Ed Hillary, Vivian Fuchs and George Lowe discuss Shackleton

Listen to this 1958 recording about whether Ernest Shackleton would have made it across Antarctica had he reached it. Joining the discussion are Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Vivian Fuchs, who led the New Zealand and British parties involved in the first successful trans-Antarctic crossing, and New Zealander George Lowe, a member of Fuchs's expedition.

Transcript

Sir Vivian Fuchs:

Well of course we named the main range Shackleton Range, after Shackleton, who planned to make the crossing in 1914. Well, he would have found those mountains undoubtedly when he moved in the first 200 miles, unfortunately, of course, he was prevented from making the journey.

Interviewer:

Do you think he would have succeeded if he had managed to get ashore [inaudible]?

Sir Vivian Fuchs:

Well that's a pretty 64-dollar question, or whatever it is [laughs]. Anyway, I think that he would have troubles, but he would have had different troubles to us. I think his main trouble would have been time. Because...but he would have spent a year laying depots out, ahead at least, then he had a party on the other side, as we had, laying depots out. I think some of his problem there might have been finding the depots on the far side, because there was no radio contact in those days and he wouldn't have been able to know the position the depots had been put in.

George Lowe:

We couldn't help feel as we travelled along, I remember we mentioned it many times, especially in riding along in the vehicles comparably warm, certainly not labouring hard, and doing 40 and sometimes 50 miles a day. We used to get out, pitch our tent, and think ‘fancy man-hauling straight over this, man-hauling day after day', whereas we were driving day after day. Just the mere thought of man-hauling over that distance is a formidable one.

Sir Vivian Fuchs:

Sorry that was Scott, Shackleton was going to use dogs.

George Lowe:

Yes.

Sir Edmund Hillary:

This finding of depots is fortunately a much easier business I think than one would think. In that, depots in general you mark them fairly clearly. And ah, it's a crucial question of using navigation like any ship. I mean there is no great difficulty for a ship to make a [inaudible].

Sir Vivian Fuchs:

No, well we did. We found yours splendidly, and if there was any doubt we looked out for your cairns and flags and so on, which were spread out across five miles.

Sir Edmund Hillary:

Actually we came bang on them all the time.

Sir Vivian Fuchs:

Yes we did. But my point really was in the old days they wouldn't have known where they were. Because they couldn't say where they were going to put a depot down before the expedition started, and during the expedition they couldn't get a communication across the continent.

George Lowe:

Except they had arranged that they would put one at Mount Hope at the foot of the Beardmore [Glacier], and they'd find out there where the others were. That's the way they did it.

Sir Vivian Fuchs:

It would be a very long wait. Yeah, but he'd have needed depots beyond the foot of the Beardmore to get him through.