Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival

by Les Stroud

  A cheerless Christmas eventually arrived for Mawson, Mertz, and their lone remaining dog, Ginger. Mawson used the holiday as an opportunity to again assess their rations and their chance of survival. Their progress had been much slower than he originally expected, so rations were cut yet again. At this point, Mawson realized that if they were to have any chance of making it back to main base alive, they would have to lighten their load even more. Reluctantly, Mawson discarded some of the gear he held most precious: Ninnis’s box camera and heavy glass plates, a host of heavy scientific instruments, the rifle and bullets. Finally, Mawson spent hours boiling down the remaining dog bones into a tasteless brew.

  As much as I admire Mawson, I think he waited much too long to dump extraneous materials from the sledge. Until that point (when they had only one dog left) they were still were pulling a camera with glass plates, a rifle and bullets, scientific instruments, almanacs, and logbooks! There’s only one reason why he would have made this choice: his overwhelming resolve, ambition, and dedication to science. But with 160 miles to go, it was a foolish ideal to hold on to.

  A few days after Christmas, Ginger finally reached the point where she could proceed no longer. Mawson lovingly laid her on the sledge as she quivered with her remaining stores of energy, and actually pulled her for a few miles, by which time it became obvious she had walked her last. Mertz—whose own condition was rapidly worsening—could not bring himself to finish her off, so Mawson broke her neck with one quick swing of the spade.

  That night, as they ate the boiled remains of Ginger’s skull, a new sense of desperation and loneliness seemed to wash over both Mertz and Mawson. Mertz was in terrible physical shape, and in the coming days saw his strength fade to nearly nothing. Mawson took it upon himself to keep Mertz alive, and fed Mertz what he believed was the only nourishing thing he had left: dog liver. In the days to come, Mawson would give up all of his own rations of liver and feed them to Mertz. It was this act of self-sacrifice that ultimately might have kept Mawson alive. But it killed Mertz.

  Mawson tried to coddle, urge, and cajole his fading companion into activity, but there was little left to be done for Mertz. At one point, when Mertz could walk no longer, Mawson placed his friend on the sledge, strapped himself into the harness and actually began pulling it on all fours. Mertz was unmoved by this act of kindness, but rather took offense at being hauled around like a dying dog. In an act of rage that evening, Mertz bit off his yellowed and frostbitten pinky finger and spit the severed digit onto the tent floor.

  All through that dreadful night, Mertz alternated between moments of calm and fits of rage. Finally, near midnight, Mertz fell into a restless sleep; Mawson crawled into his bag and did the same. A few hours later, Mawson inexplicably awoke, troubled by the profound silence of the tent. He reached over to touch Mertz, and found him stiff, cold, lifeless. It was January 7, 1913. Mawson was one hundred miles from main base.

  Yet as desperate as the situation may have been, Mawson was not one to turn his back on protocol. Recognizing his final duty to Mertz, Mawson spent several exhausting hours cutting snow blocks to make Mertz’s burial cairn. Mawson placed Mertz, still in his reindeer-skin sleeping bag, into the cairn and read the burial service. It was a noble act, but in my mind it was foolish and unnecessary. Mertz’s life was over, and Mawson had honored Mertz on every day of their journey together, particularly near the end of Mertz’s life, when Mawson spent hours caring for him. Now Mertz was gone, and Mawson’s only responsibility was to himself and those who cared for him back home, thousands of miles away. His sense of duty might have been appeased by the labor, but his own survival would have been compromised.

  At a minimum, Mawson should have kept Mertz’s reindeer-skin sleeping bag, either for food or warmth. And I don’t know whether Mawson ever considered cannibalism—he doesn’t allude to it in his writing—but eating Mertz, as inhuman and barbaric as that may seem, was certainly an option. But Mawson never touched his friend, instead choosing to occupy his mind—and time—with tasks such as repairing broken equipment and planning the weeks ahead. Mawson knew his chances were slim and was sorely tempted to lay down and rest until eternal sleep took him. But somewhere in the back of his mind, his will to live was not so easily muted.

  Indeed, just when he was at his lowest, Mawson found motivation in the words of the famous poet Robert Service:

  Buck up! Do your damndest and fight:

  It’s the plugging away that will win you the day.

  Mawson himself was a great motivator, one who had often spoken of character. With Service’s words ringing in his ears, he recalled the words he had spoken when discussing the men he had chosen to accompany him to Antarctica:

  I have done my best to choose men of character. The important thing to look for in members of an expedition like this—is character. It is impossible to tell how men are going to act until circumstances arise. . . . In that land of desolation, in that land of great loneliness, there are conditions that measure a man at his true worth.

  Back on track, Mawson rediscovered the resolve that made him legendary among polar explorers. He reassessed his situation, his needs, the equipment he had at his behest. He spent an entire day modifying his remaining gear for one-man travel. He cut down the sledge to carry a half-load, and even crafted a mast and sail for speedier travel should conditions permit. Mawson also wisely dedicated some time to doctoring his rotting body.

  He planned the remaining journey with painstaking detail, and broke it down into palatable increments. This was another brilliant tactic: it’s easier to think in small steps than the big picture when it comes to survival. He also dwelled over his food rations for the remainder of the trip. He calculated that he had enough food for twenty days. But he did not stop there. Mawson also considered that some of the food he carried required cooking, and would therefore be useless to him if the Primus stove broke. So he decided to eat all of that food during the first ten days, saving the remainder for the final half of the journey.

  Mawson bade farewell to Mertz, slung the sledge harness over his skeletal shoulders, and continued his westward trudge. He was stabbed by pain with each step he took, yet he continued on. Later that first day, he stopped to examine his feet and was horrified by the raw, weeping meat he found inside his socks. The entire bottom of one foot had come off, and he needed to wrap it back on to continue.

  He spent some time doctoring his wounds and actually lay down to enjoy the feeling of the sunshine on his naked body, a brilliant move that not only bolstered his spirits, but probably did his body some good as well. There is an Indian guru, Hira Ratan Manek, who claims he can live for years at a time without eating, deriving all his energy from the sun. Mawson should have started his sunbathing weeks earlier; in the frigid polar world, sun on exposed skin is like manna from heaven. He would continue the practice in the weeks to come.

  Such opportunities were few, however, as blizzard-like conditions ensued and slowed Mawson’s progress to a crawl. He was stuck in his tent for days at a time as the wind tore across the land. Mawson was frantic, and vowed to continue on despite the weather. Yet he had the wherewithal to harness himself firmly to the sledge he pulled behind him, a safety precaution as he entered the deadly maze of the Mertz Glacier. Mawson hoped that if he fell into a crevasse, the weight of the sledge would be enough to prevent him from plummeting to his death.

  On January 17, he was still picking his way across the glacier when he twice stopped just short of yawning crevasses. Soon thereafter, he fell into a crevasse to his knees. He clambered out and walked north to where he believed the crevasse stopped, where he again turned to the west.

  In an instant, the ground collapsed beneath his feet and Mawson was flung downward. A second later, the harness yanked violently at his midsection and he came to a painfully sharp stop. He was now dangling inside a bottomless chasm, with the rope around his waist as the only thing holding him back from certain death. Yet as he hung there, he could feel himself
dropping slowly as the sledge above was pulled across the snow toward the crevasse that now held him captive. He knew what was to come: the sledge would break through the snow and tumble into the crevasse, and his life would end. Miraculously, though, the movement stopped. The sledge had become stuck on a pressure ridge. Mawson hung there, fourteen feet from the surface, sheer walls of ice three feet on either side of him, pondering his fate.

  Steeling himself against the pain, Mawson pulled his skeletal frame up the rope, hand over hand, until he reached the edge of the snow bridge. He was crawling to safety—mere feet from solid ice—when the bridge collapsed again, and he again plummeted the full length of the rope toward his death. Once more, the sledge above held. Mawson considered suicide as he dangled there. A swipe of his knife on the rope and all his suffering would come to a swift end. His hands were raw and bloodied, his energy was draining fast, and he was deathly cold in the icy tomb. Yet Douglas Mawson was not one to give up, no matter how grim the circumstances.

  With superhuman effort, he resolved to try one more time while he still had the energy to do so. Although he was never able to recall how he mustered the strength, Mawson pulled himself hand over hand up the rope and to the Antarctic daylight, and flung himself in one desperate move to the safety of the ice, where he collapsed, exhausted but alive.

  By this point, Mawson had come to fervently believe that a spiritual presence was with him, guiding him through the trials of the Antarctic spring. As he fumbled to set up his camp for the night, he thanked providence for sparing him. From that day forward, Mawson believed the spirit was always there, moving with him across the snow and ice back to main base.

  The timing could not have been better, for Mawson hit a new low in the hours after the fall into the Black Crevasse. He was trapped in a maze of crevasses, the light was gray and flat, making visibility poor even just a few feet in front of him, and the incessant wind had wiped out all evidence of where one opening stopped and another began.

  Undaunted, Mawson made another modification that would save his life several times over. He realized that one wrong stride in any direction could send him to his death, especially given the deplorable condition his hands were now in: he was physically unable to pull himself up along the rope again. So he spent the better part of a day fashioning a rope ladder and using it to connect himself to the sledge he was pulling. It was yet another in a litany of brilliant moves Mawson pulled off during the journey, and illustrates his near-obsessive focus on survival, which would ultimately save his life.

  Mawson tied one end of the rope ladder to the front of the sledge, draped the other over his shoulder and set out the next morning. It was not long before his handiwork paid off: he broke through a snow bridge and fell into another crevasse. Luckily, the sledge once again held firm on the surface, and Mawson was able to climb up his handmade ladder to safety. A few steps later, he fell into another one, but climbed his lifeline to safety yet again.

  He picked his way across the glacier, partly emboldened by the success of the rope ladder. He walked across snow bridges and maneuvered around yawning crevasses, always drawing nearer to safety. Days later, he finally made it across.

  Still, the fickle Antarctic weather worked against him. The wind blew incessantly, slowing Mawson’s progress to a crawl. He was stopped for days at a time as blizzards pounded his meager shelter. He also had to battle the icy slopes of the hills that formed the headland between the Mertz Glacier and Cape Denison. He struggled up and down, always hampered by the wind, which cut his visibility to nearly nothing.

  And though his spirits continued to sink, Mawson tried to tend to his physical needs as best he could. When he undressed to examine himself, he was shocked at his corpse-like appearance. All of his muscles had withered to nothing. His fingernails had blackened; most had fallen off. His teeth had become loose in their sockets, his hair was falling out in clumps, and there were wide patches of raw skin all over his body. He realized that he might be suffering from scurvy, a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, but refused to entertain the thought because he needed to keep both hope—and the will to live—alive.

  Mawson’s tending to his wounds and injuries was a critical activity, especially when his morale was at its lowest. It gave him a focus and a purpose on those long days when he could do little else. Most important, it filled him with hope that he would survive. For why bother if there is no hope?

  The weather finally lifted on January 28, and Mawson continued to trudge ahead. He had about two pounds of food left, but was encouraged by the knowledge that Aladdin’s Cave could not be far off. He steeled himself for a final push to that little bit of underground paradise. He would make it there . . . or die trying.

  * * *

  Avoiding Scurvy

  Hypervitaminosis may not have been on Mawson’s radar, but every arctic explorer worth his salt was well versed in the dangers of scurvy, that dreaded illness that had caused the downfall of so many men who sought fame and fortune at sea.

  Scurvy is caused by an acute deficiency of vitamin C, an important element in maintaining the health of the body’s connective tissues. Take away the vitamin C, and the ability of these tissues to bind deteriorates, causing a series of telltale signs and symptoms: weakness; lethargy; irritability; purple, spongy, and bleeding gums; loosening teeth; reopening of healed scars; and hemorrhaging in the mucous membranes and skin. Advanced cases of scurvy are characterized by open, festering wounds and loss of teeth.

  In Mawson’s day, scurvy killed countless sailors and explorers who had little access to perishable fruits and vegetables while at sea. The disease is said to have killed more British sailors in the seventeenth century than did enemy action, and it is often cited as one of the primary factors behind the deaths of John Franklin and his men during their tragic search for the Northwest Passage in the mid-1800s. Yet for all those who died from scurvy, it’s remarkably easy to treat. Full recovery requires little more than the resumption of normal vitamin C intake.

  * * *

  The next day, Mawson spotted a dark smudge on the horizon, an unexpected bit of color against the white backdrop. Mawson made for the spot, where he found a rock cairn. It had been built by three of his men—McLean, Hodgeman, and Hurley, who had been out searching for Mawson and his men at that very same time. They had missed each other by only a few hours! Inside the cairn was a note and food.

  The note told Mawson that he was twenty-one miles from Aladdin’s Cave, the other parties had returned safely from their sledging journeys, and the Aurora was anchored in Commonwealth Bay. Mawson knew there was no conceivable way he could catch up with his friends, so he focused on the food in the bag: tins of pemmican, butter, sugar, cookies, cocoa, chocolate sticks—even three oranges. For the first time in weeks, Mawson was sure he would survive. But Mother Nature was not through with him yet.

  The cairn helps illustrate that in a survival situation, luck is always a fickle bedfellow. She may be there to help you, such as when Mawson found the cairn and the food, but she’ll also abandon you at the worst possible times, as when Mawson realized that his three comrades had camped the previous night just five miles from where he had set his patchwork tent, but he still had no chance of catching them.

  Mawson struggled onward toward Aladdin’s Cave, though he lost his bearing on several occasions, once coming dangerously close to plummeting off a cliff. He cursed himself for having discarded his crampons days before in an attempt to lighten his load, as his progress across the ice was maddeningly slow. He probed his fertile mind for a way to solve the problem of slipping on the polished, windblown surface, and (of course!) devised a solution. In a fit of sheer MacGyver genius, he pried apart the mahogany case that held his theodolite—a navigation tool—cut wooden sandals for his boots, and hammered nails from the box through the sandals to project downward.

  Though they were far from perfect (the nail heads were often driven upward into the soles of his raw and rotting feet), the makeshift
crampons helped Mawson across the crevassed fields. On more than one occasion, he fell through the ice, only to have the sledge again save his life. He continued in much the same way until the evening of February 1, when he made it to Aladdin’s Cave! For the first time in almost three months, he would sleep without the incessant flapping of the windblown tent walls around him.

  Although it was really not much more than a vertical shaft cut into the ice, Aladdin’s Cave was heaven for Mawson. The cave seemed to have been hurriedly used by the other teams, but the provisions scattered around the floor seemed like a royal banquet to the starving explorer. Here he found cookies and pemmican, milk powder, and cocoa tins.

  But Mawson was not satisfied with making it to Aladdin’s Cave. It was home base, a mere five and a half miles away, that he desperately sought. He searched the cave for a pair of crampons he had left there months before, hoping they would help him down the icy slopes that separated him from his destination. They were nowhere to be found, however, and Mawson’s notion of a quick meal and final dash to the base went with them. He decided he would spend one more night at Aladdin’s Cave, rest up, and return triumphantly the next day. Or so he thought.

  As luck would have it, the Antarctic wind kicked in with renewed fury that night. Mawson made frequent trips to the entrance of the cave, only to find that the winds had not abated. Dejected but not dispirited, he took advantage of the time to work on his makeshift crampons and eat. Yet the food seemed to do Mawson no good at all. Instead, he seemed to sink to his lowest physical state while in the cave. Whether it was the effects of the hypervitaminosis, scurvy, the stale food in the cave, or simply the toll of the previous three months, we’ll never know, but Mawson became depressed and angry as the storm raged overhead. If ever there was a “so close and yet so far” situation, this was it.