"Shipwreck Hard To Put Down"

After enduring nearly a month in zero degree temperatures, snow drifts, and icy sidewalks and paths, a true story about surviving a shipwreck in Antarctica seems absolutely amazing. But, in the summer of 1914, the world-renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven men set sail for the South Atlantic. The goal of the “Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition” was to be the first to cross on foot the Antarctic continent.

Within eighty-five miles of land, their ship, “Endurance”, was trapped for ten months in an ice pack in the Weddell Sea. The wooden ship was finally crushed and it sank, leaving the crew stranded on an ice floe with just three 20-foot launches to carry them to safety. As the ice floe moved out to sea, it began to break apart and shrink in size. This group of cold and frightened men was over 800 miles from any hospitable land! There was no chance of being rescued by another ship! Their only hope of surviving was to escape to the open sea, where even more danger existed with giant swells and frozen sea spray. Their ordeal would last another ten months and be chronicled in the diaries and journals they kept and the photographs they took.

Those journals and the magnificent glass-plate negatives have been used time and again in books and other publications to study this grand epic of human survival. Some of the books owned by the Library include: “Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, the Extraodinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance” by Jennifer Armstrong; “Endurance, Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” by Alfred Lansing; “The Endurance, Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition” by Caroline Alexander; “Shackleton” by Roland Huntford; “Ice Story” by Elizabeth Kimmel; and “Shackleton’s Valiant Voyage” by Alfred Lansing.

Today’s public can’t seem to get enough of this nearly forgotten explorer who is credited for saving the lives of the twenty-seven men who were stranded with him for almost two years. His actions, documented in the many diaries of his fellow survivors, have earned him the reputation for being one of the greatest leaders and crisis managers in history. In their book, “Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antartic Explorer”, Margot Morrell and and Stephanie Capparell veteran writers of management styles, offer advice on how to follow Shackleton’s example to triumph over personnel and business crises.

Donations to the Columbus Library Foundation include those in memory of Nancy McNair from Mr. and Mrs. Robert Mead and Jolaine Nielsen. Mr. and Mrs. Donald Schupbach presented a donation in memory of Jean A. Foltz. Mr. and Mrs. Mathew Fleischer honored the mother of Kathleen Smith with a memorial. Lucille and Burns Ellison recognized the memory of Jean Smalldon. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Mead presented a memorial in honor of Dorothy Fisher and Jolaine Nielsen gave a donation in memory of Leo Dowd.