He said this expedition was the ‘pinnacle of his career’ without hesitation (Picture: Nick Birtwistle)
Two decades into his acclaimed career, TV historian Dan Snow has explained why unearthing Ernest Shackleton’s 100-year-old shipwreck is the ‘best thing he’s ever done’.
National Geographic’s new documentary Endurance, from Oscar-winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, tracks the legendary British explorer’s extraordinary 1915 tale of survival.
When Shackleton and his 27-strong crew became stranded in the middle of Antarctica after the eponymous ship sunk in the icy waters of the Weddell Sea, they all spent months trying to survive in harrowing conditions.
Seven hundred and fifty days after they left England every single person miraculously returned home alive – with perhaps a missing toe or two.
Over a century later, the Endurance22 went on a near-impossible quest to find the shipwreck and honour Ernest’s legacy, with Dan aboard to watch history unfold before his eyes.
‘It was just a dream come true for me,’ he told Metro ahead of the documentary’s world premiere at the London Film Festival.
He joined the history-making voyage in 2022 (Picture: PA)
‘Growing up my family loved history. My grandma would tell me wonderful stories and it’s why I love history today.
‘Shackleton’s one of those names you hear about as a legendary explorer but I never thought that 40 years after hearing those stories I would be standing on the ice 10,000 feet above where his ship was on the seabed below.’
There was a lot of pressure riding on the 2022 expedition – helmed by polar geographer Dr John Shears, subsea engineer Nico Vincent, and maritime archaeologist Mensun Bound- after the first team ‘failed miserably’ in 2019.
They lost millions of dollars in damaged equipment.
No one was more disappointed than Mensun, however – whose family had once hosted Ernest in their Falkland Islands’ home – as he saw his lifelong ambition fade away.
‘Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong,’ Mensun recalled. ‘I was just waiting for that little tap on the shoulder from history, and it didn’t come.’
Dan shared his mixed feelings on discovering Endurance just days after Russia invaded Ukraine (Picture: Frank Hurley/Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge/Getty)
The same fate looked set to repeat itself three years later until the Endurance was epically discovered ‘by the skin of their teeth’ just hours before the second attempt was meant to officially come to an end.
And the whole world rejoiced at the historic news.
‘It really got a bit despondent with a few hours left,’ the 45-year-old presenter recounted.
‘We thought: “We’re not gonna do this.” And then there it was, suddenly. Beautiful. [Then] we were talking to media in China and North America and were on the front page of the New York Times. It was just very special.’
Dan was subjected to sub-zero temperatures in his pursuit to be part of maritime history (Picture: James Veysey/Shutterstock)
The discovery came ‘just 10 days after Russia invaded Ukraine’ – a historic event of a very different nature – and the renowned British historian couldn’t help …read more
Source:: Metro
