Early this afternoon, took a bus ten miles to the little town of Annascaul. It’s where an incredibly tough Antarctic explorer was from. In English his name was Tom Crean. Of course, he had a name in Irish but Irish is hard to deal with.
Crean was on the British expedition to the South Pole led by Robert Scott. Scott had Crean and two other men return to their starting camp near the Antarctic coast when they were within 168 miles of the pole.
The plan had been that small parties of the expedition would turn around at points along the route to the pole with only Scott and four others continuing to the pole. Crean wept with disappointment when he wasn’t selected.
Crean and his two companions made it back but not without life threatening troubles. Scott and team made it to the South Pole only to discover that Roald Amundsen and his team from Norway had planted the Norwegian flag about a month earlier. Scott and party didn’t make it back alive.
Crean was more famously on Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole. Crean’s toughness, great spirit and demeanor was exceeded by nobody.
To tell you more about him would take pages and pages. He’s a great role model. I think that’s the right word. He was a humble man who did extraordinarily difficult things.
After he decided to hang up being an explorer he married and ran The South Pole Inn in Annascaul. I went there and looked at all the photos on the walls, had lunch with a Tom Crean Pale Ale and took a bunch of photos.
If you’re interested, read the books, “South” and “Shackleton’s Boat Journey”. You’ll be here too after you read those.
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