Speaker 1: If you had to eat a man or a dog first,
Speaker 1: where would you go?
Speaker 2: Dog? I mean, if you're going to put me in
Speaker 2: that like Sophie's choice situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, me Jeff, Oh yeah me too.
Speaker 2: You're you're thinking real hard about that, but but we're
Speaker 2: gonna let it go all right. Today I am joined
Speaker 2: by the hilarious inimitable Nick Kroll. Nick, Welcome to snap Foo.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me ed, and thanks for using the
Speaker 1: word inimitable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it should be inimitatable.
Speaker 1: Is that what it is.
Speaker 2: That's what it means, That's what it means. It but
Speaker 2: it's inimitable, which is a weird one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm so excited to be here on SNAE
Speaker 1: fou as well. We are.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad to have you. Obviously, we have been
Speaker 2: friends a very long time. I was trying to trace
Speaker 2: back the origin of our friendship and I can't. I
Speaker 2: couldn't do it. Well.
Speaker 1: I I have a memory that you don't have, which
Speaker 1: is we in New York when you were starting out,
Speaker 1: you would do these shows at clubs called like Bringer shows.
Speaker 1: You'd have to bring five to ten people to a
Speaker 1: comedy club, so that you could like get a tape
Speaker 1: made of you at a comedy club to prove that
Speaker 1: you had. And I did my first Bringer show ever
Speaker 1: at the Boston Comedy Club in New York City, ironically
Speaker 1: named and you were the host of that show. At
Speaker 1: this point, ed you were already flying high. You had
Speaker 1: been in a Dale Earnhardt super Bowl commercial. You were
Speaker 1: you were big, you were you were big time. You
Speaker 1: had been in a national you had been in a
Speaker 1: network national TV commercial. You were a big deal.
Speaker 2: That was commercial. Yeah, yeah, it was a big deal, Junior.
Speaker 2: That was my first like big acting booking of my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, trust me, it was a big deal for me
Speaker 1: to it just to be in the same room as
Speaker 1: someone who had been in the same room as They'll Earnhardt, Junior.
Speaker 1: But you were incredibly nice to me that day, as
Speaker 1: you have been every day since then. And it really
Speaker 1: it still tickles me that, like that we're friends and
Speaker 1: that I am doing you this massive favor of being
Speaker 1: on the podcast.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is this is uh, you know, this
Speaker 2: is payback for your first stage to take your first
Speaker 2: stand up taping or whatever the hell was. Absolutely, before
Speaker 2: I get into the tragedy, the story the snap who
Speaker 2: that I am going to tell you. Do you have
Speaker 2: any major snaff who's from your life that you would
Speaker 2: like to share?
Speaker 1: So I was away with my whole family. We were
Speaker 1: in I think Puerto Rico on a family vacation around
Speaker 1: I think, you know, like Christmas vacation, and so my
Speaker 1: dad thought a cool thing to do would be to
Speaker 1: organize a deep sea fishing trip for my mom's birthday.
Speaker 1: Because my dad knows nothing about what is my mom
Speaker 1: would enjoy, so they packed us, like the hotel packed
Speaker 1: us a bunch of like tuna sandwiches, because you know,
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico is famous for its tuna fish sandwiches. My
Speaker 1: family ranged from about eight to fifteen, four of us
Speaker 1: my parents, and you're the youngest, right, I'm the youngest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're eight. I'm eight or nine years old. And we
Speaker 1: get on the boat. We're going out to the deep
Speaker 1: sea and the waves are horrible, like we later found
Speaker 1: out that a tanker had capsized that day in the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: so the waves were massive. We were just getting hummeled
Speaker 1: and we all were sitting there and the entire family
Speaker 1: puked our tuna fish sandwiches out all over all over
Speaker 1: the place except for my dad, who just sat in
Speaker 1: the captain's chair gripping like the chair turning. I'd never seen,
Speaker 1: you know when people say like, uh, he turned green,
Speaker 1: like I've never seen it really since before since, but
Speaker 1: my dad turned fully like like a shar truse, and
Speaker 1: all of us just absolutely rapped all over this boat
Speaker 1: and it was like happy birthday, mom.
Speaker 2: This is this is perfect. And the best part is
Speaker 2: like a tuna fish sandish sandwich smells horrendous to begin with, fresh,
Speaker 2: like a fresh sandwich right out of the deli's like it. Oh,
Speaker 2: it's kind of a gross thing already, and then to
Speaker 2: eat it and then to regurgitate it, yeah, is just
Speaker 2: an unthinkable stench. It's not ideal. No, well, that's very tragic,
Speaker 2: and I'm very very sorry. But this is a perfect
Speaker 2: lead in to our snapoo for today. I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you the story of Ernest Shackleton's fateful expedition to Antarctica.
Speaker 2: Do you know much about this? To begin with?
Speaker 1: I have heard of this, but I have no recall
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: It is a fascinating and wild story. Are you ready
Speaker 2: to jump in? Nick Kroll?
Speaker 1: I'm strapped into the Captain's share. The waves are big.
Speaker 1: I've finished my tuna sandwich and I'm ready to go.
Speaker 2: All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: I hope, I hope this story is good enough to
Speaker 2: get you to toss that sandwich. Let's start out by
Speaker 2: getting to know our protagonist, Ernest Shackleton. First off, can
Speaker 2: we talk about the name, because it is such an
Speaker 2: inherently badass name. I mean, he sounds like a like
Speaker 2: a seventies action movie star that should be played by
Speaker 2: Charles Bronson, or like the president's fixer. Get me Shackleton.
Speaker 1: I agree, I mean, and the but then that, but
Speaker 1: then the first name being Ernest also speaks to like
Speaker 1: a sense of character inside of that.
Speaker 2: There you go. I always thought Nick Kroll was kind
Speaker 2: of a badass name. Get me Nick Kroll, Get me Kroll?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Aed Elms is like the guy peeling turnips on the porch.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, hey yeah, I yeah, but like i'd say,
Speaker 1: one of the top turnip tossers in the in the county.
Speaker 2: Well thank you. Well, As as we will soon learn,
Speaker 2: Ernest Shackleton very much lived up to that badass name.
Speaker 2: Born in eighteen seventy four in Ireland. Shackleton moved to
Speaker 2: London at age ten, but the whole sitting in a
Speaker 2: classroom thing not so much for young Ernest. By the
Speaker 2: age sixteen, he bailed on formal education and just like
Speaker 2: set out to see because I guess that's what you
Speaker 2: did in the eighteen nineties when you had a short
Speaker 2: attention span and there was no adderall hadn't been invented yet.
Speaker 2: Now Shackleton had a pretty striking appearance. I think we
Speaker 2: have a picture of him. Can we take a look here?
Speaker 2: Less I'm seeing less like Polar Adventurer and more junior
Speaker 2: high music teacher.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, ed, Can I ask how many of the
Speaker 1: people that you have traced in this show look like
Speaker 1: they could be relatives of yours?
Speaker 2: That's fair. He does look like my dad a little bit.
Speaker 2: He actually looks a lot like my grandfather. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: might be related to Ernest Jackleton. I gotta dig into this.
Speaker 2: I would not put it past you, all right, But
Speaker 2: to answer your question, it's a prerequisite we only talk
Speaker 2: about people who look vaguely like me or my relatives.
Speaker 2: So let's set the stage a little bit, get a
Speaker 2: little historical context. Now, you might think that in the
Speaker 2: early nineteen hundreds, a hair brained scheme like crossing Antarctica
Speaker 2: would be a crazy outlier, like Elon Musk trying to
Speaker 2: go to Mars or me trying to take my kids
Speaker 2: on any ten minute hike. But actually you'd be wrong,
Speaker 2: because around this time, no less than ten different countries
Speaker 2: sent out seventeen major expeditions. In fact, Antarctica was so
Speaker 2: infested with explorers this period became known as the Heroic
Speaker 2: Age of Antarctic exploration. I'm sad we missed that age, Nick.
Speaker 1: I will say, I've been to Ushwa, which is in
Speaker 1: the southernmost tip of Argentina.
Speaker 2: Oh very close, all right, which.
Speaker 1: Was like less than five hundred miles from Antarctica. I
Speaker 1: could see Antarctica.
Speaker 2: You could see it. Yeah, wow, Oh that's.
Speaker 1: Cool and it was not hard at all. So whatever
Speaker 1: is about to happen? To Shackleton?
Speaker 2: Like, no big deal, get a grip, bro Yeah all right, well,
Speaker 2: let's get into it. Ernie was on a lot of
Speaker 2: these early expeditions and even set some impressive records marching
Speaker 2: further south than anyone had before him. He was even
Speaker 2: knighted for some of his early exploration down there but
Speaker 2: then Norwegian explorer Rolled Amensen would become the first to
Speaker 2: reach the South Pole in nineteen eleven. So Shackleton then
Speaker 2: set his sights on the next prize, which was to
Speaker 2: be the first person to cross the entire continent from
Speaker 2: to see. Now. I don't know how about you, Nick,
Speaker 2: but I'm I'm concerned about Shackleton's odds here. It's like
Speaker 2: the early nineteen hundreds. This is not an easy trek.
Speaker 1: Ed. I have enough problems getting across town.
Speaker 2: Okay, can we talk about the bumper to bumper or
Speaker 2: shall I say bow to stern traffic all around Antarctica.
Speaker 2: It is a doozy down there.
Speaker 1: It's a doozy of a continent to cross. I will
Speaker 1: tell you that.
Speaker 2: On December fifth, nineteen fourteen, Shackleton sets sail for Antarctica
Speaker 2: from South Georgia, which is a tiny British territory deep
Speaker 2: in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. His ship is the HMS Endurance,
Speaker 2: which is another badass name, if I may say. The
Speaker 2: plan was to establish a land base on the Wettell
Speaker 2: Sea coast and then just start sledding across the Antarctic. Now,
Speaker 2: let's keep in mind it is nineteen fourteen. You can't
Speaker 2: just run to ARII and like pick up some capeline
Speaker 2: bass layers and a gortex shell. No, you are headed
Speaker 2: to Antarctica and all of your clothes are basically made
Speaker 2: out of like leather, wool, and wood. So it's it
Speaker 2: ain't comfy. I guess that is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2: What would you pack on this trip, Nick Kral? What
Speaker 2: would you bring?
Speaker 1: I would bring my hypoallergenic pillow. I would bring my
Speaker 1: penguin du Lingo. Did you say penguin do a lingo? Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you got to talk to penguins. Antarctica famous for.
Speaker 2: The language, so you can learn penguin language.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I can learn penguin worst.
Speaker 2: I thought you actually had a penguin named Duo Lingo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish. So.
Speaker 2: The crew of this expedition consists of twenty seven men.
Speaker 2: Actually it's twenty eight because there was a stowaway. There
Speaker 2: are sixty nine sled dogs and a single tomcat that
Speaker 2: they named missus Chippy. So yes, that is a male
Speaker 2: cat with a female name. Because Shackleton was evidently very progressive,
Speaker 2: any anyone like jumped to mind, like who you would
Speaker 2: want to bring on this. Who would be in your crew?
Speaker 1: You're gonna fit have some people who know how to
Speaker 1: take care of dogs. You want some people who can
Speaker 1: read a you know, a compass, although I don't know
Speaker 1: what happens to your compass when you go to a pole.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it goes haywire when you go to
Speaker 1: a pole.
Speaker 2: It's probably not super helpful down there. That's a good point.
Speaker 2: And that there, it's almost like celestial navigation down there.
Speaker 2: I think, oh, that's cool, all right, So they're often
Speaker 2: running on this expedition. Two days in they encountered a
Speaker 2: huge barrier of ice arounding Antarctica, which is usually there,
Speaker 2: I gather, but this one was particularly bad. They were
Speaker 2: expecting to be able to sail all the way to land,
Speaker 2: but they didn't get there, and by the following month,
Speaker 2: on January eighteenth, the HMS Endurance got completely stuck in
Speaker 2: the ice. As one of the crew members, Thomas Ordley's
Speaker 2: put it, they were frozen like an almond in the
Speaker 2: middle of a chocolate bar, which I think, right, it's
Speaker 2: a kind of a weirdly yummy metaphor for a life
Speaker 2: threatening situation. Yeah, I would have gone with something a
Speaker 2: little darker, maybe maybe an almond stuck in dark chocolate. Shackleton, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there you go, Shackleton, his men, all the dogs, and
Speaker 2: of course missus Chippy had no choice but to simply
Speaker 2: hunker down and wait out a very long winter winter
Speaker 2: in Antarctica, probably not real mellow, and just to make
Speaker 2: things a little more dire, on May first, the sun
Speaker 2: fully vanished for four whole months. Now, Nick, I know
Speaker 2: you're a flat earther, but this is actually a crazy
Speaker 2: phenomenon due to the Earth's tilt, where in the North
Speaker 2: and South Poles at certain times of the year have
Speaker 2: either total sunlight or total blackout for months on end.
Speaker 2: So in the wintertime total blackout.
Speaker 1: I am in a total blackout right now.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I've known you a long time, Like a good
Speaker 2: sixty percent of your day is blackout.
Speaker 1: God, and I'm just following the celestial signs to get
Speaker 1: through the day. No, it just sounds like a nightmare
Speaker 1: to be in the dark going across the continent nobody
Speaker 1: has ever been to and trying to guide yourself, hoping
Speaker 1: that you're going in the right direction.
Speaker 2: But also you're not even on land yet, like you're
Speaker 2: in the You're still in the ocean, just stuck on
Speaker 2: ice like that. That doesn't feel safe to be eaten in
Speaker 2: the now right? No, are you, Nick Kroll? Are you
Speaker 2: good in a crisis like if this, if you're in
Speaker 2: this situation, are you just like freaking out, breaking out
Speaker 2: in hives, like panicking, screaming at everybody? Are you like
Speaker 2: pitching in like staying optimistic.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm good in a crisis, but
Speaker 1: I do not freak out. My blood pressure drops. I
Speaker 1: get very calm. I don't know if I'm effective or helpful,
Speaker 1: but I am definitely I don't like panic.
Speaker 2: I've seen you in a crisis. I've actually I remember
Speaker 2: we were set to do some shows at the Telluride
Speaker 2: Comedy Festival, and we went to dinner ahead of time,
Speaker 2: and you were acting a little strange, and you got
Speaker 2: a little quiet at dinner, and that's when you told
Speaker 2: us that that your edibles were kicking in. You'd had
Speaker 2: some of that sweet Colorado edible and uh, and I
Speaker 2: started to panic. I was like, we got to do
Speaker 2: these shows. We're we're improving together. Where you got you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of us are are counting on each other.
Speaker 2: You were so chill and you wrote it so beautifully.
Speaker 2: You were having fun, you were you got you got
Speaker 2: real giggly, but it was like it was definitely a
Speaker 2: lot more than you were expecting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just one of the last times I probably
Speaker 1: did edibles, because every time I'd ever done edibles, it's
Speaker 1: a massive snat foo.
Speaker 2: It's just like you can't can't go well. So now
Speaker 2: by September, the pressure of the ice all around the
Speaker 2: HMS Endurance is getting even more intense because they're just
Speaker 2: these huge ice flows that are that are being pushed
Speaker 2: by the wind and the currents, and they're they're starting
Speaker 2: to crush the ship. And by October, as the ice
Speaker 2: constricted the ship more and more, it began to list
Speaker 2: over dramatically to one side and was even taking on water.
Speaker 2: So Shackleton orders everyone to abandon ship. They set up
Speaker 2: camp on the ice. And here's a fun detail. They
Speaker 2: even made little dog a glues for the dogs, which
Speaker 2: they called dog glues.
Speaker 1: Aw.
Speaker 2: If you live in a winter climate, think about making
Speaker 2: a doglue, because it's it's unbelievably adorable.
Speaker 1: Well, there is a dog blue housing shortage right now,
Speaker 1: of course, that I feel like we should address. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I just want to talk. I want to be
Speaker 1: able to talk about that. Have this be a space
Speaker 1: where we can talk about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Let's do it now. Here's another cool weird detail is
Speaker 2: you might be wondering why how do we have a
Speaker 2: picture of the actual dog glue. Well, there was a
Speaker 2: photographer on this expedition and he his name was Frank Hurley,
Speaker 2: and it was his job to document everything. But they're
Speaker 2: just pictures of all this stuff we're talking about, and
Speaker 2: I would encourage our listeners to check them out because
Speaker 2: it's very cool. Okay, so they have shelter, but what
Speaker 2: are these guys eating. The crew is hunting seals and
Speaker 2: penguins to feed themselves and the dogs. What do you think?
Speaker 2: Are you more of a seal or penguin guy?
Speaker 1: I love frankly both. I find seals to be like
Speaker 1: just about the cutest.
Speaker 2: It's hard to eat cute things. I think penguins are
Speaker 2: unbelievably cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think penguins are funny to me. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're Yeah, I don't know how good the
Speaker 1: meat is on a penguin, You.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean, It's not a delicacy. If all
Speaker 2: of this is not bad enough. Things are about to
Speaker 2: get way worse for Ernie Shacky and all his buddies.
Speaker 2: The endurance weg wedged in the ice hasn't sunk yet,
Speaker 2: but it's not looking good and they know that they
Speaker 2: need to lose as much weight as possible, so they
Speaker 2: begin unloading and discarding whatever they can sacrifice, books, bibles,
Speaker 2: personal belongings. Sadly, this also meant putting down some of
Speaker 2: the smaller dogs that they knew wouldn't survive, which must
Speaker 2: have been really tough in those circumstances. And yes, even
Speaker 2: Missus Chippy was put down. Rip Missus Chippy. Yeah this
Speaker 2: is hard. I mean, they're in survival mode here. It's
Speaker 2: pretty it's pretty brutal. Then it happened on November twenty first,
Speaker 2: Shackleton and his crew watched as the endurance sank, and
Speaker 2: apparently Shackleton yelled out, she's going boys. I don't know
Speaker 2: if if that was like a sort of like a
Speaker 2: funny thing to say at the time, or like it
Speaker 2: was through tears. But all I know is if my
Speaker 2: one mode of transportation out of certain death is just
Speaker 2: sinking before my eyes, I'm probably a little upset. I
Speaker 2: might have a little panic attack.
Speaker 1: It would be a bad vibe. I think it's fair to.
Speaker 2: Say pretty bad vibe. Now, obviously their game plan has
Speaker 2: now shifted dramatically. It's gone from let's make a heroic
Speaker 2: crossing of this continent to basically, let's just try to
Speaker 2: get the hell out of your life. And yeah, so
Speaker 2: basically they just start walking across this never ending ice
Speaker 2: flow towards land. I mean, what else are you gonna do?
Speaker 2: But they're not just walking. They're also hauling the lifeboats
Speaker 2: that they salvaged from the endurance, and they're using them
Speaker 2: as sleds to carry their supplies. So, needless to say,
Speaker 2: this is very slow going. They only managed to walk
Speaker 2: seven miles in seven days. So Shackleton gives the order.
Speaker 2: He's like, this is hopeless. We got to just hunker
Speaker 2: down and wait for conditions to get better. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: they did. They set up camp again. Unfortunately, the ice
Speaker 2: drifted in their favor, and finally, on April seventh, Elephant
Speaker 2: Island came into view on the horizon. Now it ain't Maui,
Speaker 2: but I'm pretty sure it was a lovely sight to see, right,
Speaker 2: it's land. Like they're just sighted to see some land
Speaker 2: at this point. But now their ice flow that they're
Speaker 2: riding on is starting to kind of break apart, and
Speaker 2: it's no longer safe. Also just terrifying, like they're in
Speaker 2: the Antarctic Ocean, for God's sake. So on April eleventh,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixteen, they're forced to pack up the boats and
Speaker 2: launch for Elephant Island. Now, these are tiny little lifeboats.
Speaker 2: They're like twenty two feet long, and they're basically like
Speaker 2: big canoes, and they're in very high seas with waves
Speaker 2: crashing around them, and that water is a little bit chilly, right,
Speaker 2: probably one would like it's ice water. It's literally like
Speaker 2: I'm having a glass of ice water.
Speaker 1: I love it at a restaurant. I don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to go swim.
Speaker 2: It ed cold plunging is is a delight when it
Speaker 2: is a choice. But these guys are just getting Yeah,
Speaker 2: these guys are getting just slammed by huge waves and
Speaker 2: freezing water. And also at this point a lot of
Speaker 2: them are suffering from sea sickness and dysentery. So imagine
Speaker 2: your sickness that you had on your family vacation, but
Speaker 2: add to that dysentery, and now you know that it
Speaker 2: ain't just seawater slashing around in those boats at this point.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I like to think i'd be one
Speaker 2: of the guys yanking on the oars getting us to
Speaker 2: Elton Island.
Speaker 1: I think I don't.
Speaker 2: I might be bald up on the floor in fetal position,
Speaker 2: but I don't see you that way.
Speaker 1: Ed I think you're a You're a You're a you're
Speaker 1: a team player.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I mean when I was, when I was like losing
Speaker 1: my mind and edibles, all you did was poke me
Speaker 1: and make the fun of me. So we supported you.
Speaker 1: You did, you really genuinely did.
Speaker 2: Okay, after six days and thirty miles of open ocean,
Speaker 2: they finally make landfall. Yes, they've been gone now for
Speaker 2: a year and a half and they're finally on solid ground.
Speaker 2: But don't party yet, because I have a little bit
Speaker 2: of bad news, which is that, yes, Elephant Island uninhabited, right,
Speaker 2: so you can't just check into it Hampton in and
Speaker 2: hit the Applebee's for a hot rack of ribs. This
Speaker 2: ordeal is far from over. So they're on solid ground,
Speaker 2: which is which is great. And it's been a harrowing journey,
Speaker 2: like like they're basically heroes already, but there's so much
Speaker 2: more ahead. So Shackleton and his crew still need some
Speaker 2: serious help getting out of there. So after a few
Speaker 2: days recuperating and gorging on more of that delicious penguin jerky, yeah,
Speaker 2: Shackleton yeuh me, Shackleton and four other men once again
Speaker 2: boarded one of those tiny little lifeboats. And it's just
Speaker 2: that this is they basically are like sending off just
Speaker 2: a tiny crew to go get help while the rest
Speaker 2: wait on Elfin Island. They board a tiny lifeboat named
Speaker 2: the James Cared and set sail for South Georgia Island.
Speaker 2: No big deal, it's only eight hundred miles.
Speaker 1: Away, my god.
Speaker 2: But alas, after sixteen brutal days again hot like incredibly
Speaker 2: high seas, like like crazy stormy winds, they make it.
Speaker 2: They make it to South Georgia.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But nick, uh huh guess what? Oh and what they're
Speaker 2: on the wrong side of the island. Oh now they
Speaker 2: mean well, because I think because the currents and the
Speaker 2: wind the storms were so intense, they couldn't land actually
Speaker 2: at this little whaling state that they were aiming for.
Speaker 2: And they actually landed on the exact wrong side of
Speaker 2: the island. So now they're exhausted, starving, frozen, basically solid,
Speaker 2: and they have to climb over a mountain to get
Speaker 2: to this little whaling outpost. And guess what they did it?
Speaker 2: They just did it. These guys are unstoppable. This is
Speaker 2: Ernest Shackleton and a few of his his top crew.
Speaker 2: They get all the way over the mountain and they
Speaker 2: descend into this little uh whaling out post, and the
Speaker 2: the Norwegian I think he's a Norwegian guy that kind
Speaker 2: of runs this place, and he's just like, this is impossible,
Speaker 2: Like humans can't just show up on South Georgia Island
Speaker 2: with like inexplicably and you.
Speaker 1: Don't know Ernie, you know, you know Ernie.
Speaker 2: Have you met Ernie? Obviously, this this guy is super hospitable,
Speaker 2: gives them a warm welcome. They rest up, they recuperate,
Speaker 2: but now of course they have to go back and
Speaker 2: rescue everyone still on Elephant Island. But it takes now,
Speaker 2: it takes a long time to get the resources together
Speaker 2: to do that, so it's another one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: six days before they finally returned to Elephant Island on
Speaker 2: August thirtieth, nineteen sixteen. And rescued the remainder of the
Speaker 2: crew and sailed back to civilization. They arrived in Chili
Speaker 2: six hundred and thirty eight days after their initial voyage started,
Speaker 2: and Nick, brace yourself. Every single member of the crew survived.
Speaker 4: Its crazy There was obviously a very tragic loss of
Speaker 4: life with the dogs and Missus Chippy, but the crew,
Speaker 4: the human crew, all survived.
Speaker 1: Did they eat the dogs?
Speaker 2: I think that some of the dogs were consumed, But
Speaker 2: at that point you're like, hey, billy, if you die,
Speaker 2: we're eating you.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I think if you had to eat
Speaker 1: a man or a dog first, where would you go?
Speaker 2: Dog? I mean, if you're gonna put me in that
Speaker 2: like Sophie's choice situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, me, oh yeah me too?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah for sure, Okay, for sure. Yeah really you're
Speaker 2: you're thinking real hard about that, but but we're gonna
Speaker 2: let it go. You're a you're a recreational cannibal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a fine young cannible. I'm a fine middle
Speaker 1: aged cannibal.
Speaker 2: So this is a this is a crazy story, and
Speaker 2: it's an interesting one in the snafu category because it
Speaker 2: obviously it's a failed mission and it becomes this terrible, terrible,
Speaker 2: awful tragedy, all of which make it a complete snaffoo,
Speaker 2: and yet it then kind of takes this positive turn
Speaker 2: in the end. So what's your call on this? Would
Speaker 2: you say it's an epic fail or an epic win?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it speaks to the larger point of
Speaker 1: view you have on life, which is all Ernie Shackleton
Speaker 1: one of them last remaining great two point scorers because
Speaker 1: they had not and they had not put the three
Speaker 1: point line in. But Ernie Shackleton obviously was a motivated
Speaker 1: fella and was setting incredibly high standards and goals for himself.
Speaker 1: I'm going to cross all of Antarctica. He failed to
Speaker 1: do that, and that must be that must have been
Speaker 1: quite disappointing. However, to basically go to years with a
Speaker 1: crew of twenty seven twenty eight men to serve have
Speaker 1: every one of them survive is a triumph of organization
Speaker 1: and leadership and adaptability, and he could. He was tough
Speaker 1: on himself, But I hope that Ernest was able to
Speaker 1: sort of see what a feat that that is to
Speaker 1: have brought everyonebody back.
Speaker 2: It is largely considered a very heroic occurrence in among
Speaker 2: historians and it's funny because you know, the British explorer
Speaker 2: tradition is so like ego driven. It's sort of like
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where it's like, well, you
Speaker 2: put yourself in that situation. Yeah, this whole thing.
Speaker 3: Was optional, but right, yeah, but that said, like, we
Speaker 3: do need people who push that envloge open, like push
Speaker 3: humanity forward with these incredible, daring explorations, and he's one
Speaker 3: of those people.
Speaker 2: It went terribly wrong, but.
Speaker 1: By Jove, which you have to imagine that was said so.
Speaker 2: Much and by the way, it would be another fifty
Speaker 2: years before anyone crossed Antarctica, so he was way ahead
Speaker 2: of his time. Like it wasn't it wasn't actually accomplished
Speaker 2: for a long long time after that. There's more of
Speaker 2: the story on March fifth, twenty twenty two. This is
Speaker 2: only a few years ago. The HMS Endurance was discovered
Speaker 2: one hundred and seven years later. Many said the ship
Speaker 2: would be impossible to find because the Wettell Sea is
Speaker 2: permanently covered in so much thick ice, but using lunar
Speaker 2: occultation notes, it's basically tracking the Moon's movements and the
Speaker 2: ship's astronomer or whatever or Navigate had kept really meticulous
Speaker 2: notes about the celestial bodies moving, and they had these
Speaker 2: incredible notes. They were able to kind of like go
Speaker 2: back in time, and based on his notes, pinpoint the
Speaker 2: location where the Endurance had been stuck in the ice,
Speaker 2: and so that's where they searched, and lo and behold
Speaker 2: they found it. Now some called it the most pristine
Speaker 2: shipwreck they'd ever seen. Apparently, like in warm, warmer waters,
Speaker 2: there are these enzymes and different things that consume or
Speaker 2: kind of denigrate the wood over time, but none of
Speaker 2: that is in the wettll sea. It's just too cold.
Speaker 2: So the shipwreck is in perfect condition. It's like, I
Speaker 2: think it's like two miles deep. And they could even
Speaker 2: read HMS Endurance on the back. And then this is fascinating.
Speaker 2: They found bottles of whiskey buried in the ice near
Speaker 2: Shackleton's wreck, and miraculously these remained liquid despite the minus
Speaker 2: twenty two degrees fahrenheit weather. How much would you pay
Speaker 2: for a bottle of Enduring year old?
Speaker 1: Oh, I I'd pay. I'd pay a lot, like could
Speaker 1: I venmo him? Yeah, I'd pay apports of you know,
Speaker 1: like sixty bucks.
Speaker 2: I would pay a shitload for that scotch. I'm not
Speaker 2: even it's probably not consumable. But but also I must say,
Speaker 2: if there's if there's scotch left behind this adventure, like
Speaker 2: I'm starting to question their priorities, right.
Speaker 1: Like what were they doing leaving all that that scotch behind?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Come on, this is well.
Speaker 2: You know, Shackleton had good scotch, like he was he
Speaker 2: was he was Sir Ernest Shackleton like, and he's like
Speaker 2: he had the good stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is well before Bush has no
Speaker 1: scotch left behind. But you have to imagine how they
Speaker 1: made it. I guess they were probably like, if we're
Speaker 1: going to make it for a year or two, like
Speaker 1: in the middle of literally in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: alcohol is not going to help, Like this is only
Speaker 1: going to create discord amongst us, So maybe better to
Speaker 1: leave it behind, all right.
Speaker 2: As for Ernest Shackleton, he passed away at the very
Speaker 2: not ripe young age of forty seven in nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: two from a heart attack during another Antarctic expedition. So
Speaker 2: he was not traumatized by this. He went back, he
Speaker 2: was like, give me more Antarctica. Researchers now say that
Speaker 2: he may have had a hole in his heart based
Speaker 2: on a lot of the symptoms that he was just
Speaker 2: making notes of in his journal, which is a congenital
Speaker 2: heart defect that's not uncommon. Some say that the hole
Speaker 2: in his heart was just the grief over losing missus Chippy.
Speaker 2: Who can say that's true? Also, okay, and I love this.
Speaker 2: After a doctor asked him to take it easy, his
Speaker 2: reported last words were, you always want me to give
Speaker 2: up something. What do you want me to give up? Now?
Speaker 2: I guess you can take the Shackleton out of the voyage,
Speaker 2: but you can't take the voyager out of Shackleton. Indeed, Nick,
Speaker 2: that's our story. That is the story of Ernest Shackleton.
Speaker 2: That is today's snafu. What have we learned anything? Any
Speaker 2: big takeaways? Yeah, let's see. You can preserve your body
Speaker 2: in a cold plunge for one hundred years.
Speaker 1: Don't go to Antarctica. Just don't go, like, let it be,
Speaker 1: just let it be. Or if you do, make sure
Speaker 1: you go with Ernest Shackleton. Go with Ernie. Dogs are
Speaker 1: delicious if you need something to.
Speaker 2: Eat, if you're starving and about to die. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: what about you?
Speaker 1: Any any takeaways for you.
Speaker 2: I love these this kind of survival story because it's
Speaker 2: just so inspiring and not not in a way that's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: what are my problems compared to that guy's problems. It's
Speaker 2: more like, if he could do that right, it makes
Speaker 2: me hopeful for like our for human potential, like all
Speaker 2: the things that we we can do and deal with,
Speaker 2: and that unfortunately, like TikTok and Instagram, is like slowly
Speaker 2: sapping out of us, like we're the more we the
Speaker 2: more we indulge in modern society, it feels like we're
Speaker 2: just sort of losing this metal that people like Shackleton
Speaker 2: and all of his men had.
Speaker 1: I'm inspired. I'm inspired to go live more earnestly.
Speaker 2: Nick, you inspire me on a daily thank you he
Speaker 2: inspire me.
Speaker 1: You do?
Speaker 2: Are you up to anything? Is there anything we can
Speaker 2: talk about and tell the world and fans and listeners about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm doing a journey to Antarctica.
Speaker 2: I saw that the GoFundMe page your goal was fifteen
Speaker 2: hundred dollars. It doesn't seem adequate.
Speaker 1: I know I have a Depending on when this comes out,
Speaker 1: the final season of Big Mouth, my animated show on Netflix,
Speaker 1: comes out yes in late spring. There's a movie that
Speaker 1: I made with Andrew Rynolds called I Don't Understand You
Speaker 1: that'll also be out late spring early summer.
Speaker 2: Can't wait for that.
Speaker 1: And a show that I produced and directed some of
Speaker 1: called Adults on FX that'll be out this spring. So
Speaker 1: fantastic whenever this stuff comes out. If you're not stuck
Speaker 1: on a boat in Antarctica, luckily it's not a problem
Speaker 1: because everything is melting. Umm, can go check out one
Speaker 1: of those things right on.
Speaker 2: Nick. I adore you and I am so grateful to
Speaker 2: have you on. Ladies and gentlemen, Nick.
Speaker 1: Kroll, Thanks Ed, I love you, buddy. Cheers, It's a pleasure. Cheers.
Speaker 2: Snappho is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snapfoo Media,
Speaker 2: a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company.
Speaker 2: Post production and creative support from Gilded Audio. Our executive
Speaker 2: producers are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy
Speaker 2: Kim Whitney, Donaldson, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by Alyssa Martino, Tory Smith, and Carl Nellis. Our consulting
Speaker 2: producer is Jess Hackle. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis.
Speaker 2: Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering
Speaker 2: from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo
Speaker 2: and brand by The Collected Works. Legal review from Dan Welsh,
Speaker 2: Meghan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham,
Speaker 2: Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but
Speaker 2: especially Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman, Nikki Etoor, Nathan Otowski and
Speaker 2: Alex Corral. While I have you, don't forget to pick
Speaker 2: up a copy of my book, Snaffoo, The Definitive Guide
Speaker 2: to History's Greatest screw Ups. It's available now from any
Speaker 2: book retailer. Just go to Snaffoo dashbook dot com. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening, and see you next week.