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SHACKLETON AND CLOSE COMRADE'S HEIRS LAUNCH 'SHACKLETON CENTENARY EXPEDITION 2008'
THE JAMES CAIRD SOCIETY SPONSORS SHACKLETON AND ADAMS GREAT-GRANDSONS, AS THEY CELEBRATE THE 'NIMROD' EXPEDITION 100 YEARS ON, AND SHACKLETON'S 'FURTHEST SOUTH' WORLD RECORD IN 1908-9
'Never for me the lowered banner, never the last endeavour.'
- E.H.Shackleton.
The James Caird Society will be one of the leading sponsors of a major Antarctic expedition in 2008.
View a useful Antarctic chronology
In October 2008 a group of five men (all of whom are descendants of Heroic Age explorers and including Shackleton's great-grandson and great-nephew) will embark on a commemorative expedition to celebrate the centenary of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship the Nimrod, used on Shackleton's 1907-9 expedition.
"We have shot our bolt, and the tale is latitude 88°23’ South. Homeward bound at last. Whatever regrets may be, we have done our best," wrote Shackleton in his diary on 9 January 1909.The three-man ice team will be following the same route as the 1,700 mile (over 2,700 km) route followed by Shackleton's four man Nimrod expedition team. The plan is to depart from Shackleton's hut, Cape Royds on 29 October 2008 and head across the Ross Ice Shelf towards the Beardmore Glacier. They will ascend the glacier, 5 miles long and 9,000 feet of ascent, then cross the Polar plateau, covering the last 400 miles to the South Pole. Estimated time is 80 days, or around two and a half months.
Visit PBS/Nova online for the Shackleton story
Two further members, David Cornell, great-grandson of Shackleton's Second-in-Command Sir Jameson Boyd Adams, and Sir Ernest Shackleton's great-grandson Patrick Bergel, will join the ice team at Shackleton's 'Furthest South' to complete the final 97 miles to the South Pole.
The patron of the expedition is H.R.H. The Princess Royal. The leader of the expedition is Henry Worsley. Uniquely in modern Polar exploration, this team is comprised of ancestors and relatives of Shackleton’s original crews from the Nimrod and Endurance expeditions. After some months of research, the modern team was tracked down and assembled by Will Gow: all immediately signed up to finish the original mission as intended by their great-grandparents.
The 'Shackleton Centenary Expedition' will cost £300,000. Some £20,000 has also to be found for training in Greenland in April 2007. The website is shortly to be launched: www.shackletoncentenary.org will from March 2007 be carrying full information about the expedition.
Can you help? Please publicise this expedition among your friends. The media will be picking up on this sometime in 2007 - so now you have the privilege of advance notice!
The expedition introduction says: 'Shackleton failed to reach the Pole; yet Shackleton's Nimrod expedition successfully achieved the first ascent of Mount Erebus, which was the first ascent of any peak in the Antarctic. They were the first sledding team to reach the Magnetic South Pole, and the first team to reach the plateau above the mountains. On January 9th 1909 four members (Shackleton, Wild, Marshall and Adams) got to within 97 miles of the Pole, the furthest any man had achieved by that date. And all Shackleton's men returned safe and sound.'
The aims of the expedition are listed: they will undertake an unassisted ski trek of 1,000 miles across Antarctica to the South Pole. following Shackleton's original route in 1908-9. They will arrive at Shackleton's 'Furthest South' point just 100 years later. They will then complete the plan of the 1908 expedition by continuing and reaching the South Pole.
In addition, they plan to establish a Charitable Foundation which will inspire and assist future generations to emulate the leadership skills and pioneering spirit of Shackleton. In particular, it will benefit individuals and small organisations that are quietly changing the world and making it a better place to live.
The aim is, with the help and participation of business sponsors and ambassadors, to raise £3 million pounds, and 'to award grants once every three years to those enterprises that show "Shackletonian" qualities: the spirit of exploration, leadership and teamwork, and which show a pioneering spirit within their field of expertise. The three areas are: Environment; Science and Medicine; and Education. A chief beneficiary will be the National Neurological Hospital in London which specialised in research into neurological diseases, including Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease.
Funds will also be allotted to the New Zealand Heritage Trust for their conservation work in the Antarctic, which includes Shackleton's hut in Cape Royds.
The 'Shackleton Centenary Expedition' will cost £300,000. Some £20,000 has also to be found for training in Greenland in April 2007. The expedition is actively seeking sponsorship at all levels, from business sponsors to equipment manufacturers to private donors. Can you help? Please publicise this expedition among your friends.The media will be picking up on this sometime in 2007 - so now you have the privilege of advance notice! Please email William Gow directly (info@shackletoncentenary.org) or telephone him on 07798 842153.
Corporate Sponsors are encouraged to get in touch for detailed briefings, media plans and to discuss available publicity for their organisation. Find out how your company can be associated with the aims and objectives of the Shackleton Centenary. The website is yet to be formulated but www.shackletoncentenary.org will soon be carrying full information about the expedition.
Here is a brief introduction to the five members of the expedition who will either make the complete journey across the approach glaciers and the Antarctic plateau or link up at 'Furthest South' in order to complete Shackleton's uncompleted journey.
Col. Henry Worsley (Team Leader) has been in the British Army for 25 years. Henry has wide expedition experience and is an accomplished downhill and cross-country skier. He has completed the Haute Route and the Yukon Arctic Ultra. For him this expedition, following the route Shackleton took and intended to pursue, but was prevented from completing, will be the fulfilment of a long-cherished and lifelong ambition.
Will Gow works in the City of London. He has raised over £100,000 for charity, in particular for research into multiple sclerosis, by completing the Himalayan 100-mile stage, and is related to Shackleton by marriage. This expedition combines his desire to travel in the last great wilderness and to reunite Shackleton’s descendents. Will's most recent adventure was a trip to the Canadian Arctic wilderness to participate in the 3rd Yukon Arctic Ultra – a self supported non-stop footrace with an 8-day cut-off time to run 300 miles at temperatures approaching -50C without the wind-chill; Will completed the event in 177 hours, finishing 4th overall.
Henry Adams is a shipping lawyer by profession. He is the great-grandson of Jameson Boyd Adams, Shackleton and Wild's solidly buit, sturdy companion on the 'Furthest South' trek in 1909. Henry has trekked extensively throughout South America and Africa and is a passionate kite surfer and sailor. Since boyhood Henry has dreamed of reliving his great-grandfather's polar experience.
David Cornell can also boast a close relation to the 1909 party of Shackleton, Wild, Marshall and Adams, being likewise a great-grandson of Jameson Boyd Adams. David was an officer in the British Army before entering the City, and spent several years in Norway leading arctic warfare exercises. David Cornell has a key responsibility as head of the expedition's fundraising team.
Patrick Bergel works in advertising. Patrick is the great-grandson of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the grandson of Lord Shackleton and the elder son of the Society's President, the Hon. Alexandra Shackleton. Patrick will support the fundraising effort and intends to meet the ice team at the "Furthest South" Point reached by his gradfather in 1909, from there to complete the last 97 miles to the South Pole.
Read a letter from King Edward VIII to Sir Jameson Boyd Adams
A brief anecdote of J.B.Adams in North Yorkshire
Sir Jameson Boyd Adams, KCVO, CBE, DSO (1880-1962), the great-grandfather of two of the expedition's members, and by just a year the youngest of the four men, was born in 1880 at Rippingale, Lincolnshire, midway between Grantham and Spalding. He first went to sea in the merchant service in 1893, serving three years as a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve, before joining Shackleton's Nimrod expedition in 1907. The expedition's meteorologist, Adams was appointed second in command in February, 1908. Then aged only 27 (28 at the time of the team's achievement of 'Furthest South' in March, 1909), Commander Adams was unmarried at the time of the expedition. He was born a year after and died a year before his comrade Eric Marshall, and is buried in Golder's Green Cemetery; his obituary by Sir Raymond Priestley appeared in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 128, No. 3 (Sep., 1962), p.367.
Adams's name was appropriately honoured on the ground. The Adams Mountains (84.30 south, 166.20 east) are a small but well defined group of mountains which form part of the Queen Alexandra Range, so named after Edward VII's consort, who had thats summer reviewed the Nimrod at Cowes, by Shackleton. They are bounded by the Beardmore, Berwick, Moody and Bingley Glaciers. Named by Shackleton's southern party, the name was restricted by Scott's British Antarctic Expedition (1910-13) to Mt. Adams, one of the high peaks in the group; however the original name applied to the Adams Mountains was later approved. One of the Adams Mountains' larger peaks is Mt. Price, just over 9,000 ft or 3,000 metres, later named after an American meterologist and situated at the the North End. The Bingley Glacier passes the Adams Mountains' northern end and empties into the Beardmore Glacier. It takes its name from the Shackleton family's ancestral home in West Yorkshire.
The Adams Glacier (78'7 south, 163.38 east) is a small glacier immediately south of the Miers Glacier, in Victoria Land. The heads of the Adams and Miers Glaciers are separated by a low ridge, and the east end of this ridge is almost completely surrounded by the snouts of the two glaciers, which nearly meet in the bottom of the valley, about a mile above Lake Miers, into which they jointly drain. The glacier was named after Sir Jameson Boyd Adams (then in his late seventies) by the New Zealand Northern Survey Party of the Fuchs-Hillary Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1956-58).
Dr. Eric Marshall (1879-1963) was the ship's surgeon aboard Endurance and the cartographer responsible for mapping detail on the inland expedition. Like Shackleton on the Discovery expedition inland party, he himself fell ill, suffering badly from dysentery, and gave Shackleton concern that the party would not reach the coast before the agreed date by which Nimrod was due to sail.
On one occasion (8 November 1908), Wild and Marshall failed to spot a crevasse and pitched their tent right next to it. Three days earlier, on 5 November, Wild, Adams, Marshall and the horse "Grisi" were all rescued from crevasses, Marshall falling in twice. At the end of the journey, Shackleton and Wild went ahead to McMurdo Sound in a desperate dash to alert the ship, and three hours after they reached it Shackleton led a rescue party back to collect Adams and Marshall, whom they had left behind in poor condition.
None of these mishaps prevented Marshall being honoured, however, with a major landmark named after him. The name the Marshall Mountains was given to that segment of the Queen Alexandra Range (also named by Shackleton, in the Queen's honour) which fronts onto the Beardmore Glacier, overseeing their route the four men followed on the journey inland. The Alice Glacier, 13 miles long flowing east from the Queen Alexandra Range into the Beardmore Glacier, was also named after Marshall's mother.
Find out about the major peaks of the Queen Alexandra Range
The four impressive pictures below give some idea of what faces the 2008 three-man party at the outset of their journey: the Ross Sea Ice shelf, the Shackleton Coast and tracing a manageable route up the Beardmore Glacier, traversing other glaciers in due course. These and a clutch of other fine Antarctic aerial views can be seen in full-size format by visiting the website www.jstokstad.com/pole04/SP8/source/7.html or clicking on any of the four photos.
Read about the sale of a rare artefact belonging to the Nimrod's Sir Philip Brocklehurst
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