A Shackleton Reaches the South Pole
Relative of legendary polar explorer Ernest Shackleton fulfills family dream.
Feb. 9, 2010— -- When Navy Commander Scott Shackleton stepped off a C-130 aircraft and set foot on the South Pole today, he set a family record. His distant relative, the legendary Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, had tried and failed repeatedly to reach the Pole a century ago.
Sir Ernest Shackleton is best known for his horrific journey to lead the stranded crew of his ship, the Endurance, to safety after a failed attempt to cross Antarctica in 1914.
The journey has become the stuff of legend. Shackleton led his men in lifeboats across ice-clogged waters to South Georgia Island -- where they then had to scale the island's snow-capped mountains to reach the safety of a whaling station on the other side of the island.
Scott Shackleton's journey today was less challenging. Modern technology makes Antarctic travel easier. But his journey fulfills the family dream of having a Shackleton reach the South Pole.
A fifth cousin of the great explorer, Cmdr. Shackleton traces his family connection to Yorkshire, England where his great-great-grandfather and Sir Ernest's grandfather were brothers. Since he was a child he admired Sir Ernest and dreamed of following in his footsteps.
This year's Operation Deep Freeze gave Scott, a Navy reservist, his opportunity.
Military Sealift Command conducts the annual resupply mission for the research personnel who live on Antarctica year-round. For the last three weeks, Cmdr. Shackleton had been serving as an operations officer at McMurdo Station, near the Antarctic coast.
Just getting to serve at McMurdo fulfilled a career goal for Cmdr. Shackleton, who said he had kept his "fingers crossed" that he might be selected for one of the handful of seats available on resupply flights from McMurdo Station to the South Pole.
His wish came true.
At McMurdo Station, Scott Shackleton had already reconnected with his famous relative when he visited the hut of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated 1912 expedition. Shackleton had participated in an earlier Scott expedition.
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