Memorial to Shackleton -- Blog 4, December 1, 2010 (continued from Blog 3)

     With the grim realization that they were nowhere, Shackleton gave the order to refit the twenty-one foot whale boat, Andrew Caird.  Two masts were rigged and she was decked over.  Some 1,500 pounds of rock ballast went into her hold.  April 24, 1916, Shackleton, Tom Crean, Frank Worsley and three troublemakers set sail hoping to reach South Georgia, 900 miles eastward.  They chose to sail with the Cape Horn Rollers rather than across them to the closer Falklands.  Frank Wild, a veteran Antarctic Explorer, was left in charge of those remaining behind at Elephant Island.
     The fifteen day crossing was shear hell.  They were in constant peril of swamping.  Just keeping water out of the hold required diligent effort.  Chipping ice from the deck and rigging was a painful task and frozen hands and feet was always a danger.  But their greatest complaint seemed to be reindeer hair from their mildewing sleeping bags, that filled their mouths, noses and even contributed to the penguin hoosh.
     Frank Worsley, Captain of the Endurance, was probably the best polar navigator in the world.  His only sextant reading of the sun came on May 6, from which he calculated they were eighty miles from South Georgia -- he had found the needle in the haystack.  Even after sighting the landfall, a gale forced them to standoff another twenty-four hours before landing on May 9.
     Unfortunately they were on the uninhabited side of a rugged alpine island.  They calculated it would require another fifteen days to sail around the island to the whaling stations.  They recuperated for several days, then Shackleton, Worsley and Crean made the crossing of the harrowing alpine backbone; twenty extreme miles in thirty-six hours.  This feat has yet to be duplicated even with the best gear available.
     After an erroneous descent into Fortuna Bay, they climbed back to the interfluve.  As they contemplated the descent over the frozen waterfalls, they heard the steam whistle from the Stromness Station.  They realized they were safe.

                          Map of the Shackleton, Worsley, Crean Transit
                                       of South Georgia, Winter 1916

                    Alverta at the Base of the Waterfalls where Shackleton,
                     Worsley and Crean Heard the Stromness Steam Whistle

                          The Ghost of Stromness Whaling Station Where
                  Shackleton, Worsley and Crean Ended Their Long Journey

     The departure of the Caird  must have been a despairing moment for the twenty-two men left behind on Elephant Island.  That moment would turn into weeks, then months.  The penguin and seal hoosh had probably become noisome and they had no way of knowing if the Caird ever reached South Georgia.
     For four months Shackleton tried to get a ship far enough into the ice pack to effect a rescue.  Finally on August 30, 1916, Shackleton, Worsley and Crean stood on the deck of the steel-clad, steam-driven Chilean Ship, Yelcho.  Through a lifting fog Worsley first spotted the camp on the rock face of that barren toe-hold.  Gradually they accounted for each of the twenty-two crewmen left behind.  The rescue was unequivocal--not a soul had been lost.
    
     For forty-four years no human presence disturbed the solitude of the Earth's most inaccessible antipode.  Then on October 31, 1956 Gus Shinn, USN, landed the first airplane at the pole.  Others followed including a survey party to establish an American research station as part of the IGY (International Geophysical Year).
     In 1956-1958 Sir Vivian Fuchs, leader of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition would make the first continental crossing, following closely the plan devised by Shackleton.  Edmund Hillary, who along with Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953, led the depot placing component of the Fuchs's Expedition.  This group established a new route from Mc Murdo Sound to the Pole.  Theirs was only the third overland expedition to ever reach the Pole.  This was accomplished using Massey-Ferguson farm tractors converted to tracks instead of wheels.
     While at South Georgia in 1999, I heard that Hillary had paid previous Antarctic explorers the following tribute: "For speed and efficiency of Polar travel give me Amundsen, For scientific discovery give me Scott.  But, when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."
     When trying to verify the source, I learned that it was attributed to Sir Raymond Priestly in 1956.  Priestly was also from New Zealand.  He was a geologist who accompanied the Shackleton, Nimrod Expedition of 1907--1909 and the Scott, Terra Nova Expedition of 1910--1913.  With a little more digging I learned that Priestly was really paraphrasing and simplifying a statement by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in the book, Worst Journey in the World, 1922, Vol. I, p. viii.  Cherry-Garrard like Priestly was a member of the Scott Terra Nova Expedition--so what's a bit of plagiarism among team mates?
     But Priestly added more about Shackleton: "Incomparable in adversity, he was the miracle worker who would save your life against all the odds and long after your number was up.  The greatest leader that ever came on God's earth, bar none."
     In 1959 Sir Raymond Priestly received the Royal Geographical Society's Gold Medal for service to Antarctic Exploration, just one year after Sir Edmund Hillary received his for Antarctic and Himalayan exploration.

                       Derlict Whale Catchers at Grytviken, South Georgia

                                     Grytviken Church, Prefabricated in
                            Norway and Reassembled on South Georgia

     On 15 November 1999 we put in at Grytviken on Cumberland Bay, South Georgia, for a week of glorious Antarctic wildlife and alpine vistas.  While we were taking on fresh water, Ian Shaw organized the crew members for a memorial tribute at the grave site of Sir Ernest Shackleton, quite possibly the greatest of Antarctic explorers.

                          Expedition Ship, Lubov Orlova taking on Fresh
                                                Water at Grytviken

                                  Grave Stone of Sir Ernest Shackleton

                        Ian Shaw Leads the Expedition Staff in a Memorial
                             Service at the Grave of Sir Ernest Shackleton

                            Shackleton Memorial on King Edward Point,
                                       Cumberland Bay, South Georgia

                              Ned & Alverta at the Shackleton Memorial
                       

                          Possession Bay Where James Cook Made Claim
                    to This Remote Island within the Antarctic Convergence
                      for Great Britain and Gave it the Name South Georgia

                              King Penguin Rookery at St. Andrews Bay
                                        Probably 100 Thousand Birds

Alverta Among the LBJs (Little Brown Jobs)

An Immature King Chick Probably Out Weighs an Adult

                                    Zodiac Landing at Albatross Island

We Brought Bamboo Poles from Madeira to

Ward off Dangerous Fur Seals

                    An Ufledged Wandering Albatross Trying His Wings.
            Immature Birds with Turkey-Size Bodies Weigh More than an
            Adult.  Little Wonder It has Difficulty with the Maiden Flight.

           A week later, while at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands we had the pleasure of meeting the Honorable Alexandra Shackleton, Sir Ernest's only granddaughter.  She and her father founded the James Caird Society which is devoted to the collection and preservation of the history of Antarctic Exploration.

                          Alexandra Shackleton, Life-President of the
                          James Caird Society, displays the gold medal
                          awarded to her grandfather by the Royal
                          Geographical Society in 1909 for the Nimrod
                          Expedition in which he led a party of four to a new
                          "farthest south," 88°  23´.

Logo of the James Caird Society

The James Caird Departs Elephant Island in an

 Attempt to Reach South Georgia and Effect

a Rescue of the Remaining Crew of the Endurance 

Cumberland Bay, South Georgia

Little wonder Shackleton once said: "If God ever took a vacation he would go to South Georgia."

Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance Expedition -- Blog 3

     Early morning, Monday 21 July 1958 we picked up Cape Horn on our radar scopes.  By 0930 we could discern the Horn itself in a dark lowering sky.  It was late winter in the infamous Drake Passage, but the sea was calm.  There was no sign of the notorious hundred and ten foot Cape Horn Rollers which we expected as we sailed into the teeth of the roughest body of water in the world.  Here the tips of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula constricted the gigantic whorl of water around the bottom of the world, called the West Wind Drift.  This venturi forced the water to speed up.  We carried special gear to measure hull stress on the USS Ranger, CVA61, then the newest and largest aircraft carrier in the world.  We sailed around for a couple of days looking for a storm, but schedules were tight and we moved on into the Pacific Ocean, following the Humboldt Current northward along the coast of South America.

                             High Latitude, Open Oceans of the Southern
                             Hemisphere Contribute to the Extreme Cold
                             and Rough Waters of the Antarctic

     Over forty years later, but in the Antarctic summer, I sailed across Drake's Passage again.  This time it was Drake's Shake rather than Drake's Lake.  The expedition cruise to the Antarctic was exhilarating.  I was increasingly a fan of Sir Ernest Shackleton.  I applied to Marine Expeditions of Toronto for a lecturer/staff position on future expeditions.  Six months later I was offered a position not in a two week Antarctic Run, but a seven week repositioning cruise through the "Remote Islands of the South Atlantic."  I scurried to fill some of the gaps in my knowledge of this area. 
     We picked up our leased Russian ship and crew at Gibraltar, along with fifty adventurers.  We sailed to places which I had previously only dreamed of -- Madeira, Tenerife, Ascension Island, St. Helena, Cape Verde Republic, Tristan de Cuhna, South Georgia and the Falklands before putting-in at Ushaia at the tip of South America.  South Georgia was the crowning point of my trip.

               King Penguins at the Grytviken Ghost Town, South Georgia

     At the height of British exploration of the Antarctic it was the major staging area for Polar expeditions.  It was also leased to Norwegian whaling operations.  Meanwhile, on December 14, 1911 the Norwegian expedition of Roald Amundsen became the first humans to set foot at the South Pole.  The ill-fated British Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott got there January 17, 1912 only to find Amundsen's tent with the Norwegian flag flying from its peak.  Even worse, not one of Scott's team managed to survive the homeward trip to McMurdo.  Shackleton's dreams of Polar glory seem to shatter with the strange combination of events.
     In apparent desperation he launched an expedition to attempt the first Trans-
Antarctica crossing.  He sent one team to lay supply depots from McMurdo on the Ross Sea to the Pole.  He planned to lead the main group which would attempt to penetrate the Weddell Sea Ice Pack to Vahsel Bay at the west end of the Filchner Ice Shelf, then cross more than 800 miles (as a crow flies) of totally unknown territory to the Pole.  At least half of this distance would be on the harsh Antarctic Plateau where elevations in the 9,000 foot plus range would exacerbate the extremes of cold and wind.
     On December 7, 1914, the good ship "Endurance" which carried Shackleton's expedition of 27 men, 60 dogs and 2 pigs entered the ice pack.  The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition had been warned by the Norwegian whalers at South Georgia that the Weddell Sea ice was much heavier than usual, but Shackleton persevered.  By January 25, 1915 the Endurance was trapped in the ice more than 100 miles from Vahsel Bay.  The drift of the pack was carrying them further and further away.  They were in total darkness from May 8 until July 26.  On October 18 the Endurance keeled over, listing 30 degrees to port.  Six days later she sprung a leak.  The following day, after 281 days incommunicado in the ice, the order to "abandon ship" was given.  She sank on November 21 after drifting 513 miles.  There would be no sight of land for 497 days.  They man-hauled three whale boats over the jagged ice to the north end of the pack, then rowed them over open seas reaching Elephant Island April 15, 1916, their first time on land since December 14, 1914.

                          Shackleton's Endurance Expedition,  1914-1916

     Unfortunately Elephant Island was nowhere.  Drifting ice made it dangerous to ships.  The better whaling grounds lay on the other side of the Antarctic Peninsula.  The chance of a passing ship was next to nil.  (to be continued in the next blog)

Aubergines and Tallow from the Rump of a Fat-Rumped Sheep (Blog 2, 10-27-10) Updated and Illustrations Added, 12-21-10.

     As the Pleistocene Epoch (the last great ice age) was drawing to a close ca 10,000 years ago, early man was depending more and more upon horticulture and agriculture for his food supplies.
     Horticulture was based  upon the domestication of plants for a stable carbohydrate supply.  However, one significant problem was developing--lack of enough fats in the diet.  This may seem curious to many of us in modern societies where "fat" has taken on an odious connotation, almost evil in our conceptualization.  We tend to forget that fat is an essential conveyor of certain vitamins and minerals as well as a reserve store of energy in times of hunger and famine.
     In hunting and gathering societies, that preceded the rise of horticulture, there was apt to be a better balance in the food intake.  What the heck, if the system supplied only 75% of the calories required for survival, the Saber Tooth was probably going to get you anyhow?
     Still enough of our ancestors survived to force the issue.  If one ate enough carbs without sufficient fat, the craving for the latter would become insatiable.  Hence a spur toward agriculture, a combination of plant and animal domestication.  In colder climates carbs often came from tubers, but one of the fat supplying animals was swine.  Unfortunately, swine sometimes carried the parasite, trichinosis.  Climate along with cultural adaptations in meat preparation allowed a symbiotic relationship between mankind, tubers and swine.
     In warmer climates, particularly those with distinct wet and dry periods, as in southwest Asia, agriculture came to depend upon seasonal small grains.  No doubt gregarious swine were experimented with, but the temptation to eat the meat without thorough cooking led to disastrous results.  Food taboos originated early on so that pigs along with dogs became "unclean."   Fortunately trichinosis was not a problem with ruminants.  So cattle, camels, goats and sheep comprised "clean" sources of animal protein and fat.
     Domestication of sheep came early on in the Near East as well as in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus.  The need for fat appears to have pointed the course toward selective breeding of fat-rumped and fat-tailed varieties.  The Armenian wild sheep Ovis gmelini may have been the ancestor of the Karakul and other breeds of fat-rumped sheep found in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia.

Mount Ararat Symbol of the Armenian Homeland, Traditional

 Landing Spot for Noah's Ark

     On September 12, 1963, the American component of the Soviet-American Scientific-Technical Exchange Program spent a full day observing Soviet Armenian irrigation projects along the Sevan-Razdan Cascade.  This included some of the seventeen large sovkhozy (state farms) served by the Arak-Sevan Canal System.  Interestingly the Eghvard Sovkhoz produces rose oil, a very uncommunist like product.

Arznie-Shamiramaoskaya Canal, Mount Alagez,

Armenia's Highest Peak in Background

                                               

Lake Sevan Dominates the Shaded Topographic Map of Armenia

                            

An Autumnal Cloud Bank Above Lake Sevan

                               

     Through much of the day R. Bagramyan the Armenian Minister of Water Resources was our host and guide.  Late that afternoon, he took us to the shore line of beautiful Lake Sevan.  There among the willows next to the beach a seven-course banquet was being prepared for us.

A Seven Course Banqut on the Shore of Lake Sevan,

Minister Bagramyan in White Shirt at Left

                                
                         
     Seven courses?  To me, meat, potatoes and a dessert were just fine, but in that long ago and far away setting, was there any significance to seven courses?  The best the "www" could do was suggest that the courses represented "Seven Cardinal Virtues"--chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility.  But in a Communist Setting?  Well forget that.
     Then from our lovely setting I look out along Lake Sevan.  There on a peninsula, that was an island before Stalin decided to lower the water level of Sevan, was Sevanavank (Monastery of Sevan) with its ancient church, Surb Arakelots (Holy Apostles) built in 874 AD.  Sevanavank was the place where wayward monks from Echmiadzin, the Vatican of the Orthodox Armenian Church, were sometimes sent for reformation.

The US Exchange Delegation Visits Echmiadzin, Center of the

Armenian Orthodox Church

                                                         

Echmiadzin Shows the Classic Armenian Church Architecture

                               

Interior of Echmiadzin, to Heighten Appreciation

for the Sacred Mystery of the Ancient Church, I

suggest Listening to Alan Hovhaness' Tone Poem,

"Echmiadzin"

                                               
     Perhaps the seven symbols were appropriate, reaching out to us from a more pastoral, pre-Bolshevik time.  I settled back to enjoy the many courses, at least until the final event.
     Instead of a sweet dish, our seventh course was a highly favored Armenian concoction, a slab of tallow from the rump of a fat-rumped sheep was placed between two slices of aubergine and broiled over a charcoal brazier.  Fortunately or unfortunately my intake of fat was adequate.  The second mouthful was all I could handle.  I could find no virtue to add the original seven which would force me into the third bite.

Aubergine (Eggplant) A Staple of Armenian Cusine

                                           

A Fat-Rumped Sheep Source of the Tallow Classic

Armenian Dish Described Above

                               
                                                             
     To end on the lighter side, I once saw an Armenian Restaurant called Noah's Kitchen.  I could only wonder how long Noah had to wait for the fat-rumped pair coming off the ark to produce enough offspring
to ensure a stable supply of tallow.
   

The Brow of Moses and the Palace of Abbas (Pictures added to orginal blog 1)

     May I introduce myself by sharing with you a visit to one of the most exotic and now lonely spots on Earth, Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha in the Sinai Massif.

      Chapter 95 of the Qur'an (Koran) begins, "By the Figtree and the Olive, Mount Sinai, and this Safe Countryside; ..."  My introduction to the "fig tree and the olive" came in 1989.  In January of that year I went to Ismailia on the Suez Canal for the first time, eager to begin field work and research in the Sinai.  In my naivete I was quite unaware that the transfer of my Senior Fulbright Research Fellowship from the University of Alexandria to Suez Canal University had been manipulated by Dr. Ahmed Ismail Khodeir, who was President of Suez Canal University and dominant member of the Fulbright Selection Committee in Egypt.  President Khodeir had viewed my training in physical geography, soils and water resources and decided to put me to work helping set up the laboratory and field research programs for the new Faculty of Environmental Agricultural Resources at the El Arish Campus of Suez Canal University.  This was a great bit of serendipity which facilitated a wide exposure to the geography and resources of Sinai.  I am indeed indebted to Dr. Khodeir for this opportunity and his personal encouragement which was offered along the way.
     So now for the first story which takes us away from dusty plains, unmapped mine fields and unexploded ordinance to a seemingly safer and culturally fulfilling experience.
     It was January and the high base of the Sinai Massif was cold, but we did not expect snow.  We met our Bedouin camel herders at Wadi Sudud some four miles northeast of Gebel Musa (Mountain of Moses), better known to we Westerners as Mount Sinai.

Bedouin Herder 

                 
     Next came the ordeal of matching beasts to barbarians and a few urban Arabs from Cairo.  I was assigned a tall dark camel with a single leather thong tied through the outside of his nostril.  Alverta was matched up with a smaller light colored beast with three leather thongs piercings.  The number of thongs was indicative of the beast's intransigence.  Now if you have ever seen an American pack saddle, you get the picture of a Bedouin's idea of comfort.  With crossed sticks in front and crossed sticks behind, apparently spaced with an American fourth grader in mind.

                                    Matching Beasts to Barbarians

                                                      Alverta and Her Camel

         

       The saddle was affixed to the single hump of the Arabian camel, like a crown on the head of a monarch.  Each step of the lumbering dromedaries was exaggerated by the high center of gravity.  The forward extension of the beast's foreleg threw the rider forward, effectively poking the front crosspiece into the gut.  The next step threw the rider back against the other cross sticks.
     The Bedouin herders had little faith in we barbarian's ability to control the camels so on the outward trip they walked and led the beasts we rode.  Nor did they trust the citified Arabs from Cairo who accompanied us.  Our caravan of some fifteen camels was gently led southward along the Qa of Sudud.  The slow progress gave us ample opportunity to view some of the most historic sites on Earth.
     The pink and red granites of Ras Sufsafa took on an ominous gray in the lowering cloud cover.  The massive bluffs of the Ras comprise the north face of Gebel Musa hence in common reference it is the "Brow of Moses."  In both Christian and Islamic tradition, this is where Moses broke the first set of laws given by God.  To some believers the second set of laws call the Law of Moses was promulgated from this cliff face to the Host of Israel gathered on the Rahah northward.  Moses must have had a powerful set of lungs.  The Rahah is still called the "Plain of the Promulgation of the Law."

                 Gebel Musa, Mountain of Moses or Mount Sinai

                       The Brow of Musa

     Further west at the margin of the Rahah we were able to see Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha, the Mountain of the Palace of Abbas Pasha.

                                 Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha

     Without getting into the convolutions of pasha successions, let me merely say that Abbas, the grandson as well as the nephew of Mohammed Ali, succeeded to power in Egypt, in late 1848.  The incapacitated Mohammed died in August 1849.
     If the reclusive six year rule of Abbas was frustrating to would be European interlopers wanting to construct the Suez Canal, it was brutal to his subjects who slaved to accomplish his demented undertakings.  To escape the unwanted secularism of Cairo he fled to Sinai.  With slave labor he hacked out a carriage road up the south side of Gebel Musa.  One of the pilgrim trails to the Mount Sinai Summit still uses part of the so-called "Pasha's Road."
     As the project approached the summit, Abbas changed his mind.  Gebel Samr el Tinia, some seven miles to northwest was higher and more isolated, especially from holy pedestrians of non-Islamic bent.  He shifted his hoards of Bedouin Conscripts to the new mountain.  Once again a carriage road was hacked out of the syenite granite all the way to the summit.  Here Abbas built his Qasr, palace, and since that time there is scarce a Badawi in Sinai who would recognize the Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha by the old name, Gebel Samr el Tinia.

Abbas Pasha in Miltary Regalia

     Abbas died late in July of 1854.  It had been an exceptionally hot summer.  The Bedouins said,  "it was because the Devil had been most dilligent in stoking the fires of Hell to receive our khedive."
     The trek continue and we gradually lost sight of the Brow of Musa and the Qasr of Abbas.  Now blowing snow swirled about us making the ride downright uncomfortable.  The lady trekers were anxiously looking forward to the trail's end at the improbable "Blue Mountain" where our Bedouin hosts were preparing a meal of round bread and grilled lamb.
     Blue Mountain?  In Sinai only great distance lends a touch of blue to the gebels.  Mountain colors, close-up range from gray to brown, pink, red and even black, but only blue in the distance.  Through the drifting snow we rode right up to the face of an improbable Blue Mountain.  It was an obvious paint job where a French artist had used thousands of gallons of bright blue paint to cover the brown monolith.

                                     Blue Mountain

      With hot bread, succulent lamb and scalding kardade' tea, we all felt better.  Even so the ladies and most of the men, except three Egyptians male employees of Fulbright and myself, elected to ride the Peugeots back to base.
     The four of us gently forced the herders to give us control of our mounts.  We played Lawrence of Arabia across the eight mile trip back.
     For more about Sinai see Ned Greenwood, The Sinai: A Physical Geography.  In 1999 it was selected for Choice's 35th annual Outstanding Academic Books list.