Hello from Houston!
As I’m here helping some students prepare a mission to Mars and plan an expedition to the stars, my mind turned to the famous explorer, and personal historical nemesis, Ernest Shackleton.
My obsession with Ernest Shackleton started in a group chat when Jason wrote:
I’m somewhat of an oral Ernest Shackleton.
A particularly odd statement (even by Jason’s standards). I’m still not sure what he means and daren’t speculate or, heaven forbid, ask him to clarify. In a petty effort to try and unpick this bizarre analogy, I read Shackleton’s Wikipedia page. The scant facts I knew about the man, and vague awareness of his exploits by cultural osmosis, did not align with what I read and lead me to declare: Ernest Shackleton is a cat-killing failson.
Look, you signed up to a newsletter called JJW unhinged, so you knew what you were getting yourself into. Don’t blame me for the rant I’m about to go on which comes with the caveats a) I’m not a historian, and b) I only consulted like three sources1.
Here goes.
Ernest Henry Shackleton was born in Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland, on 15 February 1874. His ancestors were part of the English colonisation of Ireland in the 1700s and no doubt did some terrible things to actual Irish people. Ernie’s father Henry was a farmer who was too sick to get into the British Army, his mother Henrietta lived a short life confined to bed with a mystery illness after popping out 10 children (2 boys and 8 girls). More on his brother later.
On a whim, Henry moved the family to Dublin to study medicine and then four years later they were living in London where he supported the family by grifting people as a homoeopathic doctor who also dabbled in gynaecology. On the plus side, Dr Shackleton was renowned for his big bushy beard, which is almost a redeeming factor in my eyes.
Ernie Shacks went to school, but wasn’t particularly good at it. Reports seem to suggest he was that insufferable kid — you know the one — and by the age of 16, Henry was looking at his options for Ernie. He didn’t have the book smarts to follow in his father’s footsteps, they didn’t have the money or the family connections to get into the Royal Navy. So Henry did what any loving father of 10 children struggling to make ends meet does in the late 1800s, he shipped him off to the Merchant Navy.
Nothing against the Merchant Navy — one of my grandfathers was in it — but it didn’t have the cachet of the Royal Navy, pay as well, or do as much cool stuff. But Ernie was keen, so at the tender age of 16 he set sail on one of the last remaining clipper ships traversing the Atlantic to Chile, Brazil and back again to England, rinse repeat.
Once again he comes across as insufferable, with his shipmates reporting he quoted poetry and bible verses to the crew with one of them writing he was “the most pigheaded obstinate boy I’ve ever come across.” He did this for a while, picking up skills and learning how ships and their crews worked and how to influence and, importantly, make friends with people who had rich daddys.
It was through one such connection he got his first real taste of exploration. Shacks heard Robert Falcon Scott was putting together an expedition to Antarctica and he wanted on. It just so happened he had cultivated a close relationship with the son of one of the biggest financial backers of the mission, and through a few letters, telegrams, and sweet talking, Ernie wrangled his way onto the Discovery expedition.
Despite knowing they were going somewhere quite icey, the Discovery didn’t take an Ice Master, a sailor who knows how to navigate berg-laden waters. They also seemingly didn’t do much, if any, thinking about what they’d do or how they’d do it once they got there. For example, they bought skis, but no one bothered to learn how to use them. They also took a bunch of snow dogs but didn’t bother to train them. A dude died because he didn’t have shoes appropriate to icy conditions and fell to his death in the freezing polar water. Seriously.
So they got down to Antarctica, wintered there with the Discovery ice-locked. Shacks kept the crew entertained by starting a newsletter, putting on shows, and other entertainment. When summer rolled around again, RFS said he wanted to take a red hot shot at walking to the south pole.
Our boy Shacks wasn’t RFS’s first choice because he had some form of illness which was apparent to anyone who had spent a year in close quarters with him, but which he had managed to hide from the ships doctor by assiduously avoiding medical tests, something he continued to do throughout his career2. But, once again, he wheedled his way in via his friendships rather than merit.
So RFS, Shacks, and Edward Wilson set off with the dogs. It turns out untrained dogs suck at pulling sleds, doubly so when the people looking after them feed them significantly less than the energy they are expending. On the trek RFS ordered Ernie to kill the dogs which hadn’t already died, around 13.
The team got scurvy because no one thought to bring any lime juice, Shacks was struck especially hard. Because all the dogs were dead, RFS and the others had to pull him on the sled for extended periods of time, something which Ernie said totally didn’t happen. Yeah right. They eventually got to 82° south, which was a record for the time, before turning back. But, even though their health was failing, supplies running low, and Ernie almost dead, they still did some stupid shit like take a significant detour to go pick up some rocks.
By the time they got back to the Discovery, Ernie was a whisker from turning into a human flavoured popsicle. RFS was furious and sent Shacks back to New Zealand to convalesce, and knowing he wouldn’t be welcome back on the Discovery, Ernie returned to England early.
Always on the hunt for a silver lining, Ernie turned this massive loss of face into a positive. People back in the UK were keen to hear about the expedition and with the Discovery literally stuck in the ice because of RFS’s poor planning, Ernie was the defacto spokesperson for the mission. He got almost two whole years to go on a PR blitz: speeches, cocktail parties, interviews, a memoir. Like many grifters, Shacks could turn on the charm and he quickly gained name recognition and the appearance of credibility.
Shacks leveraged this faux credibility hard, eventually schmoozing enough people and conning more into lending him money to buy a ship called the Nimrod so he could do his own Antarctic expedition. Side tale here, Ernie’s brother Frank was a grifter too and finangled his way into an important role which put him in close proximity to the Irish Crown Jewels, which were then mysteriously stolen. No one has ever proven it was Franky baby, but why let that get in the way of a good story.
Just as the Nimrod was about to set sail, Franky got himself into a spot of trouble, and Ernie, being a good brother, wanted to bail him out. The only problem was Ernie didn’t have any money. So he went to his mate’s dad and asked for a £1000 loan (about $AUD286,500 in today’s money!) which he’d totally pay back before Nimrod left, maaan.
Spoilers, he never repaid the loan and he gapped it out of town.
He took the grift ship down under and before hitting Antarctica managed to get £5000 from the Australian government and £1000 off the New Zealand government which also agreed to pay ½ the costs of towing the Nimrod down to Antarctica. He’s got game, that’s for sure.
One last note on the Nimrod expedition before I go full gloss: they took dogs again. At least one died on the journey from England to Antarctica. They also took seven ponies with them, and, you guessed it, a couple of them died almost instantly because someone let them eat volcanic sand. The rest were taken on the trek to the south pole, being shot at various points along the journey, except one pony, named Socks, who slipped down a crevice on Beardmore Glacier.
You can read more about the Nimrod expedition here, but the TLDR is: Shacks failed to get to the south pole stopping 100 miles short. They managed to scrape back to base by eating the dead ponies. The ponies, however, got their revenge: the horse flesh made the men sick.
When he got back to New Zealand, Shacks sent a 2500 word telegram — that’s longer than this newsletter — to the Daily Mail, yes that Daily Mail.
Fast forwarding a lot because this is already too long, Shacks’ conning people into giving him large amounts of money to fund his expeditions (and then never paying them back) became a pattern. What follows are some dot points as filler:
- The British Government bailed Ernie out to the tune of £20,000 and somehow got others to cancel his debts.
- He then proceeded to try out non-exploration grifts including, but not limited to:
- a tobacco company,
- postage stamps (he wasn’t a true philatelist),
- Getting on the lecture circuit, and
- A mine somewhere in Romania.
- Got beaten to the south pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen (who also killed a shit tonne of dogs, but at least had the sense to eat them)
- Skipped out on WWI to go walking across Antarctica, buuuuut got stuck in ice and sunk a ship
And here is where we get to Ernie being Antarctic-blooded cat-killing mother fucker.
The Endurance’s carpenter, Harry McNish, had brought a cat called Mrs Chippy along for the journey. When the ship’s hull was crushed by ice (because Ernie was an idiot) and started taking on water, Shacks made the decision to abandon ship and haul supplies and boats across the ice. Oh and shoot Mrs Chippy (and four more dogs).
Barely surviving this ordeal, and (probably) with Mrs Chippy’s ghost haunting him, he started really getting into his booze by the time he got back to the UK.
- In 1917 he was quickly sent away from England and WWI to South America to try and get Chile and Argentina to fight on the allies side (they didn’t)
- Advised the British military in arctic conditions when the allies tried to support the Whites against the Bolsheviks in 1918 (which is a wild story in and of itself). This obviously failed, in part, because much like Shacks when it came to polar exploration, the British and Americans were not equipped properly.
- He then published a memoir called South, which was a puff piece big upping himself.
By 1920, at age 45, he was sick of the lecture circuit and watching his stupid business ideas fail, he wanted to explore. So he threw together another expedition, quickly pivoting from his original idea of exploring the Arctic (when the Canadian Government with-held funding) to head back down south.
Undeterred by the lived reality of his previous experiences in the Antarctic and seemingly ignoring everything he had learnt from them, he bought a wildly inappropriate boat for polar exploration (called Quest), wracking up shit tonnes more debt. This time they set out to… just sail around the southern continent on his new party boat and maybe check out some islands or something. The aims of the expedition aren’t particularly clear except Shacks wanted to get his ass back on the ice.
Needless to say, this never actually happened.
While Quest was docked in Rio de Janeiro in late 1921, Ernie had a heart attack. He did a Steve Jobs and refused the medical attention which probably would have saved him and set sail for South Georgia. At some point before they got there, the ship’s doctor, Alex Macklin, was summoned to Ernie’s cabin.
Doc Macklin told Ernie he’d been over doing it and to “lead a more regular life”. Shackleton shot back: “You are always wanting me to give up things, what is it I ought to give up?” to which Macklin delivered this zinger: “Chiefly alcohol, Boss.”
Shortly after this pithy exchange, in the early hours of 5 January 1922, Shacks had another heart attack and died.
When news got to Ernie’s wife, Emily, she basically said: IDGAF, just bury him wherever he is. So they chucked him in the ground at Grytviken on South Georgia.
By my calculations, Ernie is responsible for the deaths of
- countless penguins and seals,
- around 70 sled dogs,
- at least 7 ponies,
- 3 humans (indirectly),
- one cat, and
- 1 human (directly, himself).
Back in London, his accountants must’ve been worried, because people started coming in with the IOU slips Ernie had given them, with some estimates reckoning he was in the red for about £2.3 million in today’s money.
Why does this matter?
It doesn’t.
As friend of the newsletter, Shitkicker McGee, said when I told them the outline Shackleton’s life: “whomst amongst us?” And yeah, sure the grifts and foibles of a long-dead white man buried at the arse end of the world probably don’t warrant the previous 2300ish words. But here we are and I will justify this hatred of Shackleton which has become a core part of my personality since Jason mentioned him.
He was a grifter: He never really got anywhere (he certainly never got to the South Pole) because of his talent or passion or expertise. It was all influence and money. He was the original influencer, doing stunts for the early 1900s version of The ‘Gram. He only got on the original mission with Robert Falcon Scott because of his mate’s rich dad. He only got to fund other expeditions because he over-promised and under-delivered, painting magical pictures in the minds of people who gave him money, and then got bail-outs from other people (including the New Zealand, Australian, and British governments).
He was incompetent: Some of the decisions he made beggar belief. Like why would you not train the dogs? Why would you not take appropriate shoes? He knew he was going somewhere icy and cold. There are conditions very close to England which they could have done test runs in. But no, it was all slap-dash, getting people and dogs killed for… nothing 🤷🏼♂️
He killed Mrs Chippy: I choose to believe the cold hearted bastard personally pulled the trigger on Mrs Chippy and feasted on cat blood while Harry McNish sobbed quietly, his tears instantly freezing to create sad little icicles. This is the final nail in the icy coffin dumped on South Georgia for me.
The fact is, Ernest Shackleton was talented at two things: 1) fooling people he was competent and 2) (posthumous) PR.
Neither of these are skills which should be celebrated and all of the above really calls into question the odd place Shacks has in New Zealand (and to a lesser extent British/Australian) culture as a celebrated explorer. At the moment we’re beset by grifters with much less noble aims than discovery, and I can’t help think Ernie helped break the ice for this kind of shitty, dishonest, and dangerous behaviour.
So that’s Ernest Shackleton: grifter, animal murderer, etc. If you’d like to try and make up for Shackleton’s evil, you can go lay flowers at Mrs Chippy’s memorial in Karori Cemetery. It’s even cuter IRL.
Look if you’ve made it this far: thank you, you’re cool (unless it’s Jason who is reading this, fuck you for making me go down this rabbit hole littered with dead dogs).
Stay tuned for more updates about being in the USA when Trump was shot, Houston in general, and Space School in particular.
Stay safe, stay sane
<3
JJW
- Wikipedia Contributors (2018). Ernest Shackleton. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton
Matt Breen (2021). Ernest Shackleton (Parts 1 – 11). [online] Spotify. Available at https://explorerspodcast.com/Ernest-Shackleton/
Isabel, M. (2020). Ernest Shackleton (Little People, Big Dreams). Frances Lincoln Children’s Books. ↩︎ - The technical term for this is “deliciously ironic foreshadowing”. ↩︎
