La toe in antarctica, is in the middle of their summer which means you can leave in, say, october or november which is their spring, go there as fast as you can and then come back, and he made it back before it turned really cold, made it back to his base. He went in through south of new zealand. He sailed down. The place you can get closest to the pole by ship and you can only get there in the antarctic summer because its frozen with just sea ice over the top and so a ship cant get in, but it opens up in the antarctic summer. The sea ice open toes up, and you can sail in quite close because you think of antarctica as a plate or as a dish. But actually it has a peninsula sticking way out on the side under the americas, and its got a big gouge cut out of it almost like a piece of the pie taken out which is the raw sea south of new zealand. And so if you sail in that way in the summer, you can sail in a hot further. So what hed done is hed sailed in the previous summer, that would be the summer of 191011, wintered over in a base that he built this the, at the southern part of the ross sea right on the ross ice shelf, something known as the bay of whales which is a cut in the ice shelf, brought down a prefabricated cabin, his dogs, nine men, and they wintered there. When it was spring, they headed out in a mad dash on their, with their sleds, dog sleds and the skis. Hed mastered dog sledding, hed mastered Cross Country skiing, Nordic Skiing just being a norwegian. But he mastered Cross Country skiing dog sledding in, when hed made the northwest passage. The first person ever to sail through the northwest passage. It actually took him three years. He started one year, waited out the winter, was frozen in again and sailed out the next year. So he had plenty of time during the arctic winters to learn dog sledding from the inuit people who lived there. And he was very familiar and cordial with the inuit people and learned the skills of dog sledding and also learned the skills of their warm wear, their types of clothing, all of which he used for his magnificent drive in the south pole. Host when you say he wintered there guest yes. Host how many months was that, what was the temperature . Then how long did it take him, how many miles was it to the socalled south pole . Guest well, by wintering down there is you have, you know, it varies because you never quite know when its going to ice this and when its going to open up. But you have, basically, four months of total darkness. That is, the sup has set because sun has set because youre below the antarctic circle there. And the sun has set, and its just totally dark may, june, july, august, totally debt. The sun sets in late april, it comes back up in september. But april and may are unsled bl. Even though theres some light, of course, theres a dawn, but theres some actual sunlight during that period. He tried to set out in september, and thats why i say its a little tricky how you put it. It was too early, he went back, and he left again in october. So you either, you have about six months, five and a half months when it would be, at that time you couldnt have of travel. Now, thats still true, of course. We have people who winter over the united states, the russians, the chinese, others, have people who winter over in bases on the polar plateau. The americans is right on the south pole. Its a wonderful place to go. Doing research on this book i was able to go there, but i went there in the summer. But people winter over there, but they cant get in and out. There is no you cant fly in and out in the winter. Youre isolated there. So what they did is back, that was before what we would know they had radio, but they didnt have radio that could reach a place like that. So once they went out of Radio Communication heading south, or once they left their last port really with them, with their case they didnt even have a radio because they couldnt have gone that far with a radio. They were out of communication. So they went out of communication in what would be the, what would have been in 1910. They wintered over, there was no communication, totally dark. They spent that entire time preparing for the pole, getting their dogs in shape, getting their skis in shape, getting their runners in shape, and then as soon as, as early as they could they headed out on a mad dash toward the south pole. But a brilliantlyexecuted dash. He was, amundtson was a tremendous planner. And what he did, he left supplies at equal distances and then left markers up that he would leave stretching out. There was the supply depot left as he was going out and, actually, the year before they left some supply depots where they would depot food. And then theyd leave markers running out in a horizontal line. So when theyre coming back even if theyre not, even if theyve lost their direction a little bit and he was an excellent navigator on ice and in water too. Because youd use the sun to locate your position. If he was missing, he would at least run into one of his flags, and theyd tell him if he was right or left and how far, and he could go in and get to his depot. So hed leave depots of food going out and, again, some were prelaid, and coming back that way he didnt have to carry it all. Coming back, he would hit those supply depots and get renewed food. Obviously, he of course, he s traveling by dog, and one advantage is they pull the sleds, but they also dont have to carry their own food because, to be blunt, they eat each other. You just slaughter the dogs as you go, and you take too many, and then the dogs basically carry their own weight. Host how many men went guest nine. Host nine men. How many dogs . Guest ooh, i dont know. I think he had about 50. 50, 60 dogs. And some survived. He brought some back. Donated them to a later expedition by mossen, a great expedition by an australian, by mossen. So he brought some back. Host edward larson, how many miles was it from the winter camp to guest about 500. Host how many days . Guest out and back it took him 99 days. Out and back. That included several days staying at the pole because you want to know youre actually there. Of course, the pole theres no unfortunately, theres no barbershop at the pole. Its a high plateau. Youre two miles high, over two miles high because its behind mountains, and its two miles think of ice. Youre at High Altitude at the south pole and the whole polar plateau, and you have to use devices. Back then they didnt have a gps system, so they had to watch the sun, and the sun they got there in late december, so it was right near for them the summer solstice. So the sun was going around there almost directly in a circle, and you would have to take measurements from the sun to figure out where you are. So they went to where they thought was the pole based on their dead reckoning and they had a device to measure how far theyd traveled, and then they adjusted their they spent several days figuring out their location. And so they would move, theyd find out they were a few miles off, 5 or 6 miles off, and theyd move and check their location again because he wanted to make sure. If hed gone that far, he wasnt planning on going again, he wanted to make sure he was actually there. That was a major problem highlighted in that a couple years earlier robert perry had been the first to allegedly reach the north pole. But because he didnt take along any he wasnt expert at finding his location by the stars and sun himself. And he hadnt taken along anyone on that final sprint, and because the distances he claimed to travel seemed to be too large to be realistic, there has always been great dispute to this day and at that time about whether robert perry ever reached the north pole. And those were at their height when amundson was going to the south pole. So he wanted to not have any lingering doubt of whether hed actually made the south pole. If robert perry never head the north pole, actually the first person who did was amundson because he flew over it. Though one was sort of by flying. He didnt claim that. What was the average temperature on his trip . Guest , on his trip, you know, he didnt get the extreme colds. So he did not keep measurements and temperature gauges. He did not he was on a dash. He didnt keep the records that you can really tell unlike scott who kept much more accurate records. So were more relying on what were scotts records who was going at the same time another way in a much, much slower route. And you have to project them across. So he took some temperatures, but we dont have as dependable records. But you would often have temperatures of 20 below and temperatures like that. But it wasnt the extreme cold that scott would later face on his return trip. Host extreme cold being guest 50 below. 50 below. Host who is Ernest Shackleton . Guest he was a british explorer. Hed been a member of the merchant marine, and he sort of just was an adventurer, and he had a tremendously charismatic personality, a magnetic personality. And he was sort of bored being in the merchant marine. And the british were putting together their First Expedition to the, to antarctica. Wasnt billed as the south pole, though there was a hope to get there. It was an Antarctic Scientific expedition. The first one in, oh, really 60 years. The british had a major ec we decision expedition under James Clark Ross in the 1840s, and this was around 1900. They were putting together the expedition. It was funded by the Royal Society which is the leading Scientific Association in britain and the Royal Geographic Society. And be they were going to use naval personnel to get people down and get people back, and they were taking a team of scientists to do research. Well, he had connections, and so he got himself sort of to escape the monotony of the merchant that lean, he got himself assigned disturb marine, he got himself assigned or picked up, as it were, as one of the officers on that expedition. Now, that expedition was led by robert scott. Led in the sense that he was captain of the ship. He wasnt head of the scientific team. But when they got, the idea was to bring down this group of people to go to the ross sea. Again, youre as far south as you can be. They were doing Magnetic Research mostly. They were also doing geographical mapping, they were doing geological research, they were doing biological research. But the main goal was studying the Magnetic Fields down there, trying to locate the south magnetic pole, studying the roar bore yall lis, thats the time when electricity and magnetism were of great interest. And people and ships still used compasses to navigate, so they needed to know the lines of polar, for polar exploration and for travel in the low southern latitudes. And that was a time when australia, new zealand and south africa were booming with gold rushes to all the places and developing, and so the british those were part of the British Empire, and they needed to have better magnetic readings. So that was the purpose of the trip. Now, so shackleton signed on because he thought thatd be more fun than just working on the p. O. Lines of the merchant marine. So he went along, and he just got hooked. He just got absolutely hooked on antarctica and polar travel. And so when that expedition, he was picked to go when the scientists were out doing research, scott who was wintering over thought hed take the next they wintered over, went down one year, they wintered over, and then during the next year in the summer the scientists all went out to do research, and the idea was to sail back at the end of that scherr or if they couldnt get out, the beginning of the following year which is what they did. They ended up wintering for two years. The officers were sort of free during the summer, so scott had plan all along concocted with the Royal Geographic Society to try to make a dash to the south pole. At this time they didnt know the south was on a polar plateau. They thought the south pole, antarctica might be like the north pole which is just an ark archipelago of islands with a floating icecap that floats on water. And so its not all that high, and you just they were going, and youre pretty close already. So they were just going to maybe just ski on down and take to sleds. And get down there during the scherr while the summer while the scientists were doing work. Well, shackleton went along with it. The trip was poorly planned, poorly executed. And they realized that there are mountains in the way. So they went back. The scientists did their work. It was a very successful expedition, they just didnt reach thinker near the south pole, anywhere even remotely close. So shackleton got back, and he had this charismatic, magnetic personality, and he organized an expedition of his own with the goal of reaching the south pole. He also took along scientists to do research. He raised private funding, and he went down and had his own expedition where he almost made it to the south pole. He made it all across the ross ice shelf, went up the anted arctic, transabout arctic mountains, got within 100 miles before he had to turn back. Basically, he had some difficulties. Some of the plans didnt quite work out, but he came close. Another part of his team made it to the south magnetic pole, so he went back a hero for this amazing expedition. He claimed the plateau for britain, and he went back and was knighted, a, you know, worked with, you know, met the king and spent time with the king and became a hero. Literally became a hero. Wrote up his account, mesmerizing account. Then when he hadnt made it, though, the expedition, scott was an army was a knave officer navy officer, captain in the navy. And he took more of a naval expedition back down with scientists, and theyre the ones that, its that expedition which shackleton was not part of that competed, raced as it were with amundson to get to the pole first. What shackleton ends up doing it, amundson makes it, scott has his problems thats putting it mildly and then shackleton then cant get this antarctica out of his system. So he organizes another expedition where hes planning to be the first to go completely across antarctica, start on one side, have another team at the other end, go completely across and end at the ross ice shelf, basically, into the ross sea. Thats the famous expedition that the ship going down, gets trapped in the ice. He proves to be the magnetic leader that he always was, the charismatic, the inspiring leader whose men are devoted to him. It was bad enough on his earlier expedition, the anymore rod, where he gets 100 miles to the south pole. Hes beloved then by his men. Many of them go back with him. Now he gets trapped in the ice. He floats around, the ship is, travels around in the ice for month after month after month and finally is totally crushed. And then he takes the men on the ice, and they cross the ice to get to an island, otherwise theyll die because no ones ever going to find them. And they manage this amazing trip across the ice and then by boat because theyre hauling their lifeboats across the ice. When they get as close as they can to an island, elephant island, they sail across its a relatively short distance to elephant island. Theyre there, but they realize that well never, nobody will ever find us on elephant be island. So he takes a small group and the best of the the large and best of the, basically, what youd call lifeboats, theyre a little bigger than lifeboats, the james cash was the name of it, and he takes a few of his best men, and they make an amazing open water voyage across whats known as the drake passage, the reputed to be the roughest seas in the world. Because hes got to sail up far enough north to where people live. And so he ends up sailing up to an island where there is a permanent whaling station. But its an enormous undertaking in a small boat. At finals the waves become at times the waves become huge. He, of course, has already been exposed to the elements for a year living outside, so they had very limited positions, and they provisions. Theyd already been live anything a stressful situation. Now theyre going in almost an open boat, it does have some covering. With very limited navigation devices, basically navigating by the stars. But the problem with that is that the sun is its overcast and raining most of the time, so they only get to take a dozen or so readings and then they get to this island. And then they have to cross the island, and they dont have proper shoes, and theyve been soaked. They have to cross the islands which have never been crossed to get to the whaling station and then go back to pick up his men, and he doesnt lose a single one. They all survive. And its just an amazing story of courage and enterprise. So shackleton, who was already famous from his nimrod expedition, now has this second expedition on top of it. Hes also known for his being with scott on the first one, so shackleton is, as a leader of men, is on a level that few reach. So youve got amundson who is a tremendous organizer, a tremendous planner, a, an inspiration alleyeder this that way, but youve got shackleton who has different skills, who has people skills. Ahundson was not lovable, but he was dependable. Shackleton was lovable and dependable in a way. He doesnt quite make it, the ship crashes, he doesnt make the crossing, doesnt make it to the pole. But as a leader of men, hes inspirational and beloved by his men. So youve got two largerthanlife characters, two living length jenlds coming out of this pursuit of the pole in this heroic age. Host edward larson, what happened to robert scott . His reputation . Guest robert scott had a little more trouble than the other two. But for a long period he was the larger hero. Certainly until the 1960s. He was the larger hero. He was sailing for england. He led the First Expedition, this one in 1901 is, 1904, the socalled discovery expedition because the ships name was discovery which was the first to really sort of open up a big chunk of antarctica as part of a multination expedition, but his was certainly the most successful. He becomes a National Hero when he comes home for this First Expedition. Then he mounts his second one, and his second one he, by the this time, shackletop has almost made it shackleton has almost made it and come back with that information. What scotts First Expedition with shackleton and a third person named edward wilson, they had gone down part of the way and then had to turn back. Then shackleton had gone down that same route, went further, climbed the transantarctic mountains, go gotten up on this polar plateau and traveled to within 100 miles of the pole before com