Polar Explorer vs. Reality TV Crew: Tim Jarvis in the Footsteps of Shackleton

Daily Beast ^ | 1-12-14 | Daryll Hartman

[TurboZamboni]

In ‘Chasing Shackleton’, Tim Jarvis re-enacts a hundred-year-old Antarctic journey using replica gear and clothing. Despite the raging tempests, subzero temperatures, and treacherous crevasse fields, what really tests him are the intrusions of a reality TV crew. This would seem to be a problem unique to modern explorers. But might Shackleton have sympathized? The so-called “heroic age” of polar exploration lasted from the tail end of the Victorian era until the outbreak of World War I. When we consider this period’s doughty adventurers, none speaks more directly to our modern souls than Sir Ernest Shackleton. The exhibitions, movies, books, and other paeans to Shackleton in the last decade or so (from the 2002 film starring Kenneth Branagh to the assiduous reverse-engineering, in 2011, of his favored whisky) appear to have perma-frosted him, as it were, atop the pile.

[TurboZamboni]

Part 2 on PBS tonight- good stuff.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

The story of Ernest Shackleton and his crew is one of the most unbelievable I have ever read. Simply amazing.

[ETL]

Here’s a link to some other Shackleton documentaries on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+Shackleton&sm=12

[AU72]

Will he row several hundred miles in an open boat to So. Georgia island in an open boat like Shakleton did?

[TurboZamboni]

he did in the first episode...so far.

the boat they’re using is an exact replica.

[AU72]

he did in the first episode...so far.

OK, fair enough, I'll be sure to watch.

[nascarnation]

That is freaking impressive.
Then they somehow manage to land on shore without getting smashed AND have to climb the mountain to the other side of the island.
Fact certainly outdoes fiction in the Shackleton sage.

[Lakeshark]

I remember reading it in my twenties. I had just finished the part where the small group had sailed to the island and walked over to the other side after all that time trying to figure a way to escape their predicament, so the most difficult part of the story was done. On my way to work that next morning, I stopped the car on a rural road (nobody around), kept thinking about their ordeal, then stuck my head out and just yelled at the top of my lungs.

Let's just say I was deeply impressed with what they had done........

[dirtboy]

moreover, the British public might have questioned why he spent nearly 500 days floundering about in the middle of nowhere while they were suffering for king and country through World War I.

WWI broke out just as Endurance was getting ready to leave. Shackelton asked the government if they should stay for the war effort or go, and the government said go.

[dirtboy]

Then they somehow manage to land on shore without getting smashed AND have to climb the mountain to the other side of the island.

They came very close to getting smashed up in a storm, all while they were running low on potable water.

The main reason they had to hike over the island was because they were so thirsty when they finally reached shore that they all ran to a stream to drink and waves hit the James Caird and broke the rudder, rendering it worthless to sail around to the inhabited side of the island.

[Harold Shea]

Seem to remember that they were extremly lucky

reaching the whaleing station.A storm came up

a short time later.Those whalers must have been

amazed,these half dead men comeing off that mnt.

Always wondered why Shackelton fell out with the carpenter.

[The Great RJ]

Gee hasn't the Antarctic ice melted so the reenactors could make the trip in kayaks and t-shirts. The dogma of St. Algore has declared this so it must be true.

[Reddy]

The most amazing part about Shackleton was that, having Providentially survived and escaped back to safety, he left AGAIN to go,to sea! I understand he did die on the next voyage, of a heart attack, iirc.

[CommerceComet]

Shackleton's story is the most amazing from the era of polar exploration, an era of lots of amazing stories.

I'm not sure how the real Shackleton would have responded to reality TV crews had they existed a century ago but I'm pretty certain that Roald Amundsen would have had no patience with them.

[TurboZamboni]

This guy wasn’t reinacting Shackleton.

He started out on an icy continent that melted around him and he had to jump in a boat to save himself from global warming.

He’s Algore’s Noah.

[henkster]

Shackleton was a real man.

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 01/15/2014, thanks TurboZamboni.