On October 29, 1908, British Explorer Ernest Shakleton set off on the final leg of the Nimrod Expedition, which was the part where he and three other guys, Frank Wild, Eric Marshall, and Jameson Boyd Adams, all got out and walked to the South Pole, pulled along by 10 Manchurian and Siberian ponies.

“Nimrod,” for those of you who slept through Sunday school, was first mentioned in Genesis 10:8-12 as a great hunter.  For those of you who slept through Saturday morning cartoons, Bugs Bunny insulted Elmer’s Fudd’s hunting skills by calling him a Nimrod.  So Nimrod can either mean a great hunter or a bumbling idiot, depending on your context.  Here, the context was hiking to the South Pole.

But, hey!  It was the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.  Beginning in the late 19th century and lasting until after the First World War, explorers from all over the world turned their attention to the Antarctic in what ostensively became a race to see who could make it to the South Pole first with the least amount of equipment.  The “Heroic” part was a kind way of saying they were all nuts.  In all, there were 17 major expeditions during that time and a total of 22 deaths.  Nobody kept track of body parts that were frozen off. 

One of the most heroic of all those intrepid explorers was Ernest Shakleton, who tried four different times to make it to the South Pole.  The first time was the Discovery Expedition which headed out in 1901 led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott.  Shakleton was the third mate, but he had to turn back early because of poor health before everybody else turned back early, too.  They all got participation ribbons just the same, even Shakleton.

Shakleton’s second expedition was the Nimrod in 1908.  This time he was in charge.  From where they started their hike it was right at 975 miles to the pole.  That would be a tough walk in good weather.  As it were, the weather was slightly less than ideal.  There were blinding blizzards, strong headwinds, drifting snow, and temperatures as low as 56 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.  It was a little warmer, though, in Celsius.  Once again, they did not make it.  They turned back on January 9, 1909, just 97 miles from the pole, having run out of ponies.  Shakleton hadn’t planned on eating the ponies, but when they ran out of food they had no choice.  And since none of them wanted to draw straws, they turned back to keep from starving.  Even though they didn’t get there, they set a record for the closest so far.  I’m sure that meant a lot to Shakleton.

Shakleton’s third attempt was the Imperial Trans-Atlantic Expedition, which was from 1914 to 1916, and had a far better name.  That’s the one where their ship, the Endurance, got trapped and then crushed by the ice, and they all had to survive on ice flows until finally Shakleton took a small boat with five other guys 800 miles to get help, saving everybody.  Bloody well done.

Before Shakleton could make it to the South Pole, Roald Amundsen beat him and everybody else.  He got there on December 14, 1911, arriving just 34 days in front of a rival expedition led by Robert Falcon Smilth.  That didn’t stop Shakleton form heading out on his fourth, and final, expedition in 1921, the Shakleton-Rowett Expedition.  Dying from a heart attack, however, did stop him.  He died aboard his ship while in port in South Georgia on January 5, 1922.  He was buried on the island facing Antarctica.  Shakleton’s death marked the end of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. 

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