It has always bugged me that Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton are two of the best known Antarctic explorers. Scott, after all, died during an attempt to become the first to reach the south pole due to a number of reasons including poor planning, lack of preparation, and sheer British bravado. Shackleton is only known for his leadership skills because he kept getting his crews into precarious situations that could have been avoided. For example, instead of taking a shallow hulled boat that could ride up on the ice, he chose the Endeavor which just got crushed and sank, trapping his crew for years in Antarctica.

I much prefer to model Roald Amundsen who beat Scott to the south pole, and not only survived but gained weight during his expedition. He was laser focused on his goal, understood the proper techniques for arctic travel, and encouraged his crew to improve equipment and generally become better at their jobs during the long Antarctic winter.

Of course, things are more complicated than that. I was going to try a longer comparison between these explorers, but frankly, that has been done well elsewhere and I’m not sure I have anything else unique to say, so I’m just going to leave it at that.