Voyage to the North Pole | Siberia | 5

Against The Odds

Wondery

Cassie De Pecol, History, Society & Culture, Dolby, Mike Corey, Dolby Atmos, Atmos

4.7 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After months of trekking across the polar ice, the crew of USS Jeannette finally reach open water. Now, they must endure a harrowing ocean crossing in three small, leaky boats to reach Siberia, where they hope to make contact with the native residents, and beg for food and shelter. But finding help in the frozen, maze-like swamps of Siberia’s Lena Delta is easier said than done – and another punishing winter is closing in.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to against the odds early in ad free right now.
0:05.0	Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery App or on Apple Podcasts. The
0:21.0	Engineer George Melville heaves his weight against the tiller, struggling to turn his small whaleboat in the raging ocean waters.
0:25.4	A wave smashes the boat's side, blinding him with freezing spray.
0:30.2	Ten other men huddle in the sailboat with him, bailing water with buckets.
0:34.0	One man vomits over the side. Melville wipes the stinging water from his eyes and calls out to a sailor keeping lookout on the bow.
0:42.0	Can you see Galong's boat? falls out to a sailor keeping lookout on the bow.
0:43.0	Can you see Galong's boat?
0:44.8	Just barely.
0:45.8	Off our stern to starburn.
0:47.5	Melville squints through the rain,
0:49.7	then shoves the tiller again.
0:51.6	He marvels at the violence of the storm.
0:55.0	It's the evening of September 12, 1881.
0:59.0	Three months since their ship,
1:00.6	U.S.S. Jeunette was crushed in the polar pack ice and sank to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
1:07.0	After that, Melville and the Jeunette's other 32 crewmen had no choice but to march over the ice dragging three small boats along with them.
1:15.6	Now they're trying to sail those three boats to northern Siberia,
1:19.8	over roughly 100 miles of open ocean.
1:23.8	They launched this morning in calm seas under clear skies,
1:27.8	but within an hour, black clouds and violent weather swept in. They've been trapped in hell ever since.
1:36.1	The other two boats are helmed by expedition leader George Delong and his second in
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.