subsequently been crushed and trapped by ice as they traversed the Weddell Sea. The crew had been forced into a nightmare of near starvation and cold as they waited for rescue. To make matters worse, soon the Antarctic summer (which coincides with our winter) ended and the endless polar nights began. “In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night,” writes Lansing. “It is a return to the Ice Age—no warmth, no life, no movement. Only those who have experienced it can fully 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 all together, and it has driven some men mad.” It was almost as if he had nothing to accomplish anymore. But, restless and resolute as he was, just a few years later, he turned to the “one great object of Antarctic journeyings” remaining: transatlantic journey, i.e., crossing Antarctica from the Wendell Sea via the South Pole to McMurdo Sound. Alfred Lansing is a Chicago born writer and journalist that is best known as the author of the novel “Endurance.” During his time working as a journalist, the author wrote for several papers including the likes of “Colliers” among many other magazines in the United States. For a reason: during the Heroic Age, no less than 17 major Antarctic expeditions were launched from 10 different countries of the world. Though some of them had scientific interests, the primary object of most of these expeditions was, interestingly, to become the first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole.

Given his interest in polar studies, he would soon apply and be admitted as a member of the Cambridge, England based Scott Polar Research Institute in 1957. ContentsprefaceMembers of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expeditionpart I chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 chapter 5 chapter 6 chapter 7 chapter 8part II chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 chapter 5 chapter 6part III chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 chapter 5 chapter 6part IV chapter 1 And it’s not about merely reaching the South Pole, but about something even more daunting and unimaginable: crossing the entire continent from sea to sea, via the pole. With Walter Modell, Lansing co-authored one of the last books from the Life Science Library, Drugs (1967). Just eight years later, he died, aged 54. Plot

Part I, Chapter 1

The men were calm as they prepared to leave the ship. They attached a canvas chute to the rail and slid each dog down it onto the ice below. The sky was clear, but there was movement in the ice that worked like a jigsaw puzzle to cut up and separate the ship into two pieces. The men noticed how much like an animal dying in agony their ship behaved at this time. Tragically, the Endurance crashes into some ice and takes on water. This occurs somewhere in the Weddell Sea. Somehow most of the crew manages to launch escape boats before the ship sinks, but some men are forced to leap overboard and are lost to the ice. Those who make it into the boats drift among the ice floes for over a year, gradually trying to make their way to land.

A peculiar thing to stir a man—the sound of a factory whistle heard on a mountainside. But for them, it was the first sound from the outside world that they had heard since December 1914—seventeen unbelievable months before. In that instant, they felt an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. Though they had failed dismally even to come close to the expedition’s original objective, they knew now that somehow they had done much, much more than ever they set out to do. After six miserable days, the three lifeboats land on Elephant Island on April 15, the first time that the 28 men touch solid ground after precisely 497 days!He has also been a writer and editor for “Time, Inc. Books.” In his earlier years, he joined the US Navy and was a model soldier who went on to be awarded with a Purple Heart after serving with distinction in World War II. The extremely dangerous journey lasts for two weeks. But finally, on May 10, the James Caird reaches the south coast of South Georgia! Unfortunately, they reach land there on the far side of the island.