I've just finished reading the book "Erebus: the Story of a Ship" by Michael Palin, about two ambitious scientific Royal Navy expeditions undertaken by HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in the latter half of the 19th century. I love stories of pioneers and heroes, discovery and exploration, they absolutely fascinate me.
The first voyage was the Clark Ross Expedition of 1839-1843, to Antarctica, in which the two ships went further south than anyone had before, explored what has since been named the Ross Sea, and discovered the Ross Ice Shelf. At the time they named the latter the Great Southern Barrier, as it prevented them reaching their goal of the South Magentic Pole. Captain James Clark Ross was the first person to locate the North Magnetic Pole and planted the British flag there in 1831, and wanted to do the same at its southern counterpart. That aside, what they achieved - the feats of sailing and endurance, and scientific discoveries - was incredible. It was also the last major expedition voyage made entirely under sail.
(Side note: the Magnetic Poles are distinct from, but located near to, the Geographic Poles. The former are the locations where Earth's magnetic field points vertically downwards / upwards, and because the magnetic field is constantly ever so slightly shifting, the Magnetic Poles are not fixed.)
The second voyage was in 1845, led by Sir John Franklin, and aimed to traverse the last un-navigated section of the Northwest Passage in the Arctic. It became known as Franklin's Lost Expedition, because both ships and all 129 men were lost. Many search expeditions were sent out over the following decade and gradually, through relics, notes, and Inuit stories, a rough picture of what had happened was pieced together.
The two ships had become trapped in ice in September 1846. Sir John Franklin died in June 1847 and by April 1848 nine officers and 15 crewmen had died. The remaining men decided to abandon the ships and left on April 25th, leaving a note on nearby King William Island giving these facts and saying they planned to start walking south towards a particular river on the Canadian mainland, which they could follow down to a Hudson's Bay Company fur trading outpost. It was an enormous distance, though, many hundreds of miles, and none made it even to the mouth of the river. Everyone gradually died along the way. I can't even begin to imagine how horrifying that would have been... The ships themselves weren't found until just a few years ago: Erebus in 2014 and Terror in 2016.
... I know I've basically given the story away, haha, but if you're interested in that sort of history then I do recommend reading the book, obviously it gives a lot more detail.
As I said, I love things like this. I need to find more, stories and biographies and autobiographies of explorers both past and living - Cook, Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, Ranulph Fiennes, female explorers. I don't know of many except those famous ones, so if anyone has any recommendations let me know! Anyway, they're ever so interesting, but also very humbling. We in the developed Western world are very comfortable by comparison and can have no idea whatsoever what life would have been like in times past and the spirit that drove people. The explorers who discovered and explored America, Australia and Antarctica. The early settlers of America and Australia. Seafarers relying on wind and sail and the stars. Explorers trekking through unchartered wilderness, at the mercy of the elements and the unknown. People willingly (usually, anyway) went off to places not knowing if they would even make it to their destination, let alone when or if they would next see their home. They dealt with conditions and circumstances we cannot imagine... and, honestly, that many of us would not be able to handle. Indeed, many people across the world still do have a very harsh reality. It helps put things into perspective.
In the end, Roald Amundsen was the first person to complete both tasks that the crews of Erebus and Terror set out to do: finding the South Pole, and fully traversing the Northwest Passage. But he had enormous respect and admiration for the men of these two British expeditions, summing it up nicely in 1912:
"Few people of the present day are capable of rightly appreciating this heroic deed, this brilliant proof of human courage and energy. With two ponderous craft - regular "tubs" according to our ideas - these men sailed right into the heart of the pack [ice], which all previous explorers had regarded as certain death ... These men were heroes - heroes in the highest sense of the word."
No comments:
Post a Comment