A more powerful storm may be on the way

'What did I twist?'

Books The Wheel of Time Reading The Wheel of Time: Elayne Always Pays Her Debts and Does Her Duty in Crossroads of Twilight (Part 8) Elayne takes care of business in Caemlyn… By Sylas K Barrett | Published on September 18, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share At the manor of House Matherin, Elayne finds herself eager to get back to Caemlyn. She has been traveling by gateway to various noble households to recruit men to defend against the siege of Caemlyn. Pickings are slim at this manor, as they have been elsewhere, because Lord Aedmun, hearing of Elayne’s claim to the throne, already departed some time ago with his best men, and is on the march somewhere between his home and Caemlyn. Elayne is startled when the maid attending to her suddenly screams, claiming to have seen the ghost of Lord Aedmun’s grandmother. She assures the girl that the dead cannot harm the living, and secretly thinks that she must be some kind of ninny. She is joined by Aviendha, who fusses over her until Elayne replies sarcastically. Thinking of her baby always makes her think of Rand and wonder how he is; he is too far away for her to know much more than that he is alive, and off to the west somewhere. “He is well,” Aviendha said almost as though she could read her mind. They had their own shared sense of one another since their mutual adoption as first-sisters, but it did not go as far as the Warder bond they and Min shared with Rand. “If he allows himself to be killed, I will cut off his ears.” The odd Aiel sense of humor makes Elayne laugh. She agrees that Rand is well and will remain so, but she also knows that he will die eventually—the taint on saidin guarantees it. She schools her features back to Aes Sedai serenity as she is approached by the household manager, Fridwyn Ros. He addresses her as “my Queen” despite the fact that she hasn’t yet won the throne, and apologizes that all the men he has found to go with her are either very young or very old. Still, he guarantees that “they all know which end of a halberd has the point.” Quietly, Aviendha asks Elayne if these excursions are worth it. Elayne explains that her current preparations are not about winning the throne but about what comes after, about letting herself be seen as a Queen calling men to her banner, so that the news will spread to all the remote areas of Andor. “Most Queens in our history spent the first years of their rule gathering the people solidly behind them, Aviendha, and some never did, but harder times than these are coming. I may not have one year before I need every Andoran to stand behind me. I can’t wait until I have the throne. Harder times are coming, and I have to be ready. Andor has to be ready, and I must make it so,” she finished firmly. Proudly, Aviendha declares that she is learning much from Elayne about being a Wise One, and Elayne finds herself blushing. Her emotions have been difficult to control and all over the place from her pregnancy. They ride out to the meadow where they first arrived, and Aviendha embraces saidar. She has been making most of the gateways on their travels, claiming to want the practice, and Elayne wonders if she is also doing it out of a desire to protect Elayne—though Elayne can’t imagine that channeling would be dangerous to her baby. Before Aviendha can begin the weaves, however, their attention is suddenly drawn towards the west, where they can feel so much saidar being channeled that it’s like a blazing beacon. Somehow Elayne knows Rand is there, and she tells Aviendha that they must go to him. Aviendha responds that they know nothing about what is happening, that they could surprise Rand with their arrival and cause him to make a mistake, or to attack them before he realizes who they are. She also admits that she has another reason for staying away: her visions when she went to Rhuidean. There, she experienced all the possible directions of her life. Although it is too much for any one woman to remember, she is often left with impressions and bits of memory that can guide her. Aviendha knows that something bad will happen if they go to Rand now, though she can’t say what. Elayne is forced to consider that, Rhuidean vision or not, Aviendha’s arguments are sound. She declares that Aviendha is much wiser, not to mention braver, than Elayne herself. Aviendha makes the gateway. As they pass through, Elayne ponders over the fact that Rand is the love of her life, but Andor is her duty. They arrive in the Queen’s stableyard, where an area has been marked out for traveling by gateway. Elayne notices that there isn’t a single person channeling saidar in the Palace and assumes that everyone must be distracted by the beacon in the west. Her guards stay vigilant until her nine-woman bodyguard arrives to take their place, walking in a ring around Elayne. Birgitte arrives, feeling irritated and sporting a hangover that Elayne can feel through the bond. She inquires first after Elayne’s health, then reports that something strange is going on with the Aes Sedai, as well as with the Kin and Windfinders, though no one will tell Birgitte what is wrong. As they walk through the halls towards Elayne’s rooms, she explains about the intense amount of channeling to the west. She, Birgitte and Aviendha try to maintain a positive attitude, given there is nothing they can do about it. They spot Vandene, Merilille, Sareitha and Careane in the hall, followed by a respectful Garenia and Kirstian in their novice white. Elayne notices, not for the first time, how thin and gaunt Vandene has become since the murder of her sister. Vandene and the novices pass by, but the other Aes Sedai stop to greet Elayne. Careane suggests that they should be prepared to evacuate, just in case. Merilille timidly suggests that if they must from necessity leave Caemlyn, it would not violate the Bargain with the Atha’an Miere. Sareitha is mostly concerned with making sure the Kin are kept under Aes Sedai control. Elayne reminds them all, firmly, that an Aes Sedai’s job is to soothe other people’s fears, not to spread gossip and panic. She also reminds them of Egwene’s order to remain in Caemlyn and to treat the Kin with every courtesy until they are welcomed back into the White Tower. Talk shifts to making Vandene take her turn at teaching the Windfinders, but Elayne shuts this down just as firmly. They run into Captain Mellar, and Elayne learns from a disapproving Birgitte and an enraptured Sareitha that a hundred of Lord Luan’s men tried to reach the city but were caught by three times as many of Nasin’s men. Mellar led a sortie out to rescue the men, saving eighty of the hundred. The fighting nearly reached the gate he had left open behind him. Mellar is clearly full of himself for the action, but Elayne points out that Lord Luan has not yet declared for Elayne, which means Mellar has brought her eighty men who must now be watched. “Eighty out of a hundred. And how many of hers had he lost? And he had risked Caemlyn doing it, burn him!” She tells Mellar it is now his responsibility to look after these men, and to keep them off the walls and out of trouble. Mellar appears stunned at being taken to task so sternly in front of an audience, and stalks away. Merilille and Careane clearly approve, but Sareitha tries to defend the man. Elayne sends the Aes Sedai away, but is left wondering what they are thinking about, and which one is hiding her guilt over Adeleas. After Elayne’s apartments receive a thorough inspection from her guards, she and Aviendha have baths, though Aviendha is still uncomfortable about using so much water and being attended to by Elayne’s servants. As they wash, Birgitte gives Elayne a report on the merchant trains of food that are being brought into Caemlyn by gateways made by the Windfinders. The Windfinders have also brought the news that High Lord Darlin, who claims to have been left as Steward by the Dragon Reborn, is under siege in the Stone of Tear by nobles who want the Dragon to leave Tear completely. There is still no news of Gawyn, despite the fact that Elayne has sent messengers to the White Tower. She doesn’t blame Gawyn for his support of Elaida, as many sisters had been confused about what was happening, and the younglings could hardly be expected to know more than a sister. She also knows that Gawyn has been caught between his oath to defend the Tower and his love for Egwene, especially given how he has already bent that oath by letting Siuan escape. Elayne is less eager to have Galad home, especially since he is sworn to the Whitecloaks. She has always believed that he resented her, and Gawyn too, but although she has never really been able to love Galad, she does hope that he is well. There are still Aes Sedai coming and going from the Silver Swan, but Elayne is at least confident that they aren’t in Caemlyn to kidnap her. She suspects that they may be sisters who are sitting out the division in the Tower, and worries about what schemes the undeclared sisters might be hatching. Suddenly they can hear the Guardswomen arguing loudly with someone outside in the hall. Zaida and two Windfinders, Chanelle and Shielyn, come into the room, and Zaida informs Elayne that the Mistress of Ships has been killed by the Seanchan. The First Twelve must meet to choose her replacement. Zaida declares her intention to take all the Windfinders with her, and as many Aes Sedai as are available. Elayne has Zaida taken into a sitting room where the two negotiate. Elayne reminds Zaida that the Atha’an Miere were promised twenty teachers, to be selected by the Amyrlin Seat, and that the White Tower will fulfill its obligation properly. However, the use of the Aes Sedai currently in Caemlyn was a temporary situation, a separate bargain from the one made with Nesta din Reas Two Moons. Elayne agrees to let Merilille go with Zaida, since Merilille has already agreed to be one of the teachers. Zaida agrees to return Merilille to Elayne if needed, as long as a replacement is provided. Elayne can sense there’s something else on Zaida’s mind, and eventually the Wavemistress offers to leave a few Windfinders behind. In exchange, she wants Elayne to give the Sea Folk one square mile of good land on the River Erinin. After the two bargain, Elayne is guaranteed nine Windfinders under her command to make gateways and to remain in Caemlyn until Elayne’s crown is secured, while Zaida will have the land she asked for. Oh yes, Elayne, I’m sure that maid is just a silly goose and definitely didn’t see a real ghost as, I don’t know, a prelude to a bubble of evil rising or some other sign of the Dark One’s ever-more-noticeable encroachment upon the world. Sure, sometimes people’s weapons start attacking them, or mists rise from nowhere that are full of monsters that eat people, and you’re continually encountering new kinds of Shadowspawn and ones resistant to channeling, but yeah, that maid is probably just imagining things. This moment won’t come back to haunt you at all. These aren’t the most riveting chapters, I’ll admit, but there is something very thematic about them. Elayne’s trials and struggles aren’t exactly trivial, but they do almost feel mundane compared to much of the action we have been following for the last few books. Most of the people involved in this power struggle don’t know, or at least don’t believe, that Morgase was manipulated by one of the Forsaken; without that detail, this struggle for the throne of Caemlyn is a somewhat ordinary, even expected, political occurrence. While Elayne has certain advantages, such as Traveling, over those queens who won the throne before her, most of her strategizing and political maneuvering in this area would be exactly the same if Morgase’s rule had faltered and ended for more ordinary reasons. Of course, it is also true that Morgase’s rule wouldn’t have faltered in such a way, and Elayne would have had a much easier time securing her succession, if Morgase hadn’t made so many enemies while under Rahvin. It’s interesting to me that Elayne doesn’t think about this more frequently, especially given how difficult it’s been to recruit the larger Houses to follow her. I’m not sure if the subject is too painful to spend much time on, or if she is just trying to be practical and focus on the future she is actually facing, rather than the one she could have had without the Forsaken’s interference. Throughout these chapters, Elayne is continually reminding herself that right now she has to focus on solidifying her claim to the throne, and that her duty to Caemlyn must come before her love for Rand or even her identity as an Aes Sedai, though she has mostly found a way to reconcile the latter. Thus, there is a sort of dichotomy in these chapters, a push and pull, of “normal” political maneuvering and the extraordinary circumstances in which they are occurring. Her recruiting visits to the more distant (and smaller) manors and villages is a perfect example of this collision of ordinary and extraordinary. A ruler calling upon those who owe her allegiance is, of course, expected, as is visiting the more distant parts of her nation to remind them who their queen is and to give that sense of personal attention. Not only does Elayne have the ability to do this in an extraordinary and unprecedented way, via Traveling, but she also has an unprecedented reason to be doing it now, even before she has won the throne. This comes up in the beginning of chapter 10 when she explains to Aviendha the reason behind the visits, saying that nothing that she is doing is going to make a difference in whether or not she secures the throne, but she can’t afford to spend years consolidating Andor behind her once she has won the throne itself. The Last Battle could come at any time, so she needs to be in a strong position basically from the moment she is crowned, both to protect Andor from the coming storm and also to be able to marshal as many forces as possible to join Rand in that fight. We know that the world must be united behind him in order for the forces of Light to have any chance of winning the Last Battle, and you can’t unite the world if the countries can’t even be united within themselves.  It doesn’t help that most countries are being torn apart, rather than brought together, by the fact that the Dragon Reborn has been declared and the Last Battle is near at hand. Tear is already trying to oust Rand’s representative from power, and Cairhien would no doubt do the same if they thought they could get away with it. Several other lands, of course, have been thrown into chaos by the Seanchan. Although not all of this chaos is the work of the Forsaken, they have had a hand in most everything: Rahvin is responsible for the instability in Andor, while Sammael helped facilitate the Shaido’s rampage, both by helping it along and by scattering them across the continent. We know Suroth is a decently high-ranking Darkfriend, and I expect that there’s probably a Forsaken directing her movements; who’s to say that the date of the Return wasn’t chosen by one of the Dark, through some kind of manipulation of people or of the signs that the Seanchan seem to use to direct their lives. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we eventually learned that Masema, too, is being manipulated by the Shadow, and of course we know that the division in the White Tower was mostly orchestrated by Alviarin and the other Black Sisters; Elaida may have been the one to bring the idea of ousting Siuan to Alviarin, but it was Alviarin and her followers who made it possible, and who have been building suspicion between the Ajahs even before Elaida considered trying to take the Amyrlin Seat for herself. I find this all very fascinating, because it isn’t just power and experience that the Forsaken and the forces of the Dark have on their side—it’s also time. They have been working behind the scenes for many years, laying the foundations of destruction that will render the nations incapable of rallying for the last battle, and undermining the Aes Sedai who would be leading in that fight. When I first started reading The Wheel of Time, I never thought that there would be such a short span of time between Rand discovering that he is the Dragon Reborn and the advent of the Last Battle, but Elayne’s point to Aviendha—that she might not even have a year to consolidate her hold on Andor before the Last Battle commences—is a reminder not only of this fact, but also that those who know the Prophecies of the Dragon are likewise aware that there isn’t much time, or at least that there might not be. My spouse, Emmet, has often complained to me about the phenomenon you get in a lot of action films and superhero movies, in which the hero or heroes will have to go somewhere and train to become whatever it is that they are supposed to become, and that this timeframe will be somewhere in the span of weeks or maybe a few months. As a result, the heroes’ goals seem to come magically, without any of the real effort and time and practice that the skills they need require, even if you have super speed and super strength, or you can control metal with your mind, or whatever. That same phenomenon exists here. Rand becomes basically as skilled as a blademaster after training with Lan for a few months, and becomes one officially when he kills Turak only a short time later. He, Elayne, Nynaeve, and Egwene are all so preternaturally gifted in channeling that they can recreate weaves perfectly after only seeing them once. The explanations given for the channeling is that this is just how it works for very powerful channelers, but that feels largely unsatisfactory. The idea that skill in channeling is about being naturally gifted and not about one’s strength and dedication to learning is on par with how our society talks about skill in general, but it isn’t nearly as interesting as showing the hard work that great skills, be they in war, or politics, or art, or anything else, actually takes. I think Jordan is aware, on some level, of how unrealistic the kids’ leveling up is. There are a lot of cheats they get, like the extra memories Mat and Rand have, and the extra weaves the girls learn from Moghedien, and the forcing Egwene endured as a damane and from Siuan’s training. There is nothing wrong with this device, but I do find it very interesting from a sort of meta-narrative perspective, because it suggests to me that the Pattern is directing this rapid leveling-up of these very young people, practically handing them the tools and skills they need to be prepared to face ancient evils that have had, in some cases, thousands of years to prepare, instead of three or four. It also makes me think about what the world will look like if Rand manages to defeat the Dark One and the Light wins the Last Battle. So many things will be different, and it will be like the world takes a huge leap forward in progress. Channeling will look very different, with new weaves for Traveling allowing for communication, travel, and commerce to change drastically as well. There will be male Aes Sedai (or Ahsha’man, or whatever they end up calling themselves once they are allowed to be more than just weapons) as well as female, and the structure of the White Tower, with its knowledge of the Windfinders and connection to the Kin, will look very different. A powerful Aes Sedai will sit openly on the throne of Caemlyn, perhaps also openly wedded to the Dragon Reborn, with a possible Daughter-Heir also of his lineage. Plus, there’s the schools Rand has been founding, which are pushing non-channeling technologies along as well. To get back to the present, it seems clear to me that Elayne is one of the smartest characters in The Wheel of Time. I really enjoyed watching her negotiate with Zaida. Of course, part of the success one achieves in negotiations is down to what one has to bargain. Zaida and Elayne seemed about equally matched in this respect; they both needed something badly, and had something the other needed just as badly. The Sea Folk trading routes might also look very different on the other side of the Last Battle. They already negotiated for these one square mile pieces of land in any of the lands controlled by Rand, and now they have been promised one in Andor, as well. This will probably affect the kinds of things they can store and ship, and the profits they can make, but it will also affect the kind of commercial trade and shipping other nations can engage in. There is a moment when Elayne is considering the sisters staying at the Silver Swan and wondering what schemes they might be hatching. There are two interesting moments in that pondering. The first is when she considers that the sisters are wrong not to choose a side; she believes that they are acting cowardly by waiting to see who prevails rather than doing what they think is right. It is a fair point, in a way, but it is also unfair. As she herself recognizes, many sisters didn’t know or understand what was happening during the coup against Siuan, and couldn’t be expected to, which is why Elayne doesn’t hold Gawyn and the Younglings’s defense of Elaida against them. Many of the sisters who weren’t in the White Tower at the time might still be struggling to understand what happened and why, and what each declared Amyrlin actually stands for. They might be resisting choosing a side because they don’t yet know which side they believe is right. Cadsuane is mentioned in this same paragraph, and she is certainly someone who is doing what she thinks is right. Cadsuane largely seems to be ignoring the division in the White Tower because she has something more important to do, which is to guide and protect Rand, and to teach him what he needs to learn. Once that is accomplished, she may turn her attention to deciding which of the Amyrlins she wants to back—and her backing would have a big effect on who the undecided sisters allied with, although I feel like things might end up having been decided by the time she’s free to think about it. The other thought of Elayne’s that gave me pause is the fact that the Tower isn’t actually divided into two halves but more into thirds—Elaida’s camp, Egwene’s, and the undecided. The actual battle, if Egwene’s siege of Tar Valon comes to that, will be fought between Gareth Bryne’s soldiers and the White Tower’s guards, not between Aes Sedai, but I’ve always thought of Egwene’s Aes Sedai being outnumbered by Elaida’s, not that their numbers were closer to equal. That feels very significant in the struggle between the two. Another really enjoyable thing about this chapter was how much of it was just women working with women. Except for Mellar and a few side characters, all the players in this section are women: the Sea Folk, Elayne’s guards, her Warder and sister. Jordan gets a lot of credit for the female characters he created, which sometimes feels a little overblown to me, but in this instance is entirely fitting. Seeing women in positions of power working with, and occasionally against, each other is a real joy, especially in a book that was published in 2003. Speaking of Mellar, there is a stressful bit of dramatic irony. Elayne seems to think that Mellar is just an idiot who didn’t realize what he was doing when he rescued Luan’s men, but since I know that he’s a Darkfriend, I can’t help but assume that the “mistake” was entirely purposeful. As Elayne recognizes, he was able to kill off some of her good soldiers, present her with another logistical problem to manage when she already has far too many, and leave Caemlyn open to her besiegers in the process. I get that Elayne is using him as a decoy so nobody will suspect that her pregnancy is due to Rand, but between this and the way he behaves towards women, including the Queen’s guards and Elayne’s friends and allies, I’m not sure that protection is worth the trouble he’s caused. Frankly, if it weren’t for the pregnancy, I imagine Elayne would have dismissed him by now, and that just shows that he’s pretty bad at being undercover. I’m not sure how I feel about the suggestion that Birgitte and Elayne’s bond is different because they are the same gender. It fits with the rules of the One Power, I suppose: Balance is created by men and women working together, so links between women are, I guess, unbalanced? However, we’ve seen other kinds of linking, such as all-female circles, and the use of the a’dam, which don’t seem unbalanced or flawed in any way, so I’m not sure why this should be different. It feels a little too convenient as a thematic device, I guess? Aviendha and Elayne’s friendship, on the other hand, is a real joy. I appreciate that their connection has grown far beyond their shared love of Rand. Yes, that is a part of their bond, but although Jordan doesn’t always develop relationships clearly—with a lot of bonding, both platonic and romantic, occurring outside the narration proper—their friendship feels fully realized and complex. The way they teach each other is one of my favorite parts, with each providing experience and wisdom, and each valuing her sister’s contribution. Aviendha is learning a lot about leadership, in particular, while Elayne is adding the Aiel mental discipline and sense of duty to her own. The cultural exchange they are sharing will help each understand the other’s world, and as the Aiel become a part of the wetlands’ story, this will prove both useful and important, I think. I’d almost forgotten about Rhuidean, until Aviendha brought up her experience there. This is another example of how the Pattern is helping to speed-shape our heroes in preparation for the last battle. Aviendha has this instinct-like understanding of her future from the experience, given to her by the Pattern through the Rhuidean ter’angreal. We’ve seen others benefit from such knowledge, including Moiraine, Mat, and even Ingtar, way back in The Great Hunt. I liked having it come up again, though it makes me wonder if any of the other Wise Ones are experiencing similar moments as they navigate the new lands they’re finding themselves in. Do any of the Shaido Wise Ones have a dim memory of where Sevanna’s greed will lead their clan? Do those allied with Rand have instincts about how the Aes Sedai should be handled? Maybe not everyone has as important a memory as Moiraine or Aviendha, but surely some must. I suppose we will have to wait and see. Next week we will cover chapters 13 and 14, finishing up Elayne’s section with the return of Dyelin and with some discoveries about Elayne’s baby and the relationship between channeling and pregnancy. Which… should certainly be interesting. Until then, I wish everyone a very good week![end-mark] The post Reading The Wheel of Time: Elayne Always Pays Her Debts and Does Her Duty in <i>Crossroads of Twilight</i> (Part 8) appeared first on Reactor.

Column Science Fiction Film Club Contact: Looking Outward From Our Pale Blue Dot A film that asks many questions, explores big ideas, and celebrates humanity’s boundless curiosity and capacity for wonder and awe… By Kali Wallace | Published on September 18, 2024 Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures Contact (1997) Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Written by James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg, based on the novel by Carl Sagan and the story by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. Starring Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt, and James Woods. In October of 1980, American PBS stations began airing Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, a science documentary in which astronomer Carl Sagan takes viewers on a wide-ranging tour across time and space. For several years afterward, Cosmos was the most-watched television show in the history of American public television. It was subsequently broadcast in countries around the world and remains one of the most popular science documentaries ever made. Universal appeal was, in fact, the goal of Cosmos, as well as Sagan’s reason for accepting when he was asked to co-write and narrate the series. Cosmos was not the first series to target a wide general audience with educational approaches to scientific topics; the BBC show Horizon and the PBS show Nova were both well-established by 1980. But Cosmos hit differently. It was made with a high budget, a globe-trotting production, state-of-the-art special effects, and enchanting music by Vangelis (who just two years later would compose the soundtrack for Blade Runner). It launched Sagan to international fame as a science superstar. More than that, it provided a contrast to the weary, cynical science skepticism that had been so popular since the end of World War II. As a 1980 Time profile on Sagan puts it, in the previous years, “Science, or more accurately its offshoot technology, was being blamed for much that was wrong with the world: the growing despoliation of the environment, the chemical devastation of the Vietnamese countryside, the spread of nuclear weaponry.” People were ready to feel awe and enthusiasm again, and Cosmos did exactly that. While Cosmos was in production, Sagan began working with his co-writer Ann Druyan on another project. With the support of producer Lynda Obst (who would later produce Interstellar in 2014), they put together a pitch for a fiction movie about a realistic take on humanity’s first contact with an alien civilization. The film went into production at Warner Bros., but the project stalled for several years. Sagan and Druyan’s treatment went through numerous rewrites, some of which sound utterly terrible. Apparently Peter Guber, Obst’s boss, was obsessed with the idea of Dr. Ellie Arroway being a mother and having motherhood be the emotional core of the story. Obst, Sagan, and Druyan were all eye-rollingly displeased with that idea. As Obst said in a 2022 retrospective in Variety, “I think the biggest mistake that the people made was that they didn’t understand that it was possible for a woman to want to give her life to knowledge instead of to a husband and child.” (Hey, sci fi writers: raise your hand if you’ve ever been told that a female character should be a mother to give her character more meaning… *raises hand* Yeah, it still happens.) During that time of Hollywood limbo, Sagan went ahead and wrote the idea as a novel. He also married Ann Druyan; they remained married until his death in 1997. Sagan’s novel Contact was published in 1985, and it would take the better part of a decade, plus some odd twists and turns, for the movie to climb out of development hell. According to Obst, Warner Bros. took Guber off the film and asked Obst to help get it back on track. Even then, the film went through two directors before the third one stuck; the first two were Roland Joffé, who quit, and George Miller, who was fired for, essentially, taking too long. I just want everybody to take a moment to imagine what George Miller’s Contact might have looked like. This would have been George Miller post-The Witches of Eastwick but pre-Babe. That movie exists in some alternate universe. The mind boggles. In this universe, however, Contact did end up in the hands of Robert Zemeckis, the wildly successful director of Romancing the Stone (1984), the Back to the Future trilogy (1985-1990), and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), which is one of the best movies of all time (I will fight anybody who disagrees). Perhaps more relevant, however, is that Zemeckis had just finished directing Forrest Gump (1994), making him the obvious choice for another big, earnest movie about important things happening to impressive Americans. I’m being a bit glib, but in fact I was surprised by how much I liked Contact this time around. I first watched it when I was in college, a year or two after its release, and I thought it was all right but didn’t have much reaction beyond that. When I sat down to watch last week, I remembered all the key plot points and characters, and I assumed my response would be the same as it had been before. But time changes us, and we never really watch the same movie twice. I went in expecting to be mildly interested as I noticed things to write about. My reaction, however, was more similar to Roger Ebert’s 2011 return to the film, in which he updated his initial review and wrote, “Watching the film again after 14 years, I was startled by how bold it is.” Bold is an interesting word to describe a mainstream film from ’90s Hollywood, but I think Ebert was on to something. The film follows Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), a radio astronomer who has dedicated her career to searching for signs of extraterrestrial life. This makes her something of a pariah in the scientific community, as many fellow scientists think there are better uses for both brains and resources. I don’t know enough about the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence to know how realistic that is, although I do know enough about being a woman in the physical sciences to do a full-body shudder every single time a man speaks over her to claim and explain her research. I also know enough about doing scientific research (although it has been a long time) to notice the quaintly dramatized elements of the plot. I find these moments more silly than egregious or troubling, to be honest, because I also know how storytelling works. It’s natural for a film to skip over the dull bits, like writing grants and spending months poring over squiggly graphs of data. Films, unlike real-world science and politics, can ignore fiddly, bureaucratic details in order to be interesting; Contact personifies nearly all of that in the character of David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt). When a story deals with very big and broad themes, it makes sense to have individual characters and specific events represent complex, opposing ideas, even if that means leaving a great deal of nuance by the wayside. When Arroway identifies an extraterrestrial signal from outer space, it immediately blows up into an international sensation. Everybody wants to play a part, from scientists to governments to religious leaders to ordinary people who just want to be part of the experience. Among the major players are Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a Christian philosopher and activist, Michael Kitz (James Woods), head of the U.S. National Security Council, and billionaire S.R. Hadden (John Hurt), who along with Arroway and Drumlin form the lynchpins of the story’s themes. A lot of critical writing about Contact, both contemporary and in retrospect, discuss it as a film about the tension between science and religion. But that’s an incomplete picture: it’s a film about the tensions between science, religion, and politics. Those three cultural axes are naturally simplified for the film, but they are simplified in ways that make sense for telling this story in this medium. Arroway relies on data and evidence, but more than that, she believes that scientific curiosity and discovery are important for their own sake, separate from any obvious benefit or material gain. Joss occupies a rather ill-defined space as a sort of public religious figure whose primary concern is in ensuring that science and technology help rather than harm humanity. Arroway and Joss have multiple discussions about belief and faith and the existence of a deity, but their disagreements are largely amicable, even flirtatious, until the difference between their beliefs become a matter of global politics. Kitz represents political interests and concerns in a very particularly militaristic way. His character brings to mind the saying that if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, only his tool is the defense and national security machine of the United States, and that makes everything look like a threat. (We need not dwell on the matter of that character being played by noted right-wing-conspiracy-peddling nutjob James Woods.) Drumlin, for his part, seems to play all of those angles with relative success, although it still ends very badly for him. And characters like Hadden and the religious terrorist Joseph (Jake Busey, looking like a long-lost Targaryen cousin) represent different extremes. Hadden’s character has aged pretty poorly; the ’90s conception of an eccentric fictional billionaire being secretly helpful has been replaced by the depressing reality of pathetic man-child billionaires throwing public tantrums. But Joseph’s character feels even more relevant today, as anybody with even a passing knowledge of American politics is well aware that destructive, doomsday-craving quasi-Christian extremism is alive and well. There are a lot of characters in Contact, but Arroway is the only one we get to know in any depth, in terms of learning about her past, her family, her beliefs, her motivations. We see many years of her life, from her childhood tragedy all the way through her professional struggles and the complicated consequences of her scientific triumph. Jodie Foster is great (of course) at showing both Arroway’s prickliness and her passion. The rest of the characters are thinner, but I think it’s partly by design. I think we are very much supposed to look at many of the main players as stand-ins for broader swaths of humanity. This approach is not completely successful—it’s a whole lot of white American dudes arguing in rooms, so there is a hard limit to how “universal” any of them can be—but I do think it’s a deliberate storytelling choice. Related to that choice is the film’s emphasis on media coverage of the discovery and subsequent events. We’ve seen this technique before, such as in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Godzilla (1954), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). But it’s more pronounced here, because Contact comes from the era of 24-hour cable news and nonstop punditry; it builds realism for its audience by using numerous snippets of media reports, talk shows, interviews, and speeches from public figures. Real people are all over the film: Larry King, Jay Leno, Geraldine Ferraro, and several CNN reporters. President Bill Clinton also makes a couple of appearances in clips from real speeches that were digitally altered to make it appear as if he was talking about aliens. The first of those scenes, when the president announces the alien signal, is an edited version of President Clinton’s announcement about the famous Martian meteorite ALH84001. The second clip, the one where the president says, “Let us deal with this on the facts,” was taken from a 1994 press conference about Saddam Hussein. The White House was not happy with Contact for using these clips in this manner; they sent a strongly worded letter right after the film opened. There were no legal proceedings or consequences, but the discussion at the time did touch on a lot of issues around a person’s ownership of their own image and how the images of famous people might be used. (Aside: There was a whole ugly legal mess around Contact after the film’s release, but it was about something else. Francis Ford Coppola, in an ill-disguised attempt to legally strongarm Warner Bros. on another matter, filed a lawsuit against the studio and the Sagan estate claiming that he had developed the idea for Contact with Sagan in 1975. Druyan recalls receiving notification of the lawsuit on the day of Sagan’s funeral. The lawsuit and subsequent appeal were ultimately dismissed.) Contact is focused on a character at the very center of the story, one who has more information about the events than the general public. So the news reports aren’t there for the characters to learn vital information, as they are in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but for the audience, to help create an experience that is expansive rather than intimate. The film supplements our perspective on Arroway’s personal experience with direct reference to our own experiences of being captivated observers of world-changing events. It’s a curious approach, reminiscent of what Zemeckis did in Forrest Gump by weaving the story into real historical events. It also has an old-fashioned feel to it—a callback to that certain type of story that is most interested in exploring the wide-ranging implications of a big science fictional idea. When Sagan and Druyan first conceived of the idea for Contact, their goal was to construct a realistic fictional scenario about humanity’s first contact with alien intelligence. The film doesn’t really demand that we relate personally to its characters, even while we find ourselves sympathetic to or critical of their points of view. Instead, it is inviting us to participate in the story as everybody else. The rest of humanity on Earth, the people in the crowd, the ones who aren’t a direct part of the big events and can’t affect their outcome, but are watching it all play out on television without knowing where it will end. Along the way, Contact asks a lot of questions about how humankind goes about its business of living in the world: What is the purpose of science? What responsibilities do we have to be sure our technological progress helps rather than harms? What are the limits of knowledge and faith? How do we make choices that affect the whole world when the world can’t agree on anything? The film certainly has a perspective on most of these topics; it isn’t shy, for example, about emphasizing the difference between faith as a personal experience and religion as a political tool. The fact that the story was conceived in part by a scientist, science communicator, and lifelong advocate for science education is always apparent, even through the filter of Hollywood’s necessary dramatics. Carl Sagan died before the film was finished. He worked on it right up until his death, but he never got to see it. So he never had the chance to say what he thought about it, nor about how the movie’s ending differs from the book’s—the bit about the 18 hours of recorded static is an addition that implies less ambiguity about Arroway’s experience. I think that addition was the right choice for the movie, as it provides us with a satisfying little ah! moment, the sort of conclusion that implies forward momentum rather than a big question mark. As I was watching, I kept thinking about one aspect of the story that’s somewhat rare in science fiction cinema, although it’s more common in sci fi books and television. Sci fi movies in particular tend to be rather skeptical of science and technology, and cynical about what humanity will inevitably do with the things we invent and discover. That wariness is present in Contact, but it’s not the driving force behind the story. The premise is not built on the assumption that humanity can’t handle future discoveries or advancements, even one so astonishing as first contact with an alien civilization. Contact is unusual for a sci fi movie in that it genuinely loves science, and it seems to like humanity pretty well too. Because, sure, fear and distrust and paranoia and greed are all part of humanity—but so too are boundless curiosity, a hunger for knowledge, and a tremendous capacity for wonder and awe. Maybe we can handle it, even if we do make terrible mistakes, even if there are big, scary, strange things out there for us to discover and experience. Maybe we’ll be fine. What do you think of Contact? I haven’t read the book, but I’m sure some of you have. What do you think of the differences? And would you get into the machine, even knowing there was a chance you might never come back? Next week: Let’s head into… someplace, to look for… something… somehow. It’s time for Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Watch it on Max, Criterion, Amazon, or Apple.[end-mark] The post <i>Contact</i>: Looking Outward From Our Pale Blue Dot appeared first on Reactor.

Captain Sir John Franklin was both a highly regarded and popular naval officer to his contemporaries. A veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar, a young officer in the first ship to circumnavigate Australia, the discoverer and surveyor of the south-western end of the hoped-for North-West Passage, and Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land where he was widely praised for his humane treatment of both the settlers and convicts. He was known as ‘The man who ate his boots’ after surviving his crossings of northern Canada, and his ship HMS Rainbow was known as ‘Franklin’s Paradise’ when he refused to inflict flogging as a punishment. Until the tragedy of Captain Scott, Franklin was always the exemplar of polar exploration despite his expedition’s tragic end. Daguerreotype photograph of Franklin taken in 1845, prior to the expedition’s departure. He is wearing the 1843–1846 pattern Royal Navy undress tailcoat with cocked hat. The expedition When the Admiralty decided to mount a sea-borne expedition to discover the North-West Passage in 1845, the 59-year-old Franklin requested that his name be considered to lead the enterprise. At first, the Admiralty were reluctant to comply due to his age, but his fellow officers with polar experience, including such illustrious names as John and James Ross, William Parry, Frederick Beechey, and George Back, supported Franklin and he was eventually selected. The expedition was to take part with HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, two especially adapted and strongly built former bomb vessels in which much polar experience had already been obtained. Fitted with former railway locomotives as additional sources of power, they also had the ship’s screws and rudders designed so that they could be lifted clear of the water if they were threatened by ice. Several of the officers had polar experience, and the ship’s companies were all volunteers. The expedition sailed on 19 May 1845, calling at Stromness on Orkney, and at islands in West Greenland’s Disko Bay. After exchanging signals with two whaling vessels in Baffin Bay, Franklin, his men, and his ships disappeared after heading towards Lancaster Sound. Urged on by Jane, Lady Franklin, in 1848 the Admiralty and the American Navy sent out search expeditions. The search ships entered Lancaster Sound and probed westwards along the Parry Channel and the graves of three of Franklin’s men were found on Beechey Island off the northern shore of the Channel. The Arctic Council planning a search for Sir John Franklin by Stephen Pearce, 1851. Left to right are: George Back, William Edward Parry, Edward Bird, James Clark Ross, Francis Beaufort (seated), John Barrow Jnr, Edward Sabine, William Alexander Baillie Hamilton, John Richardson and Frederick William Beechey. Uncovering evidence Eventually, in 1859, a search expedition under the command of Captain Francis McClintock found the evidence for which they had all been searching. A ship’s boat along with skeletons and other remains were discovered on the south-western coast of King William Island, an island at the southern end of Peel Sound. Of even greater importance, McClintock’s deputy, Lieutenant William Hobson, found a message in a cairn on the north-western shore of the island. William Hobson and his men finding the cairn with the “Victory Point” note, Back Bay, King William Island, May 1859. The note explained that Franklin’s ships had been deserted after two winters locked in the ice ‘5 leagues NNW’ of the landing site. Franklin had died in June, 1847, and the survivors landed on King William Island in the hope of making their way overland to the south. None were to survive the journey. In the meantime, a Hudson’s Bay Company employee, John Rae, return to England with artefacts from Franklin’s expedition he had obtained from the local Inuit. He also brought with him tales of cannibalism he claimed to have heard from the same Inuit, claims that were utterly rejected by all those who had known Franklin and his men. None of the Inuit had visited the site of the Franklin tragedy and none would escort Rae to the site. Despite being just a few days march away – and ignoring rumours that his own men had heard that there were survivors of the expedition still alive – Rae raced across the Atlantic claiming that he did not know of any reward for finding evidence of the Franklin expedition and, furthermore, claiming that he had discovered the North-West Passage. A revival of interest The story of the Franklin expedition gradually faded into history only to be brought back into the glare of harsh publicity when a 1984-86 Canadian expedition led by academics disinterred the bodies on Beechey Island. To a blaze of media attention, and the publication of a best-selling book, it was claimed that an examination of the dead (and by extension, all the seamen on the expedition) had revealed that they had died of lead poisoning. Observations that such an idea was manifestly nonsense were totally ignored and dismissed out of hand. It was this reaction that led me to mount four expeditions to King William Island in order to make my own search, and to come to my own conclusions. A satellite image of King William Island. During 1992-93 other academic-led Canadian expeditions visited Erebus Bay, the site where McClintock had discovered the ship’s boat. A large number of human bones were found in a cairn where they had been deposited by an 1878 American expedition. Much to the delight of the expedition leaders, the bones not only ‘confirmed’ the lead-poisoning claim, but ‘cut marks’ on some of the bones equally confirmed the Inuit tales spread by Rae. Once again, any opposition to the expedition’s conclusions were swept aside or ignored. In a bid to set the cannibalism concept in concrete, in 2015, academics decided that some of the bones had been ‘pot polished’ as the devourers of their messmates boiled the bones in order to obtain the marrow contained therein. In 2006, the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, decided that scientists employed by the government should not be able to communicate directly with the media or with the public. In addition, all government documentation and other data should be either destroyed or held securely against publication. Scientific research was cut dramatically and scientists were dismissed in their hundreds. Research facilities and government libraries were closed down. Then, also in 2006, a Bahamas-flagged ocean liner sailed through the North-West Passage and, the following year, the Russians made a claim to the North Pole and other Arctic areas based on ‘a broad range of scientific data collected over many years of Arctic exploration’, although actually based on little more than a soil sample taken from the seafloor beneath the Pole and the dropping of a titanium Russian flag in the same place. The quest for HMS Erebus and HMS Terror By 2013, the Prime Minister began to take a political interest in the sovereignty of the Arctic. That year, a government-sponsored underwater expedition was mounted to examine the wreck of HMS Investigator, a Franklin search ship that had been abandoned by Commander Robert McClure when he led his surviving men on foot and sledge through the Passage. The ship was easily found (it had been spotted from the air many years earlier). This led to a number of expeditions, both government sponsored and privately funded, in search of Franklin’s lost ships. Again, no government employee was allowed to contact the media – all such contact had to be made through authorised government sources, closely supervised by a small coterie of senior Government officials. The only exception to this ruling was the Chairman and former President of the Canadian Royal Geographical Society, the same individual who wrote the book about the early 1980s expeditions to Beechey Island (although he had never been on the expedition), and a close friend of the Prime Minister. When the find was publicly announced (by the Prime Minister) there was worldwide recognition of a great achievement. Medals were invented and awarded – even to those who never came anywhere near the discoveries. Harper appearing at a gala at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to celebrate the discovery of HMS Erebus, one of two ships wrecked during John Franklin’s lost expedition (Credit: Alex Guibord / CC). The Canadian Arctic was secure in the hands of its proper owners – the Canadian people. Sovereignty was established, and an election was in the offing. Then a rather strange thing happened. Academics and, at least one ‘celebrity’ decided that the success had to be underlined – not to further emphasise the Canadian achievements (which no-one was challenging) but by launching a sustained attack upon Franklin, the Royal Navy, and the English. An internationally renowned Canadian novelist – not known for her polar expertise – described Franklin as ‘a dope’. An American professor described the Franklin expedition as ‘a failed British expedition whose architects sought to demonstrate the superiority of British science over Inuit knowledge.’ A professor who took part in the Erebus Bay expedition declared that ‘the question of lead poisoning is settled.’ Another author trumpeted that Franklin’s widow mounted ‘a smear campaign’ against Rae ‘supported by racist writing from the likes of Charles Dickens’. Refuting the cannibalism story There were many more attacks on Franklin and his men, all of which ignored the multitude of questions that need answers. For example, from 1984 to 2018, despite the evidence against lead poisoning, the matter was spread far and wide and was considered unanswerable – yet, in 2018 a genuine study using the simple method of comparison concluded that their finding ‘…did not support the hypothesis that the Franklin sailors were exposed to an unusually high level of Pb for the time period’. On the question of cannibalism, the academics were adamant that the ‘cut marks’ on the bones at Erebus Bay were unchallengeable proof that the British seamen ate each other. Their reason for this nonsense was that the Inuit were ‘a stone age people’ who did not have access to metal. In fact, the local tribe had already achieved a reputation for aggressively driving away other tribes using weapons made from a mountain of metal that Captain John Ross had left on their doorstep. Evidence that pointed to female and young male bones amongst those found at Erebus Bay was, at first, wholly misinterpreted, and then disregarded. As for the ‘pot polishing’ claim, it was quietly forgotten that bones left on the rough, gritty surface of the Arctic are subjected over many years to the strong winds that not only throw more grit at them, but are also rolled or are scraped along the ground. During his investigations into the idea that the Inuit attacked the seamen, I was approached by a well educated Inuit woman who bluntly told him that ‘My people killed your people.’ Nevertheless, a statue has been erected to John Rae on Orkney. John Rae, painting by Stephen Pearce. The locating of the ships was a magnificent achievement, but there were some questions, nevertheless, to be answered. How, for example, could a heavy ship’s fitting detach itself from a sunken ship, roll along the sea bottom, up a beach slope, and throw itself into the shingle to be found by accident? How could a diver by the stern of a sunken ship indicate in detail the unique arrangements of the ship’s propeller and rudder when photographs of the vessel clearly show that the stern had been completely destroyed? Why is the size and design of the ship’s bell completely against the ‘custom of the Service?’ And why has the ship’s wheel shrunk from the large, double, version seen in the photograph before the expedition sailed, to the small version found that would have been more suitable for a sailing yacht? How did the masts of one of the ships remain clear of the water long enough for a 21st-century Inuit to spot them, yet not be noticed by professional seamen like McClintock and others who walked along the same shore – then to have disappeared when the man returned just a few days later? All these questions and many more, based on my thirty-six years’ service in the Royal Navy and four expeditions to walk across the ice and land of the scene of the tragedy, are explored in No Earthly Pole. E. C. Coleman served in the Royal Navy for 36 years, which included time on an aircraft carrier, a submarine, and Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory. During that time he mounted four Arctic expeditions in search of evidence from the 1845 Sir John Franklin Expedition. He has written many books on naval, polar, medieval and Victorian subjects and contributed the foreword to two volumes of Captain Scott’s diaries. He lives in Lincolnshire. No Earthly Pole will be published on 15 September 2020, by Amberely Publishing

For centuries humankind has explored ‘unknown’ parts of the world, charting lands, marking new towns and cities and learning more about the world’s geology and geography. The polar regions of the Arctic and Antarctica are some of the most dangerous and inhospitable places on Earth. Several people have undertaken voyages and expeditions to them, hoping to better understand the world’s polar regions, to find the Northwest Passage or to be the first to reach the North or South Poles.  These people achieved incredible feats of human endurance and bravery. Here are 10 key figures in the history of polar exploration. 1. Erik the Red (950-1003)  Born in Rogaland, Norway, in 950 AD, Erik the Red (red for the colour of his hair and beard) was an explorer. Erik’s father was exiled from Norway when Erik was 10. They sailed west and settled in Iceland. Following in his father’s footsteps, Erik was exiled from Iceland. This led him to explore and settle in Greenland.  2. Sir John Franklin (1786-1847)  Born in 1786, Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. The early 19th century saw a rise in Arctic exploration with many trying to find the Northwest Passage, the fabled sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via the Arctic Ocean. Franklin undertook three voyages to the Arctic with his most famous being his third and final expedition.   In 1845, commanding Terror and Erebus, Franklin set out on his final voyage to the Arctic. His ships became trapped in the ice off King William Island and his entire crew of 129 men perished.     3. Sir James Clark Ross (1800-1862)  Sir James Clark Ross was a Royal Navy officer who undertook several expeditions to the Arctic. His first voyage to the Arctic was as part of his uncle, Sir John Ross’s, expedition in search of the Northwest Passage in 1818. He subsequently undertook 4 expeditions under the command of Sir William Parry. In 1831, Ross located the position of the North Magnetic Pole.    Between 1839-1843, Ross commanded an expedition to chart the Antarctic coastline. HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were used on the voyage and several discoveries were made including the volcanoes Terror and Erebus, James Ross Island and the Ross Sea.   For his work in enhancing our geographical knowledge of the polar regions, Ross was knighted, awarded the Grande Médaille d’Or des Explorations and elected to the Royal Society.   HMS Erebus and Terror in the Antarctic by John Wilson CarmichaelImage Credit: Royal Museums Greenwich, James Wilson Carmichael, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 4. Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930)  Fridtjof Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat and humanitarian. In 1888, Nansen undertook the first crossing of Greenland’s interior. His team used cross-country skis in order to complete this expedition.   Five years later, Nansen undertook an expedition to reach the North Pole. With a crew of 12, Nansen chartered the Fram and sailed from Bergen on 2 July 1893. Icy waters around the Arctic slowed the Fram down. Nansen made the decision to leave the ship. Accompanied by dog-driving expert Hjalmar Johansen, the crew made their way across land to the pole. Nansen did not reach the pole but he did reach a record northern latitude.  5. Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912)  Scott was one of the most influential, and arguably most tragic, figures of the ‘heroic age of Antarctic exploration’. The heroic age was a period of history from the end of the 19th century through to 1921 that saw several international efforts to explore Antarctica and reach the South Pole. This age was sparked by whaling ships travelling to Antarctica, rather than the overfished Arctic, and a paper by John Murray calling for a renewal of Antarctic exploration.  Scott undertook two expeditions to the Antarctic. For his first expedition in 1901, Scott commanded the purpose-built RRS Discovery. The Discovery Expedition was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since Ross, and it led to several discoveries including the Cape Crozier emperor penguin colony and the Polar Plateau (where the South Pole is located).   His final expedition, the Terra Nova Expedition, was an attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole. Though they reached the pole, they had been beaten by Roald Amundsen. Scott and his party perished on their return journey. Ship Discovery, and the two relief ships, Morning and Terra Nova, in Antarctica during the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1904.Image Credit: Alexander Turnbull National Library, Unknown Photographer, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons 6. Roald Amundsen (1872-1928)  As a child, Roald Amundsen fervently read Franklin’s accounts of Arctic expeditions and was fascinated by the polar regions. In 1903, Amundsen undertook an expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage. Amundsen used a small fishing vessel, Gjøa, and a crew of 6, which made it easier to navigate through the Passage. He spoke to locals and learnt Arctic survival skills, including the use of sled dogs and wearing animal fur. He is perhaps most well known for being the first to lead a team to reach the South Pole, beating Scott by 5 weeks. His successful expedition is often attributed to his careful planning, appropriate clothing and equipment, an understanding of sled dogs and a singular purpose – to reach the South Pole.   To add to his impressive CV, Amundsen became the first man to cross the Arctic in an airship and reach the North Pole. Whilst on a rescue mission, Amundsen and his plane disappeared. His body was never found. Roald Amundsen, 1925.Image Credit: Preus Museum Anders Beer Wilse, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons 7. Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922)  Sir Ernest Shackleton was born in 1874 in County Kildare, Ireland. His family moved to London when he was 6. He was uninterested in school but read extensively about travel, exploration and geography. Leaving school at 16, Shackleton joined “before the mast” (an apprentice or ordinary seaman on a sailing ship) on the ship Hoghton Tower.   After several years at sea, Shackleton joined Scott’s Discovery Expedition. Many of the crew were sick during the expedition (scurvy, frostbite), and Shackleton was eventually dismissed for ill-health. Shackleton was determined to return to Antarctica to prove himself. The Nimrod Expedition led to Shackleton reaching the farthest southern latitude and raised his profile as a polar explorer.   The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, led by Shackleton, was undertaken in 1911 with the aim of crossing Antarctica. Though the expedition failed in its aims, it is perhaps best known for the incredible feats of human endurance, leadership and courage it witnessed. Shackleton’s vessel, Endurance, sank on the trip, leaving the crew stranded on the ice. It was rediscovered 107 years later, in March 2022. Shackleton led his men to Elephant Island where he and 5 others undertook an 800-mile journey to the James Caird to then mount a rescue mission for the rest of his crew. All 28 survived. Shackleton’s final expedition to Antarctica took place in 1921. Shackleton had a heart attack aboard his ship Quest and died. He was buried in Grytviken, South Georgia.   8. Robert Peary (1881-1911)  Robert Peary was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy. Peary’s first visit to the Arctic took place in 1886 when he attempted, unsuccessfully, to cross Greenland. In 1891, Peary undertook an expedition to Greenland to determine if it is an island or peninsula of the North Pole. Peary’s wife Josephine accompanied him, making her the first woman on an Arctic expedition.   Peary set a new farthest north record and in 1909 claimed to be the first man to reach the North Pole. His claim has been disputed with some claiming he missed the pole and explorer Cook claiming he reached the pole in 1908.  Amundsen’s account of reaching the North Pole in 1926 is the first to be verified.   9. Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008)  One of the most famous adventurers and explorers of the 20th century was Sir Edmund Hillary. Born in New Zealand in 1919, Hillary became interested in hiking and mountain climbing at school. He completed his first major climb, Mount Ollivier, in 1939.   In 1951, Hillary joined the British reconnaissance expedition of Everest. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first recorded climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest.   Hillary formed part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1958, leading the New Zealand section. His team were the first to reach the South Pole since Amundsen and Scott. In 1985, Hillary landed at the North Pole. This meant that Hillary was the first man to stand at both poles and reach the summit of Everest.   10. Ann Bancroft (1955-present) Ann Bancroft is an American adventurer, author and teacher. She is passionate about the outdoors, the wilderness and exploration and has undertaken expeditions on the Ganges River and Greenland.  In 1986, as part of the Will Steger International North Pole Expedition, Bancroft became the first woman to reach the North Pole on foot and by sled. 5 years later, she led the first all-female expedition to the South Pole. Passionate about the effect global warming is having on the polar regions, Bancroft and Liv Arnesen became the first women to ski across Antarctica to raise awareness about climate change. Read more about the discovery of Endurance. Explore the history of Shackleton and the Age of Exploration. Visit the official Endurance22 website.

The ‘discovery’ of America by Europeans in 1492 ushered in an age of discovery that would last until the early 20th century. Men (and women) raced to explore every inch of the globe, competing with one another to sail further than ever before into the unknown, mapping the world in greater detail. The so-called ‘heroic age of Antarctic exploration’ began in the late 19th century and finished around the same time as the end of World War One: 17 different expeditions from 10 different countries launched Antarctic expeditions with different aims and varying levels of success. But exactly what was behind this final drive to reach the furthest limits of the southern hemisphere? Exploration The precursor to the heroic age of exploration, often referred to as simply the ‘age of exploration’, peaked in the 17th and 18th centuries. It saw men like Captain Cook map much of the Southern Hemisphere, bringing their findings back to Europe and changing Europeans’ understanding of global geography. A 1651 approximation of the South Pole on a map. The existence of the North Pole had long been known, but Cook was the first European to sail into the Antarctic Circle and hypothesise that there must be a huge landmass of ice somewhere in Earth’s southernmost reaches. By the early 19th century, there was a growing interest in exploring the South Pole, not least for economic purposes as sealers and whalers hoped to access a new, previously untapped population. However, icy seas and a lack of success meant many lost interest in reaching the South Pole, instead turning their interests northwards, attempting instead to discover a Northwest Passage and map the polar ice cap instead. After several failures on this front, slowly attention began to be refocused on the Antarctic: expeditions set off from the early 1890s, and the British (along with Australia and New Zealand) pioneered many of these expeditions. Antarctic success? By the late 1890s, Antarctica had captured the public’s imagination: the race was on to discover this enormous continent. Over the following two decades, expeditions competed to set the new record of making it the furthest distance south, with the ultimate aim of being the first to reach the South Pole itself. The Antarctic was a steamship built in Drammen, Norway in 1871. She was used on several research expeditions to the Arctic region and to Antarctica through 1898-1903. In 1895 the first confirmed landing on the mainland of Antarctica was made from this ship.Image Credit: Public Domain In 1907, Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition became the first to reach the Magnetic South Pole, and in 1911, Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole itself, 6 weeks ahead of Robert Scott, his competition. However, the discovery of the pole was not the end of Antarctic exploration: understanding the geography of the continent, including traversing, mapping and recording it, was still viewed as important, and there were several subsequent expeditions to do just that. Fraught with danger Technology in the early 20th century was far from what it is today. Polar exploration was fraught with danger, not least from frostbite, snowblindness, crevasses and icy seas. Malnutrition and starvation also could begin to set in: whilst scurvy (a disease caused by a deficiency in vitamin C) had been identified and understood, many polar explorers perished from beriberi (a vitamin deficiency) and starvation. @historyhit How cool is this! ❄️ ? ? #Endurance22 #learnontiktok #history #historytok #shackleton #historyhit ♬ Pirates Of The Time Being NoMel – MusicBox Equipment was somewhat rudimentary: men copied Inuit techniques, using the hides and furs of animals like seals and reindeer to protect them from the worst of the cold, but when wet they were extremely heavy and uncomfortable. Canvas was used to keep out wind and water, but it was also extremely heavy. Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen saw success on polar expeditions partly due to his use of dogs to pull sleds: British teams often preferred to rely solely on manpower, which slowed them down and made life more difficult. Scott’s failed Antarctic expedition of 1910-1913, for example, planned to cover 1,800 miles in 4 months, which breaks down to roughly 15 miles a day in unforgiving terrain. Many of those who set out on these expeditions knew they may well not make it home. Roald Amundsen, 1925Image Credit: Preus Museum Anders Beer Wilse, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons A heroic age? Antarctic exploration was fraught with perils. From glaciers and crevasses to ships getting stuck in the ice and polar storms, these journeys were dangerous and potentially deadly. Explorers typically had no method of communicating with the outside world and used equipment which was rarely suited to the Antarctic climate. As such, these expeditions – and those who embarked on them – have often been described as ‘heroic’. But not everyone agrees with this assessment. Many contemporaries of the heroic age of exploration cited the recklessness of these expeditions, and historians have debated the merits of their efforts. Either way, whether heroic or foolish, 20th-century polar explorers undoubtedly achieved some remarkable feats of survival and endurance. In recent years, people have tried to recreate some of the most famous Antarctic expeditions, and even with the benefit of hindsight and modern technologies, they have often struggled to complete the same journeys these men did. Read more about the discovery of Endurance. Explore the history of Shackleton and the Age of Exploration. Visit the official Endurance22 website.

History Hit and media network Little Dot Studios are the exclusive media partners of a new expedition to find, film and document one of the last great lost shipwrecks of history: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance. The expedition, which marks the centenary of the death of the legendary explorer, will be the most ambitious broadcasting project ever undertaken from the ice of the Weddell Sea. It will set off from Cape Town in February to Antarctica, where the wreck of the Endurance has remained for over a century, lying at a depth of approximately 3500m in ice-cold seas. The expedition has been organised by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust.   Onboard the South African icebreaker Agulhas II will be a crew of scientists and archaeologists alongside a team of highly experienced extreme environment filmmakers, led by History Hit Co-Founder and Creative Director Dan Snow, who will document events in real time. South African icebreaking polar supply and research ship S. A. Agulhas II – which will be used during the Endurance 22 Expedition – anchored in King Edward Cove, South Georgia.Image Credit: George Gittins / Alamy Stock Photo Dan Snow said, “From the day I started History Hit, I knew this day would come. The hunt for Shackleton’s wreck will be the biggest story in the world of history in 2022. As the partner broadcaster we will be able to reach tens of millions of history fans all over the world, in real time. We are able to deploy some of the world’s biggest history podcasts, YouTube channels, Facebook pages and TikTok accounts to reach a massive number of history lovers. We are going to tell the story of Shackleton, and this expedition to find his lost ship, like never before. Live streaming and podcasting from ice camps, recording a vast amount of content that will live online and be accessible for generations to come. It’s a dream come true.”  Dan Snow announced the expedition this week whilst standing on the deck of Shackleton’s first Antarctic ship — the RRS Discovery, now based in Dundee. Ernest Shackleton’s first Antarctic ship, the RSS Discovery, in Dundee, Scotland.Image Credit: Dan Snow History Hit and Little Dot Studios will produce a range of content covering the setting up of the expedition, the voyage and search itself, as well as the history, science, and other themes that connect to the wider mission. The content will be distributed to millions of subscribers across History Hit TV, HistoryHit.com, and History Hit’s podcast network and social channels, together with Little Dot Studios’ network of owned and operated digital and social media accounts, including Timeline World History, Spark and Real Stories.   Endurance left South Georgia for Antarctica on 5 December 1914, carrying 27 men with the goal of reaching the South Pole and ultimately crossing the continent. However, when nearing Antarctica the ship became trapped in pack ice and the crew were forced to spend the winter in the frozen landscape. Read more about their epic journey and one of history’s greatest stories here. The crew of Shackleton’s Endurance play football on the ice of the Weddell Sea, with the trapped vessel in the background.Image Credit: Royal Geographical Society / Alamy Stock Photo

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, strings of explorers ventured to the world’s most extreme regions in search of glory, knowledge and adventure. For many, the ultimate aim was to reach the North or South Poles, or to discover the Northwest Passage, a fabled Arctic sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. But the stories of triumphant journeys to the world’s final frontiers are also often stories of hardships, struggle and death. For every polar explorer who made it out alive, there are dozens more that succumbed to starvation, drowning, mutiny, frosty temperatures and the polar wasteland. From the mysterious disappearance of the Franklin expedition to S. A. Andrée’s disastrous attempt to reach the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon, here are 5 polar expeditions that ended in tragedy. 1. The Franklin Expedition (1845-1846) Before the days of the Panama Canal, European explorers raced to discover the Northwest passage, a theorised route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans passing through the Arctic Ocean above Canada. One such explorer was Sir John Franklin. In May 1845, the Franklin Expedition set out from England on an expedition to search for the passage. His fleet comprised two vessels, the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus, and some 129 men. Neither vessel nor any of the men survived. Franklin himself is known to have died in June 1947, but some of the crew remained alive until April 1848. An 1848 search party discovered the graves of three of Franklin’s men on Beechey Island. A later expedition, in 1859, found further remains on King William Island. The exact details of the Franklin Expedition’s demise are contested, though it’s thought that scurvy and malnutrition played a hand in some of the men’s deaths. Later analysis of the bones of some of Franklin’s men revealed evidence of cannibalism. In 2014, the wreck of the HMS Erebus was discovered in Canada’s Queen Maud Gulf. The HMS Terror was found at the bottom of the same body of water in 2016. 2. The Polaris Expedition (1871-1873) The Polaris Expedition of 1871, led by American explorer Charles Francis Hall, hoped to be the first to reach the North Pole. The group set off on the vessel Polaris from New York bound for the Arctic, but rifts within the team quickly emerged. The party made it as far as northern Greenland when the harsh winter delayed their journey further north. There, tensions mounted as members of the crew began to question Hall’s leadership. Though Hall was a seasoned explorer by this point, he had no experience as a leader. The expedition’s scientist Emil Bessels and meteorologist Frederick Meyer soon turned on Hall, defying his authority. Suddenly, Hall fell ill, a sickness he responded to by accusing Bessels of poisoning him. Hall died soon after. The surviving men embarked on a treacherous return journey south, which saw them split up, drift on an ice floe, wreck the Polaris on the shores of Greenland and eventually be rescued after a bitter winter. Hall’s body was discovered in 1968. Upon examination, experts concluded he had ingested large quantities of arsenic before his death, possibly suggesting that Hall’s fears of a poisoning had been well-founded. 3. The Jeannette Expedition (1879-1881) The USS Jeanette departed from San Francisco in July 1879, carrying a party of men attempting to make the first-ever successful journey to the North Pole. In September of that year, the vessel became trapped in sea ice. The ship remained wedged for nearly two years before eventually sinking in June 1881. The ship’s crew were left stranded on the ice, nearly 500 miles away from the Siberian mainland. They set off across the frosty wasteland on sleds, towing two smaller vessels which they eventually deployed to carry them to the shores of northern Russia. Of the 33 men that departed with the Jeanette, just 13 made it back alive. 20 men died on the journey to North Bulun, a Russian settlement where the survivors eventually found refuge. 4. S. A. Andrée Expedition (1897) The Andree Expedition’s crashed hydrogen balloon, photographed by expedition member Nils Strindberg. In 1897, the Swedish aeronaut Solomon August Andrée attempted to fly to the North Pole from the Svalbard archipelago in a hydrogen balloon. The balloon remained in the air for more than 10 hours without descending. After that point, the balloon suffered several scrapes and collisions, enduring roughly 41 sleepless hours of intermittent air time and collisions with the Arctic surface. Eventually, the craft landed safely and the team were forced to make the return journey on the ground. More an aviator than a Polar explorer or navigator, Andrée was ill-prepared for traversing the Arctic terrain. His sled was ineffective, food supplies minimal and his warm clothing insubstantial. More than two months of icy travel later, after setting up camp on a drifting ice floe, Andrée and his two companions arrived at the shores of White Island, also known as Kvitoya, east of Svalbard. Within two weeks, all three men were dead – possibly killed by parasites in the polar bears they had been hunting and eating. The bodies of Andrée and his companions were found more than three decades later, in 1930, by a Norwegian expedition. Amongst the recovered supplies were some rolls of photographic film, the frames of which were later processed, sharing Andrée’s story with the world. 5. The Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914) By 1910, Australian academic Douglas Mawson had built up a reputation as a fearless and reliable polar explorer. So much so that he was invited to join Captain Robert Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition of 1910-1913. Mawson rejected the invite, however, and embarked on his own polar expedition in 1911. Mawson took a team to an inhospitable and remote portion of Antarctica, where they mapped the land, investigated species and performed a number of successful scientific studies. Things took a turn for the worse when Mawson led a small party on a trip away from base camp. On 10 November 1912, Mawson set off into Antarctica with 16 dogs and two companions, Xavier Mertz and Belgrave Ninnis. Some weeks into the trip, Ninnis fell into a crevasse and died. He took a sled and most of the group’s food supply with him, forcing Mawson and Mertz to eat their dogs to survive. Mertz eventually died, too. Mawson walked alone for 32 days straight across the Antarctic wilderness. After travelling roughly 100 miles on foot, he arrived back at base camp, having torn the soles of his feet off and in a terrible state of health. Read more about the discovery of Endurance. Explore the history of Shackleton and the Age of Exploration. Visit the official Endurance22 website.

The heroic age of Antarctic exploration had many facets to it, but ultimately, one of the biggest prizes was to become the first person to reach the South Pole. Those who were the first would achieve glory and have their names cemented in the history books: those who failed risked losing their lives in their attempt. Despite the danger, it was a glittering enough prize to tempt many. In 1912, two of the biggest names in polar exploration, Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen, launched competing expeditions in their race to reach the South Pole. One would end in triumph, the other in tragedy. Here is the story of Scott and Amundsen’s race to the South Pole and its legacy. Captain Robert Scott Beginning his career in the Royal Navy, Robert Falcon Scott was appointed leader of the British National Antarctic Expedition, better known as the Discovery expedition in 1901, despite having virtually no experience of Antarctic conditions. Although Scott and his men experienced some knife-edge moments, the expedition was generally viewed to be a success, not least because of the discovery of the Polar Plateau. Scott returned to England a hero and found himself welcomed by increasingly elite social circles and offered more senior Navy positions. However, Ernest Shackleton, one of his crew on the Discovery expedition, had begun to launch his own attempts to fund Antarctic expeditions. After Shackleton failed to reach the pole in his Nimrod exhibition, Scott launched a renewed effort “to reach the South Pole, and to secure for the British Empire the honour of this achievement”. He organised funds and a crew to embark on the Terra Nova, taking with him observations and innovations based on his experiences on the Discovery expedition. Captain Robert F. Scott, sitting at a table in his quarters, writing in his diary, during the British Antarctic Expedition. October 1911.Image Credit: Public Domain Roald Amundsen Born into a Norwegian maritime family, Amundsen was captivated by John Franklin’s stories of his Arctic expeditions and signed up to the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897-99) as a first mate. Although it was a disaster, Amundsen learned valuable lessons about polar exploration, particularly surrounding preparation. In 1903, Amundsen led the first expedition to successfully traverse the fabled Northwest Passage, following several failed attempts in the mid-19th century. During the expedition, he learned from local Inuit people about some of the best techniques to survive in the freezing conditions, including using sled dogs and wearing animal skins and furs rather than wool. On his return home, Amundsen’s primary mission was to raise funds for an expedition to try and reach the North Pole, but after hearing rumours that he may well have already been beaten by the Americans, he decided to reroute and head to Antarctica, aiming to find the South Pole instead. Roald Amundsen, 1925.Image Credit: Preus Museum Anders Beer Wilse, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons The race begins Both Scott and Amundsen departed Europe in June 1910. It was only in October 1910, however, that Scott received Amundsen’s telegraph informing him that he was changing destination and heading south too. Amundsen landed at the Bay of Whales, whilst Scott chose the McMurdo Sound – familiar territory, but 60 miles further from the pole, giving Amundsen an immediate advantage. Scott nonetheless set out with ponies, dogs and motorised equipment. The ponies and motors proved next to useless in the harsh Antarctic climate. Amundsen, on the other hand, successfully created supply depots and had brought with him 52 dogs: he planned to kill some of the dogs en route to eat as one of the few sources of fresh meat, along with seals and penguins. He also came prepared with animal skins, understanding they were much better at repelling water and keeping men warm than the woollen clothes favoured by the British, which became extraordinarily heavy when wet and never dried out. Victory (and defeat) After a relatively uneventful trek, marred only slightly by extreme temperatures and a few quarrels, Amundsen’s group arrived at the South Pole on 14 December 1911, where they left a note declaring their achievement in case they failed to return home. The party returned to their ship a little over a month later. Their accomplishment was announced publicly in March 1912, when they reached Hobart. Scott’s trek, however, was fraught with misery and difficulties. The final group reached the pole on 17 January 1912, over a month after Amundsen, and their defeat severely knocked spirits within the group. With an 862-mile return journey to go, this had a major impact. Combined with bad weather, hunger, exhaustion and less fuel than expected in their depots, Scott’s party began to flag less than halfway through the journey. Robert Falcon Scott’s party of his ill-fated expedition, from left to right at the South Pole: Oates (standing), Bowers (sitting), Scott (standing in front of Union Jack flag on pole), Wilson (sitting), Evans (standing). Bowers took this photograph, using a piece of string to operate the camera shutter.Image Credit: Public Domain The party was meant to be met by a support team with dogs in order to ensure they could manage the return, but a series of bad decisions and unforeseen circumstances meant the party did not arrive on time. By this point, several of the remaining men, including Scott himself, were suffering from severe frostbite. Stuck in their tent due to blizzards and only 12.5 miles from the depot they were frantically racing to find, Scott and his remaining men wrote their farewell letters before dying in their tent. Legacy Despite the tragedy surrounding Scott’s expedition, he and his men have been immortalised in myth and legend: they died, some would argue, in pursuit of a noble cause and showed bravery and courage. Their bodies were discovered 8 months later and a cairn erected over them. They had dragged 16kg of Antarctic fossils with them – an important geological and scientific discovery which helped prove the theory of continental drift. Over the course of the 20th century, Scott has come under increasing fire for his lack of preparedness and amateurish approach which cost the lives of his men. Amundsen, on the other hand, remains a figure whose legacy basks in quiet glory. He subsequently disappeared, never to be found, flying on a rescue mission in the Arctic in 1928, but his two most important achievements, the traversing of the Northwest Passage and becoming the first man to reach the South Pole, have ensured his name lives on in the history books. Read more about the discovery of Endurance. Explore the history of Shackleton and the Age of Exploration. Visit the official Endurance22 website.