Escape from Antarctica: On the trail of Shackleton

By FIONA RAE

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton sent out this call: "Men wanted for dangerous journey, bitter cold, safe return doubtful."

Not exactly a glowing enticement, but, incredibly, 6000 men responded. Having failed to be first to the South Pole (Norway's Roald Amundsen achieved the feat in 1912), Shackleton's next dream was to make a crossing of the icy continent.

And it is this fateful venture which is described in the first programme in Prime's adventure series.

The Irishman Shackleton is described as a "poet, mystic, driver of men, driver of himself," and if the programme doesn't expand on this description, there is no doubt that the survival of his crew was due in large part to the force of his personality.

Shackleton set out in 1914 on the Endurance with a crew of 27, including New Zealand skipper Frank Worsley. But the men never made it to Antarctica proper; instead, the Endurance became stuck in pack ice and there it stayed for 10 months.

Although marooned, Shackleton managed to keep up the morale of the men: "Shackleton has that personality that inspires you with trust," wrote Worsley.

But eventually the ship succumbed and, with footage taken by expedition photographer Frank Hurley on his hand-cranked movie camera, we see the Endurance being crushed by the ice.

As if this isn't enough adventure already for us on the couch, the real test of these men is yet to come. The crew salvaged three small boats from the Endurance and traversed the pack ice to Elephant Island.

But they knew they couldn't survive an Antarctic winter, so Shackleton decided to take five men, including Worsley, and set out for South Georgia Island, 1280km away, but home to a whaling station.

As the narrator says, it was in winter "a suicidal journey." The seas were the roughest in the world and any slight slip in navigation would see them "perish in the Atlantic."

And as this story of incredible survival is told - at one point they resorted to drinking seal oil, described as "black and nauseating" - we see a group of six Irishmen who, in 1997, set out to retrace Shackleton's rescue mission.

The team, led by Frank Nugent, built a boat almost the same as the small James Caird, which they named Tom Crean, after one of the original crew members.

This modern-day crew had all the advantages, however, that Shackleton's crew did not - navigation equipment, weather information, plenty of food and survival gear, plus a support boat.

It would have been stupid to do the trip without them, and I shouldn't give the game away, but let's just say they didn't do as well as the 1916 crew did.

And this sea journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island is only half the story.

It's good winter viewing, this adventure stuff, and there's plenty more to come. In two weeks, Journeys to the Ends of the Earth starts, a documentary series featuring Australian photojournalist David Adams, who travels to the most inaccessible and harsh places on Earth - so we don't have to.

* Escape from Antarctica: On the Trail of Shackleton,
Prime, 7.30 pm