HYBRID - Shackleton’s Legendary Endurance Expedition to Antarctica

Thursday, October 207:00—8:30 PMLarge Meeting RoomCary Memorial Library1874 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, MA, 02420
Virtual

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s infamous Endurance Expedition to Antarctica is one of history’s most astounding survival stories, a tale overflowing with almost unbelievable privation and courage.

To honor Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition, Antarctic guide and Mt. Everest climber Ed Webster presents an educational and historical lecture documenting Shackleton’s life and times, plus his singular leadership of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, to use its proper name. Ed’s personally-narrated lecture chronicles Shackleton’s 1914 to 1917 ordeal with the ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS taken by the team’s cameraman, famed Australian photographer Frank Hurley.

About Ed Webster:

Everest mountaineer Ed Webster grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, attended Fiske Elementary and Diamond Middle schools, and graduated from Lexington High in 1974. After learning to rock climb on Miriam Hill starting at age 11, during his teenage years he was an active member of Lexington’s Explorer Post 122.

Working as a Polar History lecturer aboard ship, plus an Onshore History guide, Ed Webster spent parts of three Antarctic summers in 2018, 2019, and 2020 employed by Quark Expeditions, the world’s leading polar adventure company. Webster crossed the storm-tossed Drake Passage over 20 times by ship, journeying between Argentina’s southernmost city, Ushuaia, and the Antarctic Peninsula. He also led two celebratory remembrance ceremonies at Sir Ernest Shackleton’s grave in Grytviken on the island of South Georgia. In Webster’s youth, he authored three editions of his definitive guidebook, Rock Climbs In The White Mountains of New Hampshire. And in 1988, Ed Webster pioneered a new route up Mt. Everest’s remote East Face in Tibet—with a 4-man team, and no bottled oxygen, no radios, nor any Sherpa assistance. His popular Mt. Everest book (available on Kindle) is Snow In The Kingdom. But his real claim to fame ? He’s one of just three mountaineers mentioned in the board game Trivial Pursuit.

This is a hybrid program - you can attend in person or watch via Zoom. If you are attending via Zoom, please register to receive the Zoom link. Although registration is not required to attend an in-person program, it enables us to notify you if a program is postponed or cancelled. 

This program is made possible by the generous donors to the Cary Library Foundation.

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