 The world, 1915.
Humanity enters the second year of World War I. The U.S. House of Representatives rejects a bill to give women the right to vote. Russia occupies Bukovina and Western Ukraine. An earthquake in Avezzano, Italy, kills 29,800 people. Three years later, in 1918, the Spanish flu would kill roughly 17-25 million people across the globe. The story does not seem to change. What’s known as the Heroic Era of Antarctic Exploration had marked the “closing” of the known terranean world. When Roald Amundsen secured the claim to being the first to reach the south magnetic pole in 1911, a metaphorical completion of the world map had been achieved. After Ernest Shackleton’s icebreaker, the Endurance, sank in 1915 during his expedition to cross the continent of Antarctica, crushed by pack ice in the Weddell Sea, Shackleton and his crew made the long trek to South Georgia island, where they would overwinter under the shelter of one longboat. Meanwhile, in a perilous navigational feat, Shackleton and a small party took the remaining lifeboat across the Southern Ocean to a whaling outpost on Elephant Island, a voyage that could have easily led to them being swept into the South Atlantic and hopelessly lost. They traversed the mountainous island to the station and secured help for their stranded party. In the end, the expedition did not cross the continent but endured incredible hardship in the monumental attempt. Shackelton’s ultimate legacy is his leadership; all of the crew survived. In 2022, a different icebreaker, Agulhas II, found the Endurance 1.9 miles underwater on the floor of the Weddell Sea, resting upright, her emblem perfectly visible above a five-pointed star: ENDURANCE. As I write this, the Ukraine is fighting off Russian invaders, COVID-19 has killed just over six million people globally, and the Antarctic Treaty, to be re-signed in 2044, is safeguarding the Antarctic and Southern Ocean as a scientific resource for the world, a legacy essential to our prosperity on this planet. Meanwhile, NASA is sending a telescope into space that will be able to show us the beginnings of the universe. The story does not seem to change. In a testament to her crest, the Endurance reminds us that the coldest and harshest circumstances preserve The Best of Us. Much has changed in the 107 years she sat lost beneath the waves of that unrelenting sea, but not the forces that pull the human spirit together in search of the great Bigger Than Us. Our legacy—the legacy of those who hold wonder, camaraderie, and the power of The Best of Us in our bones—is more powerful than war and pestilence. “Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.” – Ernest Shackleton Cheers to the crew of the Agulhas II and all those involved for this incredible achievement! Thank you. You can read about another great Southern Ocean voyage in the fantastic Kimberly Bowker’s article here. Clare Bohning 3.10.2022
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