Expedition gear on the foredeck of the MV Grigiory Mikheev awaits transport via Zodiac to the shore of King Haakon Bay, near the site of Shackleton's Peggoty Camp. Photo: Peter Potterfield

If I'd only known, back in the third grade, that walking miles to school in drenching rain was preparing me for South Georgia Island and the Crean Glacier, I'd have gone more willingly. But we didn't go to the end of the earth merely to validate my childhood. We were commemorating Ernest Shackleton's most celebrated bit of wandering.

It is difficult though, after the best part of a century has elapsed, to imagine how much harder such wandering was in 1916. I found it hard enough thinking back to my own forced storm marches to school (which was up a bunch of hills) and remembering that I'd somehow squeaked by without so much as a hint of waterproof yet breathable attire: no seam sealing; no GPS to point the way; no sunburned lip; no big, darn pack and sled oozing along through the wet snow; no pretty red skis pounding out a track; no gigantic plastic boots; no climbing harness; no rope; not even 20 drenched souls plodding along in my ski track. In reality, I guess it was just the unrelenting rain and the certainty that we had to be out in it that reminded me of trudging to the likewise unavoidable third grade.

But enough about my soggy youth, I would have to concede that there is far more interest these days in the Shackleton story. Sir Ernest set out with his fine ship Endurance in 1914 with the goal of crossing Antarctica on foot. Instead, before "Shacks" and the gang reached the continent, they were caught in the sea ice, their ship was crushed, they drifted on the ice and got skinny for months before having to take to the lifeboats when the ice busted up. They made a remarkable voyage to a remarkably bleak place, Elephant Island, where they would never, ever have been found (although they would have learned to swallow a lot of seal blubber with a smile). Shackleton and five men then got in an open boat, the James Caird, and did 800 miles the hard way. Through some of the world's stormiest seas, short on food, water, and happy thoughts in general, they ended up right were they set out to go — South Georgia Island.