Shackleton's Dream: Fuchs, Hillary and the Crossing of Antarctica

The route across the continent, as  followed 
by the British Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition
(click to enlarge).

In November 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton watched horrified as the grinding floes of the Weddell Sea squeezed the life from his ship, Endurance, before letting her slip silently down to her last resting place. Caught in the chaos of splintered wood, buckled metalwork and tangled rigging lay Shackleton’s dream of being the first man to complete the crossing of Antarctica. Shackleton would not live to make a second attempt – but his dream lived on.

Sno-cat in a blizzard during 
the descent of the Skelton Glacier

Shackleton’s Dream tells for the first time the story of the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, led by Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Everest. Forty years after the loss of Endurance, they set out to succeed where Shackleton had so heroically failed. Using motor-sledges and converted farm tractors in place of Shackleton’s man-hauled sledges, they faced a colossal challenge: a perilous 2,000-mile journey across the most demanding landscape on the face of the planet, where temperatures can plunge to a staggering –129°F and dense clouds of drift snow blind and disorientate.

Sno-cat on the brink of a crevasse

This epic adventure saw two giants of twentieth century exploration pitted not only against Nature at its most hostile and unforgiving, but also against each other. From their coastal bases on opposite sides of Antarctica, the two leaders pushed south relentlessly, dodging bottomless crevasses and traversing vast unexplored tracts of wind-sculpted ice. Planned as an historic continental crossing, the expedition would eventually develop into a dramatic ‘Race to the South Pole’: a contest as controversial as that of Scott and Amundsen more than four decades earlier, culminating in a titanic clash at the very heart of the frozen continent.

Previously unpublished sketches from expedition members:

A Sno-cat - thought to have been drawn by Hannes La Grange - meteorologist on the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1955-58), and the first South African to reach the South Pole.

An Antarctic solar corona, painted by Dr Hal Lister - glaciologist on the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition

Sno-Cat at the Science Museum

The London Science Museum has recently installed a surviving Tucker Sno-Cat tracked vehicle from the Trans Antarctic Expedition's crossing. 

The museum is putting on exhibits that tell 10 'climate' stories of varying natures which promote visitors thinking about their relationship with the climate and one of which is the story of this expedition. George Lowe's colour film will also be played adjacent to the Sno-Cat exhibit. The Sno-Cat is discussed from 0.36 secs in to the film.

George Lowe's Colour Film Charting the Expedition

We've recently discovered that filmmaker George Lowe's colour film charting the Trans Antarctic Expedition has also been posted on YouTube in five excerpts online which we were keen to pass on and share with you here. The film remains the property of British Petroleum Ltd and Stephen will be doing an introductory talk covering both this and the expedition at London's Science Museum in the autumn.

British Pathe News Coverage of the Expedition

There is a selection of British Pathe news snippets freely available to view on their site: http://www.britishpathe.com which show some of the events mentioned in the book. We've put just some of these below (click one of the pictures and it takes you to the video on the Pathe site in a new window):

FUCHS' ANTARCTIC APPEAL

ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

POLAR HEROES ARRIVE

FUCHS' TRIUMPH

WELCOME HOME TO DR FUCHS

BIOGRAPHY

Stephen Haddelsey (centre) with two veterans of the 
Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1955-58):
Rainer Goldsmith (left) and Ken Blaiklock (right)

 If there is a common theme to my books, it is that all address a subject which has been ‘overlooked’ or consigned to oblivion – in my view unjustly.

In my first book, Charles Lever: The Lost Victorian (2000), I sought to bring back to public notice a highly gifted but much-maligned Anglo-Irish novelist who, in his early career, vied with Charles Dickens in terms of popularity and earning-power but who fell foul of Nationalist critics who effectively erased him from the canon of Irish literature.

My second book, Born Adventurer: The Life of Frank Bickerton (2005), dealt with another ‘lost’ figure – but one from an altogether different world. Frank Bickerton led an extraordinary life of adventure, playing a leading role in one of the key expeditions of the Heroic Age of polar exploration. He also hunted for pirate gold on R.L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island; fought with one of the elite squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War; travelled by train, plane and automobile the entire length of Africa during the golden age of the safari; and ultimately worked as a screenplay writer in the British film industry. His incredibly varied career was a delight to research and write about.

Ice Captain: The Life of J.R. Stenhouse (2008) tells the story of one of Frank Bickerton’s closest friends: another adventurer – but one whose almost miraculous tale of hardship and survival aboard the Aurora on Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17 has been overshadowed by the much better-known story of the fate of the Endurance and Shackleton’s boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Like Bickerton, Stenhouse went on to an astonishing array of adventures, ranging from fighting the Bolsheviks in North Russia in 1918-19, to command of Captain Scott’s Discovery during the National Oceanographic Expedition of 1925-27, to heroic service with the Royal Navy in the Second World War.

Most recently, in Shackleton’s Dream: Fuchs, Hillary & The Crossing of Antarctica (2012), I have written the biography not of an individual but of an entire Antarctic expedition – but one which, like Lever, Bickerton and Stenhouse, has slipped into an undeserved obscurity. As I hope the book proves, ‘Modern Age’ expeditions such as the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955-58, were as dangerous, demanding, heroic and, ultimately, as contentious as those of the ‘Heroic Age’.

In choosing to champion subjects which might well be described as ‘lost causes’ it might seem that I am tilting at windmills – but in each case, it appears to me that an injustice has been committed, sometimes deliberately as in the case of Charles Lever, but more often by accident, as in the cases of Bickerton, Stenhouse and the CTAE. Each of these stories deserves to be heard by a much wider audience than has hitherto been the case. And, of equal importance, each story needed to be recorded and preserved before it was lost forever.

Born in 1967, Stephen Haddelsey lives and works in Nottinghamshire. He is married with one son.

BOOK REVIEWS

Praise for Shackleton’s Dream:

“ Stephen Haddelsey.... has given us a stimulating, solidly-researched perspective on a fascinating piece of Antarctic history. Shackleton’s Dream fills a significant gap in the record of polar exploration and should be included in every geographer’s library”
POLAR RECORD


“Extraordinary. A story that proves that courage, determination, danger and disaster remain as much a part of Antarctic exploration in the Modern Age as in the Heroic Era”
SIR RANULPH FIENNES

“Thoroughly researched and engagingly written…. this book further establishes Stephen Haddelsey as a key historian of Antarctic exploration”
BEAU RIFFENBURGH, AUTHOR OF NIMROD, RACING WITH DEATH ETC.

“The story of the most daring British polar expedition since Shackleton’s and an important link between the heroic and modern eras of Antarctic exploration”
NICHOLAS OWENS, DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY

“The first crossing of the Antarctic continent remains a benchmark in the exploration of our planet. Haddelsey’s book provides an important insight into the achievements of Fuchs, Hillary and their companions” 
JULIAN DOWDESWELL, DIRECTOR OF THE SCOTT POLAR RESEARCH INSTITUTE

“A superbly readable and well researched book on the trials and tribulations of the first successful crossing of Antarctica”
KEN BLAIKLOCK, SURVEYOR & DOG DRIVER ON THE COMMONWEALTH TRANS-ANTARCTIC EXPEDTION

“A thoroughly researched, well-referenced look at ‘the last great journey on earth’…. So lovingly crafted as to deserve its place on the heaving Antarctic bookshelf…. This is a gem, which should not have remained unpublished until today” 
WANDERLUST MAGAZINE

“Haddelsey’s Shackleton’s Dream is a timely and compelling study of the TAE…. this fine book will surely remain a definitive work. Without question Bunny Fuchs’s astonishing expedition deserves such a book as this”
JOURNAL OF THE JAMES CAIRD SOCIETY


Praise for Ice Captain:

“The Antarctic community owes Stephen Haddelsey a debt of gratitude for bringing Stenhouse back to life, and doing it in such a thoroughly enjoyable manner”
POLAR RECORD

“Readers pulled by Antarctica's magnetism will likewise be pulled in by Haddelsey's deft portrayal”
INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR

“A colourful, temperamental character who fell little short of greatness”
THE TIMES

“Tracking down interesting people from the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration who haven't yet merited a full biography is a major challenge these days. The enduring interest in the age of men like Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton inevitably means that, a century later, few stones are left unturned. But Stephen Haddelsey has managed the feat with some style in the first-ever biography of the sailor Joseph Russell Stenhouse”
GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE


Praise for Born Adventurer



“Some larger than life characters enter legend; others enter literature - the model for at least three fictional explorers, Frank Bickerton stuffed his life with event…. What’s here represents enough for several ordinary lives”
GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE


“Insightful and skilled”
THE OXFORD TIMES


“The author has done a fine job of piecing together Bickerton’s story and providing an insight into this engaging character”
POLAR RECORD