Status Updates From Shackleton's Epic: Recreati...

ice conditions forced a re-think anyway and a move to stronger ice nearby and what they dubbed ‘Patience Camp’. Here, a more candid assessment of their dire food situation resulted in the need to shoot twenty-seven of their dogs that they could not longer afford to feed. Wild reporting that it was the worst job he had ever had to do: ‘I have known many men I would rather shoot than the worst of the dogs.’

The trails of the world be countless,
and most of the trails be tried;
You tread on the heels of the many,
till you come where the ways divide;
And one lies safe in the sunlight,
and the other Is dreary and wan,
Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail,
and the Lone Trail lures you on.

—Robert Service, The Lone Trail—