Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration

His two companions were dead, his food and supplies had vanished in a crevasse, and Douglas Mawson was still one hundred miles from camp.

On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp. The dogs were gone. Now Mawson himself plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface.

Mawson was someti...