The Perfect Gift For Your Budding Polar Explorer: Game Of To The North Pole By Air Ship, New For 1897!

A football or rugby game between sailors and officers, in front of HMS Terror, during the Back arctic expedition 1836, by first lieutenant William Smyth 1836

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‘the seafarer’ (anglo-saxon poem, 8th cent.)

the shipwreck (j.m.w. turner, 1805)

‘the explorer’ (rudyard kipling, 1898)

man proposes, god disposes (edwin henry landseer, 1864)

“the lost city of z”, the new yorker (david grann, 2005)

last photo of george mallory and andrew irvine before their fatal ascent of mt. everest. it is still unknown if they reached the summit. (1924)

john keats (personal letter to j.h. reynolds, April 1817)

OOPS!

Arctic arches

Sergey Aleshchenko

Greenland, Scorsby Fjord

Scoresby Sund, Greenland

Arctic Menu

On 15 May 1875 John Barrow attended a dinner at the Admiralty in honour of Capt. George Nares' upcoming Arctic Expedition. Also present among others: Sirs George Back & Leopold McClintock. There was some interesting Arctic cuisine written on the menu!

[Pic by me, John Barrow's private journals, Weston Library Oxford]

BOB KUHN Seal Hunter Acrylic 24″ x 36″

On this day, 5th January 1922, Ernest Shackleton, died.

Sir Ernest Shackleton was an Antarctic explorer, best known for leading the ’Endurance’ expedition of 1914-16.

Ernest Henry Shackleton was born on 15 February 1874 in Ireland but his family moved to London where Shackleton was educated. He joined the merchant navy when he was 16 and qualified as a master mariner in 1898. 

In 1901, Shackleton was chosen to go on the Antarctic expedition led by British naval officer Robert Falcon Scott on the ship ‘Discovery’.  The team trekked towards the South Pole in extremely difficult conditions, getting closer to the Pole than anyone had come before. Shackleton became seriously ill and had to return home.

In 1908, he returned to the Antarctic as the leader of his own expedition, on the ship 'Nimrod’. During the expedition, his team climbed Mount Erebus, made many important scientific discoveries and set a record by coming even closer to the South Pole than before. Shackleton was knighted on his return to Britain.

In 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole, followed by Scott who died on the return journey. In 1914, Shackleton made his third trip to the Antarctic with the ship 'Endurance’, planning to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. Early in 1915, ’Endurance’ became trapped in the ice, and ten months later sank. Shackleton’s crew had already abandoned the ship to live on the floating ice. In April 1916, they set off in three small boats, eventually reaching Elephant Island. Taking five crew members, Shackleton went to find help. In a small boat, the six men spent 16 days crossing 1,300 km of ocean to reach South Georgia and then trekked across the island to a whaling station. The remaining men from the 'Endurance’ were rescued in August 1916. Not one member of the expedition died. Shackleton’s account of the 'Endurance’ expedition, South was published in 1919. The State Library of New South Wales holds a number of editions of this book, including first editions.

Shackleton’s fourth expedition aimed to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent but on 5 January 1922, Shackleton died of a heart attack off South Georgia and he was buried on the island.

The State Library of New South Wales holds collections of photographs depicting Shackleton’s expeditions, including these taken by photographer Frank Hurley. Photographs of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s trans-Antarctic expedition in the 'Endurance’, ca. 1914-1917  

kids these days just want to be on phone. NO ONE is dying at my antarctic research station