Ka Wing's Travelogue
  • My Blog
    • 我的遊記 (中文)
  • Photography
  • Contact
  • My Blog
    • 我的遊記 (中文)
  • Photography
  • Contact
Picture

'Fortitudine Vincimus': An Extraordinary Story of Antarctic Survival

18/10/2018

0 Comments

 
‘Men wanted for hazardous journey:
Small wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness,
Constant danger, safe return doubtful.
Honour and recognition in event of success.’
- Hiring advertisement of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917)
​At a talk in Hong Kong, I came across the surviving images of Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917). When the crew of HMS Endurance had to abandon ship, each men were allowed to take only two pounds of personal belongings. Any extra weight, the leader of the expedition Ernest Shackleton reckoned, would only diminish their chances of survival. The rest of more than four hundred photo plates were deliberately destroyed by Shackleton to prevent anyone from being tempted to take them along. They were about to embark on an impossible march to safety.
Picture
Alexandra Shackleton, the granddaughter of the great explorer Ernest Shackleton at the RGS Lecture in Hong Kong.
Picture
Images from the Imperial Trans-Antartic Expedition (1914-1917) on display at a lecture by the RGS of Hong Kong.
This expedition was to be the last of its kind in the ‘Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration’ - a time before machines would start to play an important role in expeditions. With the HMS Endurance stuck and later altogether crushed by pack ice, Shackleton had no doubt his expedition was going to fail. Yet just as the ship's name suggest - 'Fortitudine Vincimus' (Latin meaning 'By Endurance We Conquer', taken from Shackleton's own family motto) - Shackleton would pluck triumph from this disaster and turn it into one of the most extraordinary story of determination and survival.

Read More
0 Comments
    * 中文版遊記  請按此 *
    Picture

    About me

    I like to travel, and I like to find out about things so I have created this blog to share what I saw on my journeys.

    I am particularly fascinated by the people, geopolitics and the history and culture of the the Middle East, post-Soviet states, breakaway regions and all those places along the old Silk Road, of which many I have been to throughout the years.


    In 2009 I was living in Sierra Leone in west Africa, and between 2015 to 2016 I was working in Georgia where I was stationed in the capital Tbilisi and at Zugdidi, the border town between Georgia proper and the rebel controlled Abkhazia.

    When I am not travelling, by default I am reading about other places and finding out what lies beneath our feet in the subterranean world.


    Categories

    All
    Caucasus
    Exploration
    Russia


    Where am I...?


    Archives

    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    August 2017
    November 2016


    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.