Ambition and Chaos in Arctic Exploration

You've probably heard of Ernest Shackleton, and his ill-fated Antarctic expedition. The Endurance, the ship on which he and his crew sailed, famously became trapped in ice, sunk, and set the men and their indomitable leader off on an arduous journey to safety and rescue.

But the Shackleton expedition wasn't the only one to meet such a fate, and to become a crucible for leadership. The year before the demise of the Endurance, the Karluk, flagship vessel of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, became icebound and sunk, leaving its crew to trek 80 miles across dangerous ice floes to an island, and its captain to travel 1,000 miles more to obtain rescue for those marooned survivors. 

Buddy Levy shares that compelling story in his new book Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk, and unpacks it for us today on the show. Along the way, he brings out the leadership lessons in planning, maintaining morale, and embodying endurance you can glean from the expedition's two dominant figures: its ostensible leader, who abandoned the ship, and the Karluk's captain, who did all he could to save its shipwrecked survivors.

Resources Related to the Episode

• Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy
• Endurance by Alfred Lansing
• AoM Article: Leadership Lessons from Ernest Shackleton
• AoM Article: What They Left and What They Kept — What an Antarctic Expedition Can Teach You About What’s Truly Valuable
• AoM Article: Alone — Lessons on Solitude From an Antarctic Explorer

Connect With Buddy Levy

• Buddy's Website