Thor's Tale: Endurance and Adventure in the Southern Ocean

by Janice Marriott

Ernest Shackleton, one of the great Antarctic explorers in the early years of the 20th Century, set out on his expedition from a whaling station on the island of South Georgia. When, 18 months later, he returned to South Georgia without his ship, and with only two companions, the first people he saw were two whalers’ boys.

In Shackleton’s words, from his account of the journey, South ...
'Down we hurried, and when quite close to the station, we met two small boys, ten or twelve years old. I asked them where the manager’s house was and they did not answer. They gave us one more informing look and then they ran from us as fast as their legs would carry them.'

Thor’s Tale is my account of the lives of those two boys, and of the effect Thor’s meeting with the explorers had on him.

160 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[Laurence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rattling good read that vividly conveys the life of whaling and exploration in the southern Atlantic in earlu 20th century. I could feel the cold and damp seeping everywhere. Having just listened to an epiosode of the Empire podcast on the ship Endeavour, the book helped to convey the enormity of the Shackleton expedition, and the strength of character that was needed to survive the retreat from an ice-locked ship and make it to South Georgia and find out about the madness that WW1 had unleashed on the world.

[Fay Paterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought for my 11 year old granddaughter as I thought she might enjoy reading a book written by someone I had been to school with (although briefly - 3A and 4A GGHS). I thoroughly enjoyed it myself and was impressed by the amount of research undertaken.

[Spens (Sphynx Reads) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh this was such a pain to read. Utterly boring and poorly written. The only reason I finished it was because I'm trying to read all the physical books in our house.