FIENNES ON SHACKLETON
“IT IS AN ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE SURVIVAL STORY”
EXPERT BIO
SIR RANULPH FIENNES
Ranulph Fiennes is often dubbed the “world’s greatest living explorer” and is the recipient of the Polar Medal (Double Clasp) for “outstanding service to British Polar exploration and research.” He is the author of Shackleton: A Biography, which is published by Penguin Random House. To purchase a copy visit: www.penguin.co.uk
Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) was a principal figure in what became known as the ‘Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration’. An Anglo-Irish Merchant Navy officer, he commanded three expeditions to Antarctica during 1907-22. The second of these, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic ‘Endurance’ Expedition of 1914-17, is one of the most famous survival stories of all time, with Shackleton becoming a role model for leadership.
One of Shackleton’s many admirers is fellow polar explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Among his many exploration achievements, Fiennes is the first person to visit both the North and South Poles by surface means and the first person (along with Professor Mike Stroud) to completely cross Antarctica on foot unsupported. As such, he is uniquely placed to assess Shackleton as a polar explorer. Here, Fiennes discusses Shackleton’s successes and failures and reveals how he finally completed the aims of the original ‘Endurance’ expedition in the 1990s.
“A DIFFERENT WORLD”
A veteran of many expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic, Fiennes knows better than most how mentally challenging and physically perilous polar exploration can be. “Trying to describe the unpleasantness of
