THE BEGINNING OF AN OBSESSION

Mark first heard the story of the Ross Sea Party at a lecture given by The Lost Men author Kelly Tyler-Lewis at Union Glacier a few years back. From that moment on, he was hooked.

Like many others, Mark had heard of Shackleton’s historic attempt at the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (and subsequent epic rescue mission after his ship, the Endurance sunk), but was not aware of the critical support team Shackleton enlisted to enable his ambitious expedition. Shackleton knew he couldn’t make the full crossing without somehow restocking critical fuel and food supplies, so he enlisted a separate team to travel to Antarctica via the Ross Ice Shelf to lay supply depots from the former bases Scott used in his previous expedition at Cape Evans and Hut Point, to the designated meeting point at the foot of Mount Hope, next to the Beardmore glacier.

Archival photographs from the Ross Sea Party expedition, January 1916

The men of the Ross Sea Party spent more than two years and endured almost unimaginable obstacles and hardship to complete their mission, knowing the lives of Shackleton and his party depended on them. They persevered through blizzards, hunger, fatigue, frostbite, scurvy, snow-blindness and countless other challenges out of an unwavering sense of duty and loyalty. Giving up was not an option, and neither was failure. Mark knew theirs was a story worth telling, and a story he wanted the world to know.

Archival photographs from the Ross Sea Party expedition, February 1916

Since then, he’s assembled a team of people just as passionate about telling this story, and work has begun to plan an expedition to trace Shackleton’s historic and unfulfilled route and meet the Ross Sea Party where they completed their epic assignment - at the foot of the aptly named Mount Hope. We hope you’ll follow along on this journey.