“The highest object that human beings can set before themselves is not the pursuit of any such chimera as the annihilation of the unknown; it is simply the unwearied endeavour to remove its boundaries a little further from our little sphere of action”

Huxley (quoted in “The Worst Journey in the World” )

I have a long list of books to read.

I have already read four.

And each one adds to my awe of what these men achieved.

From my reading so far, I have a profound sense that Antarctic exploration was all about expanding knowledge.

“Well, of course!”, I hear you say.

And “of course” it would be, except for the fact that we are talking about Antarctica.

There was nothing easy about exploring this continent. The simplest things often became impossible. Daily tasks we take for granted, often required planning, stamina and dedication. And regardless of how much preparation there was, there is only so much the human body can take.

When you factor in the risk of death, new knowledge becomes very valuable.

And so there must have been other driving forces. One doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to sail to the Antarctic to test the earth’s magnetic field, among other things. Or does one? That’s what Captain Sir James Clark Ross did, in 1839.

In a sailing ship!

Of course, that wasn’t quite how it happened.

But what made these explorers take such huge risks, for themselves and their teams, in the name of new knowledge?

Um……

I’m thinking……..

Were they motivated by glory? There must have been some of this, naturally. While this might explain the actions of the expedition leaders, it doesn’t explain the willingness of the rest of the men to follow.

Was it duty? So far, in the books that I have read, the expeditions were under the auspices of the navy, sometimes supported and sponsored by scientific societies. It was a case of “we need to know x” and so we want you to go and find out!

And of course there was definitely a large dose of adventurous spirit which lured these, often very young, men to seek a place on these expeditions. The prospect of being the first to discover new lands and witness new sights would have been hugely appealing.

Regardless of what drove these exceptional men to achieve great feats of daring and heroism, the fact remains that they did. And I am obsessed with their stories.

 

I will end this post with one of my favourites.

In volume 1 of his record of this voyage, Ross eloquently describes an horrific scene where it was brought home to me the obstacles which early explorers had to face, without the advances in engineering and technology which were available in the following decades. Sailing ships, navigating the treacherous conditions of ice packs and bergs, were at the mercy of the elements. In March 1841, they were in the vicinity of the Balleny Islands, being driven by a swell towards a chain of ice bergs, without wind. The situation was grim. Disaster was imminent.

Ross wrote: “Sublime and magnificent as such a scene must have appeared under different circumstances, to us it was awful, if not appalling. For eight hours we had been gradually drifting towards what to human eyes appeared inevitable destruction: the high waves and deep rolling of our ships rendered towing with the boats impossible, and our situation the more painful and embarrassing from our inability to make any effort to avoid the dreadful calamity that seemed to await us.”

“We were now within half a mile of the range of bergs. The roar of the surf, which extended each way as far as we could see, and the crashing of the ice, fell upon the ear with fearful distinctness, whilst the frequently averted eye as immediately returned to contemplate the awful destruction that threatened in one short hour to close the world and all its hopes and joys and sorrows upon us for ever”

They escaped calamity. A “ gentle air”  saved them!