Last year (2002), A&E produced a made-for-TV movie entitled Shackleton: The Greatest Survival Story of All Time. It is the account of the British explorer Ernest Shackleton and the 27 men with him who attempted to cross the continent of Antarctica. Temperatures around the South Pole can reach as low as 100 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Shackleton advertized for men to join him on the expedition with these words: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” But one problem after another plagued them. Their ship , the Endurance, was caught in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea for ten months. With extraordinary endurance and great suffering from the cold and hunger, they left the ship and finally reached Elephant Island. With all hope gone of accomplishing their goal, Shackleton set his mind to the greater challenge before him — bringing his men home alive. Shackleton and two other men endured a hazardous journey in an open boat across the world’s worst seas, and a hazardous three day climb over an arctic mountain range in order to reach a whaling camp and find help to rescue his men. In his absence, the men had made a crude hut of rocks with the life boats on top as a roof. For months they waited in that squalid hovel waiting for their
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