Very worth watching. I loved the way Shackleton changed his objective from getting to the South Pole to getting his men back home alive. A fitting name for the expedition.
And the trio of Worsley, Crean and Shackleton heading off on their own to a row boat to cross the Southern Antarctic Ocean to get help is simply legendary and worth retelling throughout history.
“For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
Sir Raymond Priestly, Antarctic Explorer and Geologist.
This article, about scurvy on Scott's expedition, is also fascinating [1]. I've seen it posted on HN before as well as other (excellent) articles from the same blog, but I think it deserves re-posting.
It makes me wonder how many other diseases might have been 'cured' without being fully understood, only to reappear later.
In addition, I suggest "In the Kingdom of Ice" by Hampton Sides, about a US expedition to the Arctic in the late 1870s. Those guys had really, really bad luck.
I just finished and recommend Anthony Brandt's "The Man Who Ate His Boots" which is good summary of Northwest Passage expeditions up to Franklin and the subsequent searches for Franklin.
Fergus Fleming's "Barrow's Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude, and Outright Lunacy" is a highly entertaining account of some of the crazier 19th century British expeditions.
NB One of the members of the Franklin expedition is buried not far from where I live in Edinburgh.
No expert, but strikingly clueless this guy was. Compared to Amundsen and Nansen. Those canvas clothes may be good for hiking in Scotland, but Amundsen was using proven arctic technology: double layered Reindeer clothes. Worst part was of course that Shackleton refused to eat his dead horses, which he had plenty. When I was kid in Helsinki in 1950s, we mostly ate horse meat, because it was very cheap.
The man brought home all his men alive under extreme circumstances and faced impossible odds, an achievement that suggested he did have priorities in extremely good order and some wits about him. I think he was far from a clueless fool, it's just you're judging him with hindsight - we can all see there were mistakes and such a journey mistakes were inevitable but mistakes alone don't make a fool nor someone clueless.
Ok. I also now noticed what sucky boots they had. When I was in the Finnish army, we always ordered them boots 3 sizes too big, so we could fill the emptiness with toe-rags. Sami guys were using special grass "Kenkäheinä" instead, which was better. but could not humble myself to such heathen practice. Hence can I totally sympathize with Schackleton. Amundsen humbled himself and lived years with Sami and Eskimos just to catch some essential clues.
Correction: One guy was wiser, he had genuine "Pieksut"-boots on. They are little bit better than Schackleton's Royal Riding boots.
https://www.google.fi/search?q=pieksut
I love the ad he placed in the paper, it was perfect. "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of succes"
I'm interested to know whether this is a collective false memory, like Berenstein Bears, or if it's true and misattributed.
That web page starts when a bunch of stuff wasn't available in digital form (people speak about scanning microfiche) so maybe they're all just looking in the wrong places.
There's probably some distributed historian project waiting to happen - OCRing and proof-reading all the ads in all the newspapers, and then mining that data.
If you are interested in the subject I highly recommand the documentary about the whole survival trip:
The Endurance (2000) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264578/