WHAT EXPLORER ERNEST SHACKLETON CAN TEACH US ABOUT MANHOOD

Read time: 5 mins / Author: Paul Records

On the eve of the twentieth century, many European nations were racing to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent. At the time, the exploration of Antarctica was viewed as the ultimate measure of a person’s mental and physical capabilities. One writer described it as, “a symbol of man’s hardest battle against nature, a place with temperatures so low that many could hear water freeze.”

In this age of exploration, a British sailor named Ernest Shackleton led an expedition of twenty-eight men and attempted the first overland crossing of the Antarctic continent. The expedition ship set sail in August of 1914 and made its way to Buenos Aires, South Georgia Island, and eventually to the Antarctic Circle where it plowed through hundreds of miles of ice-encrusted waters.

The name of the ship that carried the crew was Endurance, based on the Shackleton family motto - Fortitudine Vincimus, “By Endurance We Conquer.”

Losing their ship before it ever touched the Antarctic continent, the expedition was deemed a failure. Though they were never able to cross the continent, the experience of Shackleton and his crew became a testimony of survival in the worst of circumstances. At a time when polar exploration was littered with dead bodies, disaster, mutiny, and even cannibalism, Shackleton’s crew returned in good health and good spirits.

Forty-four days after departing from South Georgia island, the Endurance was trapped by pack ice a full day’s journey from the intended landing site. For nine months, Shackleton and his crew lived in below-zero temperatures as the current drove the pack ice across the frigid sea. To preserve morale and to keep the crew occupied, Shackleton established daily routines and assigned each man well-defined tasks. When the ship was crushed by the ice and they had to set out on foot and eventually by boat, every member of the crew was reminded of their contribution to the survival of the group.

In April of 1916, after drifting in three small lifeboats, the men arrived at a snow-covered island. With the dire living conditions in mind, Shackleton and five men left the others and set out on an 800-mile sea voyage in a 22 ½ foot boat. Shackleton promised to find help and to return. Nearly a month later, the group arrived at a larger island and then embarked on a grueling and unprecedented thirty-six-hour hike to reach a whaling station. Keeping his word, Shackleton acquired assistance and returned to rescue the rest of his men. The crew had survived for two years, stranded twelve hundred miles from civilization with no means of communication, on a diet of penguins, dogs, and seals, in the frigid darkness of long polar nights in one of the most brutal seas in the entire world.

When researching the saga of the Endurance nearly sixty years later, an interviewer asked first officer Lionel Greenstreet, “How did you survive when so many expeditions perished?” The stricken, eighty-two-year-old man answered in one word: “Shackleton.”

SIX CRITICAL POINTS

Studying the life and legacy of Ernest Shackleton, we discover six critical points on the path of noble manhood.

CRITICAL POINT #1: A man’s role is to cultivate, care for, and instill confidence in his followers.

The men which composed the expedition had a range of temperaments, personalities, and technical skills, including medicine, navigation, carpentry, and photography. The team was diverse in social class, ranging from university professors to fishermen. The crew even contained one stowaway; a young man named Perce Blackborow. Despite these differences, Shackleton united them under the banner of a singular mission. In time, even Blackborow became a fully integrated member of the crew.

Shackleton built success on a foundation of camaraderie, loyalty, responsibility, and above all optimism. Frank Hurley, the expedition photographer commented, “I always found him rising to his best and inspiring confidence when things were at their blackest.”

Never once did his men look to Shackleton and see a man that was hopeless, negligent, or lacking purpose. Walter How, a seaman aboard the Endurance, later wrote, “He was a tower of strength and endurance, and he never panicked in any emergency.” Lionel Greenstreet, a first officer, recounted, “He had a quick brain, and he could visualize things ahead, and as far as he could, he safeguarded any eventuality that was likely to occur.”

CRITICAL POINT #2: A man must live for the people in his boat, not himself.

Though we may not serve on a ship lost on the frigged seas of Antarctica, we do lead our families, our churches, our businesses, and our homes. We each have a circle of influence. We all have people that look to us for emotional and spiritual direction. If you are a husband, you must understand that your wife is in your boat and she looks to you for emotional and spiritual direction. If you are a father, rest assured that your children view you as a foundational figure in their lives – whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between. If you lead in your church, business, or work environment, people in your circle are waiting on you to rise, to unite them under a singular banner, and to call them forward.

CRITICAL POINT #3: The PATH to NOBLE manhood begins when we embrace the responsibility to lead.

In a society built on self-centeredness, self-fulfillment, and self-sufficiency, men must live for the betterment and cultivation of the people who have been placed in their boats. Even if this means taking a lesser role with less income or less public recognition, we must at times be willing to surrender personal benefit for the benefit of others.

CRITICAL POINT #4: If we are to LIVE AS NOBLE MEN, we cannot bypass the call to self-sacrifice.

As we look to the example of Ernest Shackleton, we see a man who put the needs of his men above the object of the expedition. When the count of sleeping bags ran low, Shackleton and his officers gave the men under them in rank priority in the choosing of wool bags. In his journal of the experience, Thomas Orde-Lees recounted that when one sailor lost his mittens, Shackleton put the needs of the man above his own.

“At once he divested himself of his own gloves, and in spite of the fact that he was standing up in the most exposed position all the while he insisted upon the sailor’s acceptance of the gloves, and on the latter’s protesting Sir Ernest was on the point of throwing them overboard rather than wear them when one of his subordinates had to go without; as a consequence, Sir Ernest had one finger rather severely frostbitten.”

This type of attitude contrasts a similar expedition that set out only a year earlier in August of 1913 to explore the North Pole. Led by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the crew of the Karluk also found themselves in a fight for survival, facing shortages of food and supplies. Stefansson had been educated at the University of Iowa and Harvard and had been a distinguished teaching fellow. With a team culture drastically different than that implemented by Shackleton, the crew led by Stefansson found themselves transformed into self-interested, disparate individuals that lied, cheated, and stole from each other.

“The disintegration of the team had tragic consequences for the eleven members who died in the Arctic wasteland. The tragedy of the Karluk expedition resulted, in part, from a leader who failed to understand the distinction between individual actions and team motivation.”

In hindsight, we observe that Stefansson was a self-promoter, with an aim for personal glory. Unlike Shackleton, he was never able to put the needs of his men above the object of his own recognition.

Ignoring the counsel of his ship captain, who advised turning back while there was still time, Stefansson refused and plowed ahead. After the ice closed around the Karluk and he realized that hope of further progress was futile, Stefansson set out on a personal expedition. After posing for photographs, and taking some of the expedition’s best dogs, he pulled away with two sleds of food and ammunition and left his crew to hunt for Caribou. Sadly, the man never returned.

Stefansson was not seen again until 1918 when he suddenly reappeared after five years of exploration. Reading his travel journals, one finds little care or concern for his men. He wrote immensely, however, of hunting, weather patterns, ethnographic observations, and of his interactions with the Inuit.

When questioned about his actions later, Stefansson rationalized his decision to abandon his crew and minimized the condition of his crew. As one writer commented, “what he did not foresee, or apparently care about, is that many would not reach safety and would die in the ice." In time, it was his ship captain who traversed to Siberia and led efforts to rescue the surviving members of the crew.

CRITICAL POINT #5: The decisions of a man must not be driven by his own, personal ambition.

When a husband begins to believe that the role of a wife is to simply satisfy his needs, to bow to his every whim and fancy, and to submit to his leadership without question or a voice, he creates in his marriage a framework of manipulation and control. When a father is present physically but absent emotionally, he breeds insecurity in his children. When a church or business leader ignores thoughtful counsel, he reveals a leadership philosophy built on self rather than on the service of others. In each of these scenarios, the man neglects his most important responsibility – the cultivation and long-term survival of the people God has placed in his boat.

CRITICAL POINT #6: People will endure almost anything if they have a positive role model and a hopeful vision of the future.

It should be noted that before the departure of the Endurance expedition, an advertisement ran in a London newspaper aimed at recruiting men for the task.

“Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.”

More than 5,000 men volunteered for the job.

Though he had low academic marks as a schoolboy, Shackleton earned the unfailing loyalty of his men and bound them in a tight circle of brotherhood. He knew how to handle the naysayer and often separated negative crew members from the rest of his men and assigned them to his tent. Ignoring hierarchies and distinctions of class, he assigned fair duties to each man. After returning from the two-year disaster, Shackleton embarked once again to the Antarctic region for further expeditions. Amazingly, many of his men joined his efforts and returned to the frigid temperatures of the Antarctic Sea. Why would they venture back into the land of ice-encrusted waters and polar nights? The answer is simple. Shackleton would be leading them.

Sources

Margot Morrell & Stephanie Capparell, Shackleton’s Way (New York: Penguin, 2001).

Orde-Lees & Roland Huntford, Shackleton (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1999).

Dennis Perkins, Leading at the Edge (New York: Amacon, 2012).

Paul Records serves as a writer, church planter, pastor of Victory Chapel in San Marcos, TX, and the founder of the Full Proof Man.