Finding Endurance
BY DARREL BRISTOW-BOVEY
Jonathan Ball, RRP R280
For Heroic Age Explorers, ‘Antarctica was a a journey beyond the limits of experience, a voyage beyond life to the underworld’. And for Ernest Henry Shackleton and his crew aboard that is exactly what it was: their ice-bound ship sank in the Weddell Sea on 21 November 1915, and they overcame unfathomable odds to survive. No person was lost on this venture, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Ernest never completed his aim to cross Antarctica last year. The author has a deeply personal relationship with the story of the ship, explored in this beautifully written journey into the past and present. He examines humanity and the natural world, drawing on literature, natural history and personal memoirs - driven by tales of those magnificent Arctic adventurers of old. It’s a lovely, satisfying read that stays with you.
