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For centuries, | 0:00:02 | 0:00:03 | |
explorers have travelled to the ends of the Earth | 0:00:03 | 0:00:06 | |
in the name of discovery. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:09 | |
Along the way, they created our maps... | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
..captured our imagination | 0:00:13 | 0:00:15 | |
and became rooted in our history. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
Exploration has given us some of our greatest heroes | 0:00:21 | 0:00:23 | |
and most memorable tales. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:25 | |
But discovery is not all romance and glory. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:29 | |
As exploration has been studied and re-examined, | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
the very notion of discovery has been called into question. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
In this film, | 0:00:38 | 0:00:39 | |
I'll be digging through the BBC's incredible archive - | 0:00:39 | 0:00:43 | |
nearly 70 years of documentary footage - | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
to pinpoint the monumental shifts in the story of exploration. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:51 | |
Along the way, I'll discover why some explorers | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
have remained our heroes... | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
..but others have been reinterpreted. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:03 | |
One immediately takes issue with the cult of the hero. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
I'll examine the changing face of the first-hand account... | 0:01:09 | 0:01:13 | |
Had I been facing the other way, it would have killed me. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:16 | |
..and follow the rise of the amateur explorer. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:19 | |
We crossed by a horrifying bridge about 400 feet long. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
In this programme, I'll discover not only how television has followed | 0:01:26 | 0:01:29 | |
explorers and told their stories, | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
but also how film has actually changed | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
the entire enterprise of exploration. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
This is the Timewatch Guide to Explorers. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
Discovery - | 0:01:46 | 0:01:47 | |
the word alone conjures up wooden ships sailing across the globe, | 0:01:47 | 0:01:52 | |
a captain at the helm poring over a map and compass. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:56 | |
For centuries, that was the enduring image of the explorer - | 0:01:56 | 0:02:00 | |
fearless, full of ambition, poised for glory. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
But over the last 50 years | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
our attitudes towards the heroic navigators of old have shifted, | 0:02:08 | 0:02:13 | |
starting with Christopher Columbus. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
In 1492, he sailed from Europe to the Americas, | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
discovering the New World and claiming it for Spain. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
The BBC reconstructed his voyage and landing in 1963, | 0:02:26 | 0:02:31 | |
telling the age-old story for a growing television audience. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:37 | |
In the name of Their Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella, | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
King and Queen of Castille, Leon and Aragon, | 0:02:40 | 0:02:44 | |
I now take possession of this land and name it San Salvador. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:49 | |
THEY CHEER | 0:02:49 | 0:02:51 | |
I declare that this is Spanish soil for all time, | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
drawn up this 12th day of October in the year of Our Lord, | 0:02:55 | 0:02:59 | |
1492. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
In the traditional tellings of the explorers' story, | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
it's generally from the point of view of the explorer. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
So you will see the classic trope of an explorer arriving on the beach, | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
falling on their hands and knees, giving praise to God, | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
and claiming the land. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
It's always about planting a flag. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:24 | |
Or if not planting a flag, extending the influence of your people. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:29 | |
The British answer to Columbus was Captain James Cook. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:34 | |
He sailed across the world, | 0:03:34 | 0:03:36 | |
mapping new lands and claiming them for empire. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:38 | |
He also brought back hundreds of artefacts - | 0:03:39 | 0:03:42 | |
trophies of his encounters with exotic far-away cultures. | 0:03:42 | 0:03:46 | |
Two centuries later, | 0:03:47 | 0:03:48 | |
The Cook Legacy joined curators, | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
only now taking on the challenge of | 0:03:51 | 0:03:53 | |
understanding what these objects actually were. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
Their first stop was the British Museum's Museum of Mankind. | 0:03:56 | 0:04:00 | |
It is one of the unfortunate accidents in the history | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
of museums that although the Museum Of Mankind | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
probably has the most extensive collection of objects | 0:04:07 | 0:04:11 | |
collected on Cook's voyages, much of it cannot be identified. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
The problem is not that the objects are missing, lost or dispersed, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:20 | |
as might have happened in other museums. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
The problem is missing documentation. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
What the experts really needed was a paper trail | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
that would give them more information. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
They finally found one in Oxford. | 0:04:32 | 0:04:34 | |
The Forster Collection here at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
is important to our research for two reasons. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
Firstly, the material is of very good quality indeed. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
Secondly, we have a great deal of documentation, | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
both published and unpublished. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
And this means that we are able to tie down the date of collection | 0:04:52 | 0:04:57 | |
very precisely, we sometimes know from whom it comes, | 0:04:57 | 0:05:01 | |
and we can even localise the specimens, | 0:05:01 | 0:05:05 | |
in many cases, to particular parts of the island in question. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
Pinning down where the objects came from was the first step towards | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
understanding the people they had once belonged to. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
So the search goes on, | 0:05:18 | 0:05:20 | |
for every piece that can be documented | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
to collection on Cook's voyages | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
tells us something more about Pacific Islanders | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
as they were before the voyages of Captain Cook and others | 0:05:28 | 0:05:32 | |
irrevocably changed their lives. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
The Cook Legacy was not about Captain Cook at all. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:39 | |
It was about discovering the people he'd met on his voyages, | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
as revealed through the objects that Cook had taken from them. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:46 | |
The material artefacts of voyages of explorations like, for example, | 0:05:47 | 0:05:52 | |
James Cook's, they become very important because they, in a way, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:57 | |
are a physical reminder that these objects have a creator, | 0:05:57 | 0:06:02 | |
they have a history of their own, | 0:06:02 | 0:06:04 | |
they have a biography. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:05 | |
The artefacts now told a new and forgotten story. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:11 | |
Scholars have begun to pay more and more attention | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
to the other side of exploration. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
The story of the people already living in the places | 0:06:17 | 0:06:21 | |
being discovered. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:22 | |
In the 1990s, the BBC decided to tackle this other side directly. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:28 | |
For the 500th anniversary of Columbus's crossing, | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
film-makers travelled to the USA | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
to find out what ordinary people thought | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
of the so-called discoverer of their continent. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
In New York City on October 12th, Columbus Day, he is an Italian hero. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:51 | |
It's something to be proud of, an Italian heritage, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:54 | |
that an Italian discovered America. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:55 | |
With no Christopher Columbus, we wouldn't be here right now. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
And irrespective of whether or not you hear about other people | 0:06:58 | 0:07:02 | |
that discovered America, | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
Columbus was the man that opened up the Americas to the world. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:09 | |
But the programme also revealed that while Americans celebrated Columbus | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
as a hero, local people in Mexico had a rather different take | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
on his actions. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
To many of the Americas' native peoples, | 0:07:21 | 0:07:23 | |
contact with Europe is still seen as having brought with it | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
little but disease, servitude and deprivation. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
The Mayans who live here share the view of many Native Americans | 0:07:34 | 0:07:37 | |
throughout the Americas towards the quincentenary. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:41 | |
The Indian point of view is that it shouldn't be celebrated, | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
because the conquest, it means domination, | 0:07:45 | 0:07:49 | |
the end of our own history as Indians. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:53 | |
And that, of course, is not an occasion of celebration. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
As indigenous people finally got to tell their own story, | 0:08:00 | 0:08:04 | |
the traditional European narrative was forced to change. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
Over the last 40 years, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
we've increasingly realised that if we want to tell | 0:08:11 | 0:08:15 | |
the story of exploration, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:17 | |
we've got to pay much more attention to the people who were | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
already there, | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
who were living in these lands that the Europeans went | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
to discover and colonise. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
One then immediately takes issue with the cult of the hero. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
From an indigenous point of view, from a post-colonial point of view, | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
this is just a tale that Europeans tell. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
A growing suspicion of the European explorer had emerged, | 0:08:41 | 0:08:45 | |
and that's led to a startling shift on television too. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:48 | |
2002's The Ship was a very different type of documentary - | 0:08:50 | 0:08:54 | |
a living history experiment | 0:08:54 | 0:08:56 | |
that invited members of the public to recreate life | 0:08:56 | 0:08:58 | |
as one of Captain Cook's crew. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:00 | |
During their gruelling weeks-long journey | 0:09:01 | 0:09:03 | |
up the east coast of Australia, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
the film-makers explored the full picture of Cook's legacy, | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
warts and all. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:10 | |
This is the story of an 18th-century voyage and a 21st-century adventure. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:17 | |
Our volunteer crew includes Royal Navy sailors, scientists, | 0:09:24 | 0:09:27 | |
medics and historians. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:28 | |
Also part of our crew, | 0:09:30 | 0:09:32 | |
some of the people most affected by Cook's arrival in this part | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
of the world - New Zealand Maori and Australian Aborigines. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
Along the way, audiences got a taste of the dangers and discomforts | 0:09:41 | 0:09:45 | |
that Cook and his crew had experienced. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:47 | |
Sailing a tall ship is a 24-hour operation. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
Alex, an Australian historian, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
is now clinging to a yardarm 130 feet above a rolling ocean. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
I've always felt that it was a dangerous temptation | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
for historians to get their history exclusively from books, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:06 | |
and coming here to a place like this to think about history | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
is an extraordinary experience. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:12 | |
It's certainly an extreme context in which to think about history. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
-BELL RINGS -Down to lunch. Go, go, get. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
The programme also didn't shy away from the contentious aspects | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
of Cook's journey and his legacy. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:25 | |
In fact, it embraced the complexity of the story. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
I don't see him as a hero, | 0:10:29 | 0:10:31 | |
but I certainly acknowledge what he achieved. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
-His accomplishments. -His accomplishment. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
But the story is about Cook. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
But what about the people that were affected, | 0:10:40 | 0:10:43 | |
and what about the amount of massacres that went on? | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
-You mean after Cook? -After Cook. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
And how the Aboriginal people were affected, and the Maori people? | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
The film interwove the indigenous perspective | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
with the traditional story of Captain Cook. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
Bruce had hoisted the Aboriginal flag on the first day of our voyage. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:07 | |
It's a moving symbol. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:10 | |
I mean... | 0:11:10 | 0:11:11 | |
..Cook's too easily been assimilated to a kind of white myth, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:17 | |
but the story is also a story of... | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
..of colonialism, of dispossession of indigenous peoples, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:27 | |
and it's very important that we don't elide that. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:29 | |
Post-colonialism has meant for historians the need to, | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
in a beautiful phrase, provincialize Europe - | 0:11:38 | 0:11:41 | |
to look from the wider world back at Europe | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
and to make it a rather little place. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
What we're now dealing with is a much more richly textured history | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
than we had before, | 0:11:51 | 0:11:52 | |
when you've got the points of view and the experiences of the different | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
groups who were encountered. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
Back in the 1960s, | 0:12:00 | 0:12:01 | |
the BBC had presented discovery as a heroic, white, | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
European tale. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:06 | |
But by the 21st century, | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
film-makers not only saw a more complicated and ambiguous story, | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
they'd also created new ways of telling it. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:17 | |
The past doesn't change, but the stories we tell about it, | 0:12:22 | 0:12:27 | |
they change all the time. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:29 | |
What we choose to remember from history is not really about | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
the past at all, it's about the present. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
Nothing shows this more clearly | 0:12:37 | 0:12:38 | |
than which explorers we exalt as heroes. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
They fall in and out of favour as our own society evolves | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
from decade to decade. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
In 1965, | 0:12:48 | 0:12:49 | |
the young David Attenborough set out to follow in the footsteps | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
of David Livingstone, the quintessential Victorian hero. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
Livingstone was one of the first Europeans to explore | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
the interior of Africa. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:03 | |
His journeys made him into an iconic British explorer, | 0:13:03 | 0:13:07 | |
even into the 1960s. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
For Attenborough, retracing Livingstone's journeys | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
was an opportunity to show the beauty of his greatest discoveries | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
to a new television audience. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:17 | |
As he travelled in the canoe, | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
he had with him this small pocketbook. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
These figures are the hours that he took as he went down river. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
Up here, he's noted the nature of the rocks he passes - | 0:13:27 | 0:13:31 | |
porphyry with crystals covered with copper. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:33 | |
And then, on the next page, | 0:13:33 | 0:13:35 | |
come the details of his approach to the falls. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:38 | |
Not surprisingly, Attenborough paid special attention | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
to the natural world | 0:13:42 | 0:13:44 | |
and to Livingstone's most famous geographical discovery - | 0:13:44 | 0:13:48 | |
the Victoria Falls. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:49 | |
And so he came to this spot and looked right over the very edge | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
of the falls, the first white man ever to do so. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:02 | |
Livingstone's own comment is a typical understatement. | 0:14:02 | 0:14:05 | |
"For a moment," he wrote, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:07 | |
"I thought we were going to go right into the gulf. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
"And I felt a tremor, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:12 | |
"but I said nothing, | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
"believing that I could face the difficulty as well as my guides." | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
Until now, he had never used anything | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
but the local African name for all his geographical discoveries. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
But here, for the first and last time, he broke with this rule, | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
and he called these the Victoria Falls. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
Livingstone is still famous for his discovery of the Victoria Falls, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:39 | |
but by the 1960s, he was starting to feel like an old-fashioned hero, | 0:14:39 | 0:14:44 | |
partly because his main purpose was actually | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
not science or inspiration, | 0:14:46 | 0:14:48 | |
but a very Victorian one - | 0:14:48 | 0:14:50 | |
to convert Africa to Christianity. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
The people say that it was under this tree, | 0:14:53 | 0:14:55 | |
which blew down only a year ago, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
that Livingstone pitched his tent. | 0:14:57 | 0:15:00 | |
Already, before his journey had really begun, | 0:15:00 | 0:15:02 | |
he was stricken by fever, | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
and so weak that he hadn't the strength | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
to go out and hunt for meat for himself. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
But the chief of Sesheke hospitably sent him gifts | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
of honey and milk and fruit and maize. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:16 | |
Weak though he was, | 0:15:16 | 0:15:17 | |
Livingstone nonetheless found the strength | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
to preach both in the morning and the afternoon, | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
and was listened to by audiences of over 600. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:26 | |
By the 1960s, | 0:15:26 | 0:15:28 | |
the religious culture which had really sustained | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
Livingstone's reputation, | 0:15:31 | 0:15:33 | |
I'm talking about Sunday schools, missionary organisations, etc, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:38 | |
well, that has really ebbed away. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
It hasn't disappeared, | 0:15:41 | 0:15:42 | |
and Christianity is still an important force in public life, | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
but it has nothing like the power | 0:15:46 | 0:15:48 | |
and authority that kept Livingstone at the centre | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
of the public stage through the 19th century. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
In 1975, Attenborough was again at the helm, introducing The Explorers, | 0:15:58 | 0:16:04 | |
an epic series highlighting ten of the most important heroes of exploration. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:08 | |
This time, Livingstone the missionary did not make the list. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:13 | |
Instead, reflecting the priorities of 1970s Britain, | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
the producers included a woman explorer, Mary Kingsley, | 0:16:16 | 0:16:20 | |
who transformed how the British viewed Africa. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:23 | |
Here now is the remarkable story | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
of one of the shortest important journeys | 0:16:28 | 0:16:30 | |
in the annals of discovery. | 0:16:30 | 0:16:32 | |
It lasted barely a week in 1893, | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
and covered no more than 60 or 70 miles. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:39 | |
And yet it was a journey which had enormous impact on white Europeans, | 0:16:39 | 0:16:43 | |
for through Mary Kingsley's eyes, | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
the blinkered world of Victorian Britain was to see an interpretation | 0:16:45 | 0:16:50 | |
of the African that was as new as it was startling. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:54 | |
Through her experiences, | 0:16:55 | 0:16:57 | |
Mary Kingsley came to question many of the attitudes Victorians | 0:16:57 | 0:16:59 | |
held about the people of Africa. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
And her observations were just as powerful for viewers in the 1970s, | 0:17:03 | 0:17:07 | |
when The Explorers dramatised her diary. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
I stayed with missionaries in the Gaboon. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:14 | |
I have a profound personal esteem for several missionaries, | 0:17:14 | 0:17:18 | |
but often they fail to recognise the difference | 0:17:18 | 0:17:20 | |
between the African and themselves. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
The black man is no more an undeveloped white man | 0:17:23 | 0:17:26 | |
than a rabbit is an undeveloped hare. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:28 | |
My route was to lie in the unexplored territory | 0:17:32 | 0:17:34 | |
between two rivers, | 0:17:34 | 0:17:36 | |
the Rembwe and the Ogowe, territory inhabited entirely by the Fangs, | 0:17:36 | 0:17:41 | |
a tribe notorious for their ferocity, treachery and cannibalism. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
The film revelled in Kingsley's refusal to let the inconvenience | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
of being a woman get in her way. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
It was just my luck to go and fall into an elephant trap. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
Get a bush rope and pull me out! | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
-VOICEOVER: -Kiva established that I was alive, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:07 | |
and went and selected a bush rope | 0:18:07 | 0:18:09 | |
suitable to haul an English lady of my exact complexion, | 0:18:09 | 0:18:11 | |
age and size out of that one particular pit. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:15 | |
It is at times like this that you realise the blessing of a good, | 0:18:17 | 0:18:20 | |
thick skirt. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:21 | |
While the film paid homage to Kingsley the explorer, | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
it also had fun drawing out her prim Victorian values. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:30 | |
One should never go about in Africa | 0:18:32 | 0:18:33 | |
in something one would be ashamed of at home. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:36 | |
I hasten to assure you that I don't even wear a masculine collar and tie. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:41 | |
And as for trousers, well, | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
I would rather perish on a public scaffold. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:45 | |
It's not surprising that, in making a ten-part series, | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
they wanted to include one woman. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
Mary Kingsley as the choice? | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
That's a very intriguing choice. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:57 | |
She was a very intriguing woman. | 0:18:57 | 0:18:59 | |
She approached exploration in a very different way to most | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
of her male counterparts at the time, | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
but to be included as the token woman is quite ironic, | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
because she certainly wouldn't have called herself a feminist | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
by any stretch of the imagination. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
In the '70s, Kingsley was admired | 0:19:16 | 0:19:18 | |
for challenging the Victorian perspective on Africa | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
and the traditional role of a woman, | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
but she was still a heroine from a bygone time. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:27 | |
The problem with heroes is that they can't help but reflect the values | 0:19:29 | 0:19:32 | |
of their age, and as our values change, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:36 | |
so the icons of the past can fall out of fashion. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
The ideal hero is someone who embodies the values | 0:19:42 | 0:19:45 | |
of his or her era. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:47 | |
Edmund Hillary first made headlines in 1953 when he became | 0:19:48 | 0:19:53 | |
the first person to summit Mount Everest, | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:56 | |
This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news - | 0:19:59 | 0:20:03 | |
Mount Everest has been conquered by members of the British expedition. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:08 | |
The conquest was front-page news, | 0:20:08 | 0:20:10 | |
and Hillary was crowned a British hero on the Queen's coronation day. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:14 | |
Hillary is arguably the last great imperial hero, | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
who is celebrated at the time of Elizabeth's coronation in 1953, | 0:20:19 | 0:20:26 | |
an icon for the age of the new Elizabethans. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
30 years later, Edmund Hillary was still an icon, | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
but his heroism had also deepened. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
In the 1983 film, Man Of Everest, | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
the BBC travelled with Hillary back to the Himalayas, discovering how, | 0:20:41 | 0:20:45 | |
over decades of climbing, | 0:20:45 | 0:20:47 | |
he'd developed a intimate relationship with the local communities. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:50 | |
It also paid homage to his mountaineering career | 0:20:52 | 0:20:54 | |
beyond Everest, and crucially, it tried to discover | 0:20:54 | 0:20:58 | |
what it was like to pit oneself against the full force of nature. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:02 | |
Ahead, some of the awe-inspiring Himalayan peaks. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
Thamserku, first climbed in 1964 by an expedition Hillary led. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:13 | |
Kangtega, first climbed by Hillary's 1963 expedition. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:18 | |
And beyond them, probably Nepal's more spectacular peak, | 0:21:20 | 0:21:24 | |
Ama Dablam, four miles high, once thought unscalable. | 0:21:24 | 0:21:28 | |
This mountain means a lot to Hillary, | 0:21:31 | 0:21:33 | |
for the expedition he led in 1961 did climb it. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:37 | |
We can see a shift to mountains, | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
to polar exploration as well. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
And expeditions to these places, well, you can present them, | 0:21:45 | 0:21:49 | |
you can tell the stories as battles against nature, | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
which are, at least seemingly, | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
not weighed down with the problematic politics of empire. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
By the 1980s, it was far simpler to explore the struggle to | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
reach the top of a mountain | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
than grapple with the weight of colonial history. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:11 | |
Hillary is off through the thinning air, | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
bound for a vantage point, to see the mother of mountains, | 0:22:15 | 0:22:19 | |
where once he spent ten minutes on top of the world. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
He must climb 1,500 feet more. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:25 | |
That's the same target he and Tenzing | 0:22:25 | 0:22:27 | |
had to achieve when they set out that final day | 0:22:27 | 0:22:30 | |
for the unclimbed summit. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:32 | |
It must have been an incredible feeling, being on the top. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:36 | |
Well, it was a pretty good feeling, I guess. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:38 | |
Although I don't remember ever jumping up and down for joy | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
at any moment. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
I think we were tired, and we still had a long way to get down again. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:46 | |
I think the best moment was when we actually finally got down | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
into the Western Cwm to meet all of our companions and know | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
that the worst of the difficulties and dangers were behind. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:55 | |
Man Of Everest tried to capture the heroic explorer's inner thoughts, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:01 | |
the personal joys and the agonies of the quest. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:04 | |
We're in an era of one man against the elements, | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
one woman against the elements. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:10 | |
And that's merely a function of our time, | 0:23:10 | 0:23:12 | |
we live in a very individualistic era. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:14 | |
But it has meant that the world has become a stage, more and more. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:18 | |
When it came to exploration, | 0:23:20 | 0:23:22 | |
one of the 20th century's greatest stages | 0:23:22 | 0:23:24 | |
was the world's largest unmapped territory - Antarctica. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:29 | |
And the most coveted prize - the South Pole. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
In 1912, a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen | 0:23:33 | 0:23:37 | |
beat Britain's Robert Scott in the race for the pole. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
Amundsen's team survived, Scott's did not. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
The fact that they had both reached the pole made them the great | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
polar heroes of their age. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:50 | |
But in the 21st century, | 0:23:52 | 0:23:54 | |
their fame has been equalled by a man who never even made it | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
to the South Pole, | 0:23:57 | 0:23:58 | |
and is best known for a failed Antarctic expedition | 0:23:58 | 0:24:02 | |
that turned into a desperate feat of survival. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
On the 21st of November 1915, | 0:24:08 | 0:24:11 | |
28 men were shipwrecked in the most desolate place in the world. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:16 | |
Their journey to safety was one of the greatest survival stories | 0:24:16 | 0:24:20 | |
in the history of exploration. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:22 | |
A journey that would have meant certain death for all of them | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
if it hadn't been for the determination of one man, | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
Sir Ernest Shackleton. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
In 1914, | 0:24:34 | 0:24:35 | |
Ernest Shackleton had set out to be the first person | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
to cross the Antarctic continent. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
But before he even reached land, his expedition ship, | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
the Endurance, was frozen into the sea ice and eventually crushed. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:49 | |
He and his crew were stranded 1,000 miles | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
from the nearest inhabited spot, with no hope of rescue. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
Shackleton contemplated how to save his crew, | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
recording his thoughts in a diary. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:01 | |
Over 80 years later, | 0:25:02 | 0:25:04 | |
his thoughts were brought back to life in a major BBC docudrama. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
Strong leadership is my only weapon. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:12 | |
On that depends the sanity of my brave companions. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
He was part of a society that believed in dignity and restraint. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
He had got his men into this predicament | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
and he would get them out through grim determination, if nothing else. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
It's not until the 1990s | 0:25:29 | 0:25:31 | |
when there's really a revival of interest in Shackleton. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:35 | |
Business scholars, people interested in leadership, | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
begin to turn to this charismatic figure, this man who would say, | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
"If you don't take my gloves, I'm going to throw them into the water. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
"So, you've got to take them." | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
A man who led from the front, | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
and inspired his followers through his charisma and personality. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:54 | |
Forced to abandon their ship, | 0:25:56 | 0:25:57 | |
the crew set up camp on the floating ice, | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
where Shackleton did everything he could to prevent his men | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
from losing hope. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:04 | |
A few days ago Captain Wesley amused the men by running out onto | 0:26:06 | 0:26:09 | |
the floe in a state of nature. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
Today, a morale boost was needed again, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:16 | |
so I asked Captain Worsley for the honour of a dance, | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
and we waltzed on the ice while the crew whistled. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
Morale was soon up again. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:25 | |
He becomes a figure who really suits popular culture in the 1990s. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:34 | |
He's the maverick polar explorer, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:38 | |
the charismatic, | 0:26:38 | 0:26:40 | |
Anglo-Irish rogue who breaks conventions, | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
doesn't follow hierarchy. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
To escape the floating ice, the crew ventured to Elephant Island. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:52 | |
And then Shackleton took matters into his own hands. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
Leaving most of his men behind, | 0:26:57 | 0:26:59 | |
he led a skeleton crew on a torturous journey | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
across the Antarctic Ocean in a small open lifeboat. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:06 | |
They sailed 800 miles | 0:27:07 | 0:27:09 | |
before finally reaching the island of South Georgia. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:13 | |
And there, he and two companions | 0:27:13 | 0:27:14 | |
walked into the treacherous landscape, | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
towards what Shackleton hoped was a whaling station. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
Shackleton heard a distant sound. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:24 | |
It could be the wake-up call for the whaling station. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:27 | |
If he hadn't imagined it, he knew it would sound again at seven o'clock. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
They'd walked for 36 straight hours. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
This was their last hope. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
That was a moment hard to describe. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
Never had any of us heard sweeter music. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:51 | |
This was the first sound of the outside world | 0:27:52 | 0:27:55 | |
they had heard in 17 months. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
Incredibly, Shackleton and his 27 men would all survive. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:04 | |
He turned an epic failure into one of exploration's greatest success stories. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
And so, in the 21st century, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:11 | |
he's acquired an almost mythical status. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:14 | |
There is a saying amongst explorers. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
For scientific discovery, give me Scott. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
For speed and efficiency, give me Amundsen. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:25 | |
But when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, | 0:28:25 | 0:28:28 | |
get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:31 | |
The changing portrayal of our explorers on TV - | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
whether the journeys of David Livingstone, | 0:28:39 | 0:28:41 | |
or Shackleton's trek to survive - | 0:28:41 | 0:28:43 | |
shows us clearly how each age | 0:28:43 | 0:28:45 | |
creates the heroes it needs and wants. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:48 | |
For most of history, | 0:28:51 | 0:28:53 | |
the story of our greatest journeys was told through the written word - | 0:28:53 | 0:28:57 | |
a diary or a hand-drawn map was the closest we could get | 0:28:57 | 0:28:59 | |
to the experience of an expedition. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:03 | |
But in the 20th century, a new type of record emerged. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:07 | |
The advent of film completely changed | 0:29:07 | 0:29:09 | |
how explorers told their story. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:11 | |
In the 1960s, | 0:29:14 | 0:29:15 | |
explorer Wally Herbert approached the BBC with a brand-new idea. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:19 | |
He wanted to film his next expedition for television. | 0:29:20 | 0:29:23 | |
After initially doubting the idea, | 0:29:24 | 0:29:26 | |
the BBC came on board and trained one of the four members | 0:29:26 | 0:29:29 | |
of Wally's team as a cameraman. | 0:29:29 | 0:29:31 | |
The result was a documentary chronicling | 0:29:33 | 0:29:35 | |
the first-ever journey across the frozen Arctic Ocean. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:39 | |
A huge, 16-month trek covering over 3,700 miles. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:44 | |
The team started in Alaska and went all the way to Norway. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:50 | |
It was a crossing that has never even been attempted since. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
I think the appeal of this trip is, | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
in every sense of the word, the bigness of it. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:03 | |
The bigness of it just in time | 0:30:03 | 0:30:05 | |
and the bigness of it in distance, | 0:30:05 | 0:30:07 | |
and the bigness of it as a challenge, | 0:30:07 | 0:30:11 | |
a challenge of human endurance. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:16 | |
But for the viewer there was something else, too. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:18 | |
A glimpse inside the mind of an explorer while he mused about | 0:30:18 | 0:30:22 | |
his troubles, frustrations and fears, | 0:30:22 | 0:30:24 | |
including his first crisis - | 0:30:24 | 0:30:26 | |
miles of broken ice. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:29 | |
Ahead of us it was just a complete chaos of ice. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:31 | |
I've never seen anything like it before in my life. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:35 | |
The mess of wet, jumbled ice, | 0:30:35 | 0:30:39 | |
which wouldn't bear the weight of a man, | 0:30:39 | 0:30:41 | |
the whole thing was moving. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:42 | |
The film revealed the extreme isolation of the polar explorer. | 0:30:44 | 0:30:48 | |
When the producers flew out to meet Wally in person, | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
they were turned back by the shifting ice | 0:30:52 | 0:30:54 | |
and had to settle for a radio interview. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:56 | |
Ideally, we should've been by now about 87 degrees | 0:30:59 | 0:31:04 | |
and on the other side of the date line. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
That puts us, I suppose - | 0:31:06 | 0:31:08 | |
I'm just guessing here a little bit - | 0:31:08 | 0:31:11 | |
maybe about 250 miles or so behind schedule. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:14 | |
Thinking now of the future, Wally, | 0:31:14 | 0:31:16 | |
I believe you plan to start in March. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:19 | |
Is it going to be dark at that time? | 0:31:19 | 0:31:21 | |
It depends a little bit on the latitude. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:23 | |
If we're at latitude 87, which is what I hope, | 0:31:23 | 0:31:26 | |
well, it should be pretty strong twilight by the 1st of March. | 0:31:26 | 0:31:31 | |
The viewer could see that even for the seasoned explorer, | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
expeditions were precarious. | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
Wally and his team waited out the winter, | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
then continued across the ice. | 0:31:38 | 0:31:41 | |
They were over a year into their journey, | 0:31:41 | 0:31:43 | |
closing in the North Pole. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:45 | |
But still, success seemed far from certain. | 0:31:46 | 0:31:49 | |
Approaching the North Pole is a rather unique experience. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:54 | |
You are approaching the point on the Earth's surface | 0:31:54 | 0:31:56 | |
where all the lines of longitude converge, | 0:31:56 | 0:31:59 | |
and this is a very confusing place to be. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:02 | |
It became a problem, | 0:32:02 | 0:32:03 | |
rather like trying to step on the shadow of a bird | 0:32:03 | 0:32:06 | |
which is hovering overhead, | 0:32:06 | 0:32:07 | |
because the ice itself is moving. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
When they did finally pin down their location at the North Pole, | 0:32:10 | 0:32:13 | |
Wally knew he and his men had won a place in exploration history. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:18 | |
Because Scott and his men posed in a certain way | 0:32:18 | 0:32:20 | |
and Amundsen in a certain way, | 0:32:20 | 0:32:22 | |
and because of our consciousness of history, | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
we were more or less obliged to pose in the same way. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
You don't approach a feat like reaching the North Pole | 0:32:28 | 0:32:32 | |
with a clean slate. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:34 | |
You are bringing with you ideas of how you should be behaving, | 0:32:34 | 0:32:38 | |
what's happened before, how you should stand, how you should pose, | 0:32:38 | 0:32:41 | |
making sure you get that definitive photograph. | 0:32:41 | 0:32:44 | |
But by this time we were feeling pretty cold, | 0:32:45 | 0:32:47 | |
and we weren't too sure of the exposure, | 0:32:47 | 0:32:49 | |
so I remember taking 36 pictures at the North Pole, | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
on every different exposure setting on the camera. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:55 | |
Meanwhile, my colleagues were getting pretty bored | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
and fed up with this. | 0:32:58 | 0:33:00 | |
We're very familiar with the images of explorers at the South Pole, | 0:33:00 | 0:33:03 | |
in Scott, Amundsen, standing there heroically, | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
but suddenly, with Wally Herbert, here was something visceral. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:09 | |
You could see the beards covered in ice, | 0:33:09 | 0:33:14 | |
you could see that pain in their eyes | 0:33:14 | 0:33:16 | |
and that gritty determination that this moment was theirs. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:21 | |
This was a part of history and you, as a viewer, were part of that. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:25 | |
By the time Wally and his team began the final leg of their journey | 0:33:26 | 0:33:29 | |
to Norway, now continuing south over the ice, | 0:33:29 | 0:33:33 | |
they felt like old friends to the television audience. | 0:33:33 | 0:33:36 | |
For the first time in something like 14 months, | 0:33:36 | 0:33:42 | |
we were heading in a different direction to north. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:44 | |
We got the sense that we were heading for home at last. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:49 | |
They travelled 12 hours a day and then, within sight of land, | 0:33:49 | 0:33:53 | |
the ice stopped them again, | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
devastating the crew. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:58 | |
All they could do was wait and hope. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:00 | |
Miles away, the Endurance, a British ship, | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
scheduled to pick them up, waited too. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:09 | |
The following morning, Herbert called up the Endurance by radio. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:14 | |
Endurance, Endurance. Traction, Traction... | 0:34:14 | 0:34:16 | |
Something had happened. | 0:34:16 | 0:34:17 | |
At 1900 hours, GMT, 29th May, | 0:34:19 | 0:34:22 | |
a landing was made after a scramble across three quarters of a mile | 0:34:22 | 0:34:26 | |
of mush ice and gyrating ice pans. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:28 | |
This landing, though brief, | 0:34:30 | 0:34:32 | |
concluded the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean. | 0:34:32 | 0:34:34 | |
Crossing the Arctic Ocean wasn't just an exploration first, | 0:34:36 | 0:34:40 | |
it was also a television first. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:43 | |
Suddenly, millions of people could be on an expedition, | 0:34:46 | 0:34:50 | |
experiencing the highs and lows for real. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:53 | |
They too could be an eyewitness to discovery. | 0:34:53 | 0:34:56 | |
The era of the filmed expedition had arrived, | 0:35:02 | 0:35:04 | |
and it was here to stay. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:06 | |
Suddenly, every cliffhanging moment | 0:35:06 | 0:35:08 | |
from the smallest of expeditions | 0:35:08 | 0:35:10 | |
could be broadcast worldwide. | 0:35:10 | 0:35:12 | |
As cameras became easier to use, | 0:35:14 | 0:35:16 | |
amateurs could take their turn behind the lens. | 0:35:16 | 0:35:19 | |
By 1979, the BBC was staging a yearly contest, | 0:35:20 | 0:35:24 | |
sending adventurers out to make their own films. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
Tonight, we make three more journeys of adventure | 0:35:34 | 0:35:36 | |
to find the expedition film which will win this year's | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
Mick Burke Award. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:41 | |
None was made by a professional film-maker. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:44 | |
Each team was given a grant of £500 towards expenses, | 0:35:44 | 0:35:48 | |
and after an intensive three-day film-making course | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
at the BBC's Bristol studios, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:53 | |
the cameramen and sound recordists joined their expeditions, | 0:35:53 | 0:35:56 | |
equipped with 8mm cameras, like this, | 0:35:56 | 0:36:00 | |
60 cassettes of colour film, | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
sound recorders and cassette tapes, | 0:36:02 | 0:36:04 | |
all on loan from the BBC. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
In July, these four set out from Gwynedd in North Wales | 0:36:07 | 0:36:11 | |
to conquer the unclimbed peak of Bakhor Das. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:14 | |
The trek to the 19,000-foot Himalayan peak | 0:36:17 | 0:36:19 | |
was a huge challenge in itself. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
But that didn't deter | 0:36:23 | 0:36:24 | |
Ann, Marion, Brid and expedition leader Jacqueline. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:28 | |
For the first three-and-a-half days | 0:36:30 | 0:36:32 | |
we followed the Braldu River. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:33 | |
We had to cross several side streams that come down from the mountain. | 0:36:34 | 0:36:38 | |
These streams swell as the day goes on. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
At one of them, Marion was some way behind. | 0:36:43 | 0:36:45 | |
One of the porters, who are extremely sure-footed, | 0:36:46 | 0:36:49 | |
went back to give her a hand. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:50 | |
Now that Marion and the team were safely across, | 0:36:57 | 0:37:00 | |
it was time for a well-earned bath. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:03 | |
For the first time, the audience saw the nitty-gritty of expedition life. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:07 | |
It was absolutely fantastic, | 0:37:11 | 0:37:12 | |
been able to strip off and have a thorough wash | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
without all the porters gawping at us. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
For Brid, it was foot inspection time. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:20 | |
As for Marion, she decided to have a good go at her fingernails. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
With the downtime over, | 0:37:25 | 0:37:27 | |
the toughest part of the journey to the base of Bakhor Das began. | 0:37:27 | 0:37:30 | |
Now we had to cross the raging Braldu River. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:35 | |
We crossed by a horrifying bridge, about 400 feet long. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:51 | |
It was made of twigs twisted together, | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
but it was swaying in a horrifying way. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:56 | |
The secret was not to look at the water, | 0:38:03 | 0:38:06 | |
but only to look at what you were doing with your feet. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:08 | |
The women's self-shot footage | 0:38:10 | 0:38:12 | |
captures the adrenaline of the moment. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:14 | |
Isn't it horrifying? | 0:38:18 | 0:38:20 | |
I know! I realised there were people behind me, | 0:38:20 | 0:38:22 | |
because it was swaying like buggery when I was coming up here. | 0:38:22 | 0:38:25 | |
After five days, they arrive at the foot of the unclimbed Bakhor Das. | 0:38:27 | 0:38:33 | |
But then the conditions turn against them. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:36 | |
The exceptionally warm weather caused snowmelt on the peaks | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
to flood the streams. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:41 | |
Each day, our waterfall turned into a thundering express train | 0:38:41 | 0:38:44 | |
of mud and boulders. | 0:38:44 | 0:38:46 | |
We very quickly got the impression | 0:38:51 | 0:38:52 | |
that the rock on our mountain was not very solid. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:56 | |
We reached a high point, | 0:38:56 | 0:38:58 | |
where our ridge met the top of an ice field. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
From here, we could see the last 1,500 feet. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:04 | |
It was obvious to all of us that the conditions were going to be | 0:39:04 | 0:39:07 | |
no different. A decision had to be made. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:10 | |
Much to the team's disappointment, | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
the peak proved just too dangerous to climb. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
But despite this, | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
the drama and a realistic portrayal of expedition life they'd captured | 0:39:19 | 0:39:22 | |
convince the judges. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:24 | |
The women won best film. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:26 | |
And so we'll close with congratulations to the winners | 0:39:28 | 0:39:32 | |
of the 1979 Mick Burke Award. | 0:39:32 | 0:39:35 | |
By the 1990s, expensive film had been replaced by cheap video tape, | 0:39:39 | 0:39:44 | |
and cameras had become even easier to use. | 0:39:44 | 0:39:48 | |
The BBC's Video Diaries series used | 0:39:48 | 0:39:50 | |
this technology to launch a completely new form of television - | 0:39:50 | 0:39:54 | |
members of the public filming their own lives in close-up. | 0:39:54 | 0:39:57 | |
One of the most watched was by Benedict Allen, | 0:39:59 | 0:40:02 | |
who filmed his personal journey to the Peruvian Amazon, | 0:40:02 | 0:40:05 | |
culminating in a visit to a remote lake said to contain a super snake. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:10 | |
The lake was still a few days away. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:16 | |
Apart from a bunch of bananas, we had no food supplies, | 0:40:16 | 0:40:19 | |
but the forest was full of fresh meat. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:21 | |
Alligators all around us. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:32 | |
And not scared at all, | 0:40:34 | 0:40:39 | |
coming within one foot of the canoe. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:42 | |
Benedict Allen was a solo explorer, | 0:40:49 | 0:40:51 | |
but to venture into the Amazon he needed local guides. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:55 | |
His was Armando, a member of the Matses tribe. | 0:40:55 | 0:40:59 | |
So we're building our camp right on the Jaguar's Trail. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:09 | |
It doesn't seem like a very sensible place to build a camp, | 0:41:12 | 0:41:15 | |
but call me old-fashioned. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:18 | |
That's what I think. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:22 | |
I have very, very long arms, and it's perfect, | 0:41:24 | 0:41:26 | |
because I could suddenly film the action, something over there, | 0:41:26 | 0:41:30 | |
and then my reaction to it. | 0:41:30 | 0:41:32 | |
So it was all about speed. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:34 | |
And I began to realise these things, | 0:41:34 | 0:41:36 | |
forget about the wide-angle lens, | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
forget about complicated things, | 0:41:38 | 0:41:40 | |
I could never compete with a film crew, | 0:41:40 | 0:41:43 | |
but what I can do and what a film crew can't do is get intimacy. | 0:41:43 | 0:41:46 | |
The whole point of this diary is that it exposes the real expedition, | 0:41:48 | 0:41:53 | |
as opposed to the one you see on telly of | 0:41:53 | 0:41:57 | |
the glamorous story of the adventurer, | 0:41:57 | 0:42:00 | |
the Indiana Jones figure. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:01 | |
The video diary style encouraged complete honesty. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:07 | |
For Benedict, this meant sharing his difficult decisions | 0:42:07 | 0:42:10 | |
with the audience. | 0:42:10 | 0:42:12 | |
The problem is I can go there, | 0:42:14 | 0:42:16 | |
but... | 0:42:16 | 0:42:18 | |
if I die, | 0:42:18 | 0:42:20 | |
if something terrible happens, if I get swallowed by the super snake, | 0:42:20 | 0:42:23 | |
then Armando's going to get blamed by the authorities. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:28 | |
They may even say he's been killed, | 0:42:28 | 0:42:30 | |
or rather he's killed me. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
Armando's killed me. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:36 | |
So I put him at risk, | 0:42:39 | 0:42:42 | |
and the whole point of coming here is not to exploit | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
the local people, | 0:42:46 | 0:42:48 | |
and if you're putting local people at risk unnecessarily, | 0:42:48 | 0:42:51 | |
that's exploitation. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:52 | |
In the end, Benedict travelled to the lake alone. | 0:42:55 | 0:42:59 | |
But his video diary allowed the viewer to be with him, | 0:42:59 | 0:43:02 | |
deep in the Amazon. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:04 | |
Can't concentrate, not with these funny little splashings, | 0:43:06 | 0:43:10 | |
big splashings over my shoulder. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
If I'm going to die out here, | 0:43:14 | 0:43:15 | |
I'm not going to die while reading a book called The Idiot. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:18 | |
No. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:21 | |
No, thank you. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:22 | |
Not today anyway. | 0:43:24 | 0:43:26 | |
Oh, God. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:31 | |
The book's disappeared down a snake hole. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:33 | |
My God! | 0:43:36 | 0:43:37 | |
OK, it's a tiger, but it's a small one. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:50 | |
And it's about ten feet away. | 0:43:56 | 0:43:58 | |
I don't know whether to get the camera or... | 0:44:01 | 0:44:03 | |
It's uncertain. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:23 | |
That was small, but it could have killed me. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
And if I'd been facing the other way, | 0:44:31 | 0:44:35 | |
it would've killed me, it would've taken one leap at my neck and... | 0:44:35 | 0:44:40 | |
..that would've been that. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:44 | |
Goodbye, Benedicto. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:47 | |
This is the single big change for me, | 0:44:50 | 0:44:53 | |
that I was no longer quite alone. | 0:44:53 | 0:44:56 | |
I could talk to this camera and get comfort from the fact that, | 0:44:56 | 0:45:00 | |
even if I died, well, | 0:45:00 | 0:45:02 | |
I'd have my little camera to say my last words to. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:05 | |
From Wally Herbert's epic journey in 1960s | 0:45:08 | 0:45:10 | |
to the most intimate moments of the video diary, | 0:45:10 | 0:45:13 | |
television has steadily brought exploration into our lives, | 0:45:13 | 0:45:17 | |
connecting us to the explorer like never before. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:20 | |
Our world has changed. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:25 | |
Cheap air travel has shrunk the globe, | 0:45:25 | 0:45:27 | |
creating adventure hot spots in what were once remote places. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:32 | |
And television has fuelled our curiosity. | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
Suddenly anybody can be an adventurer, | 0:45:36 | 0:45:38 | |
if only for a week or two. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:40 | |
And there's one place that reflects this trend like no other - Everest. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:47 | |
When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay | 0:45:47 | 0:45:49 | |
reached the top in 1953, | 0:45:49 | 0:45:51 | |
they became international celebrities. | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
Within weeks, the BBC made them accessible to the public at large. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:59 | |
The exalted heroes were brought into the studio | 0:45:59 | 0:46:02 | |
to reveal the intimate details of the climb first-hand. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:06 | |
We realised that this was really the crux of the whole ridge climb. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:11 | |
I wriggled into this cornice, | 0:46:11 | 0:46:13 | |
and by a great deal of wriggling and hard work, | 0:46:13 | 0:46:16 | |
I was able to get up it. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:17 | |
And any moment you thought the whole thing might go? | 0:46:17 | 0:46:19 | |
That was our main worry, I must admit. | 0:46:19 | 0:46:21 | |
We didn't know when it would give way. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
From this first casual retelling of the climb, | 0:46:24 | 0:46:26 | |
our fascination with Everest would grow. | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
Also in the studio was Hillary's climbing partner, Tenzing. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:34 | |
Some chance to climb again. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:36 | |
I wonder whether a lot of English wives would like me to ask him, | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
what does his wife think about all this going off on the mountain? | 0:46:39 | 0:46:42 | |
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:46:43 | 0:46:46 | |
Well, he says that his children and his mother | 0:46:54 | 0:46:57 | |
and naturally his wife, too, are not too keen on it, | 0:46:57 | 0:47:01 | |
-for obvious reasons. -Yes. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:03 | |
Without Tenzing, the expedition would never have reached the summit. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:07 | |
Television helped make the general public aware of the role | 0:47:07 | 0:47:10 | |
that Sherpa guides played in helping climbers conquer Everest. | 0:47:10 | 0:47:14 | |
Well, on the way to the Base Camp, we had about 400 Nepali coolies, | 0:47:14 | 0:47:21 | |
and from there on we used the local Sherpa coolies. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:28 | |
We needed about 300 to get to Base Camp. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
The Sherpas' importance in opening up Everest was massive. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:34 | |
And as summit attempts increased year by year, | 0:47:34 | 0:47:37 | |
it got bigger and bigger. | 0:47:37 | 0:47:38 | |
So, when the BBC followed Hillary back to Everest 30 years later, | 0:47:39 | 0:47:44 | |
the story of how the mountain climbing industry | 0:47:44 | 0:47:46 | |
was transforming life for Sherpa communities | 0:47:46 | 0:47:49 | |
was a key part of the documentary. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:51 | |
The call to study is the same at all the schools - | 0:47:51 | 0:47:54 | |
on the original oxygen cylinders Hillary used to climb Everest. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:58 | |
METALLIC RINGING | 0:47:58 | 0:48:00 | |
The film highlighted Edmund Hillary's development work in Nepal, | 0:48:00 | 0:48:03 | |
a passion since he'd first scaled the mountain. | 0:48:03 | 0:48:06 | |
THEY SING IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE | 0:48:06 | 0:48:08 | |
I was becoming increasingly concerned | 0:48:08 | 0:48:10 | |
about the future of the Sherpas, | 0:48:10 | 0:48:12 | |
and felt that additional schools would help them cope with | 0:48:12 | 0:48:14 | |
the ever growing pressures of the outside world. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
So, before we knew it, one school had turned into 22 schools. | 0:48:17 | 0:48:21 | |
But the film also captured a monumental shift. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:26 | |
The traditional Sherpa way of life was changing. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:29 | |
-CHILDREN: -The men are climbing the mountain. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
-The men are climbing. -CHILDREN: -The men are climbing. | 0:48:32 | 0:48:35 | |
-The men have climbed. -CHILDREN: -The men have climbed. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:40 | |
-The mountain. -CHILDREN: -The mountain. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:42 | |
The climbing industry on Everest was about to explode. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
Throughout the '80s and '90s, | 0:48:47 | 0:48:49 | |
mountaineering became an increasingly popular pastime, | 0:48:49 | 0:48:53 | |
but as more and more people climbed Everest, | 0:48:53 | 0:48:56 | |
reaching the top was no longer enough. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:58 | |
In the late 1990s, the BBC joined a group of climbers, | 0:49:01 | 0:49:05 | |
not just interested in mountaineering, | 0:49:05 | 0:49:07 | |
but in discovering the story of those who had gone before them. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:11 | |
May 1999. | 0:49:13 | 0:49:15 | |
A joint British-American expedition | 0:49:18 | 0:49:19 | |
is about to climb the north face of Everest. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
But this is no ordinary summit attempt. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:27 | |
The team is about to make mountaineering history | 0:49:29 | 0:49:32 | |
in their search for evidence | 0:49:32 | 0:49:34 | |
of two legendary British climbers who disappeared in 1924. | 0:49:34 | 0:49:37 | |
Climbers had long debated whether George Mallory and Andrew Irvine | 0:49:40 | 0:49:44 | |
had summited Everest before going missing. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
No-one knew. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:49 | |
But their ill-fated attempt had made them into legends, | 0:49:49 | 0:49:52 | |
and left behind the mountain's most enduring mystery. | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
What really draws me to this particular expedition... | 0:49:58 | 0:50:00 | |
..is this hunt for Mallory and Irvine. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:05 | |
You know, to climb this mountain again, | 0:50:05 | 0:50:07 | |
I've been here enough, I know how to climb it, | 0:50:07 | 0:50:09 | |
but to try and get inside somebody else's head | 0:50:09 | 0:50:12 | |
and to try and touch a piece of history, | 0:50:12 | 0:50:14 | |
that is utterly fascinating to me. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:16 | |
Mallory and Irvine are just two of nearly 300 people who have now died | 0:50:18 | 0:50:23 | |
trying to reach the top of Everest. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:25 | |
But looking for the remains of these two was controversial. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
Some members of our expedition team may have some personal reservations | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
about searching for bodies on Mount Everest. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
I think we all agree that to be able to contribute additional information | 0:50:36 | 0:50:42 | |
to what is THE mystery of the mountain is ultimately | 0:50:42 | 0:50:48 | |
going to contribute to a better understanding of the mountain | 0:50:48 | 0:50:52 | |
and its human history. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:53 | |
The team know that finding Everest's greatest lost heroes | 0:50:55 | 0:50:59 | |
will make headlines around the world. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
It is their way of winning themselves a place | 0:51:02 | 0:51:04 | |
in the history books. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:05 | |
There are quite a view folks in other expeditions | 0:51:08 | 0:51:12 | |
that would love to scoop us on this thing and find this. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:16 | |
The search site is not too far from the high camp. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:22 | |
Early on the morning of the 1st of May 1999, | 0:51:22 | 0:51:25 | |
the team leave camp five and climb high up on the north face | 0:51:25 | 0:51:28 | |
of Everest to begin their search. | 0:51:28 | 0:51:31 | |
What they found proved as significant as any summit attempt. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:36 | |
Initially I saw a blue and yellow object fluttering in the wind, | 0:51:36 | 0:51:41 | |
and I looked over to my right and all of a sudden I saw | 0:51:41 | 0:51:44 | |
a patch of white that wasn't rock and it wasn't snow. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:48 | |
And I said, "Hmm, I'm going to look over here." | 0:51:48 | 0:51:52 | |
And as I started traversing closer to this, | 0:51:52 | 0:51:54 | |
I saw what appeared to be the lower part of a leg. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:58 | |
And it was a heel. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:00 | |
The radio calls started coming in about hobnailed boots. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:06 | |
I just heard hobnailed boot, | 0:52:06 | 0:52:07 | |
quickly unzipped it and said, "What?!" | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
We had decided that once we'd made any contact, | 0:52:12 | 0:52:16 | |
as quickly as possible go into radio silence, | 0:52:16 | 0:52:18 | |
because of the security of the radio calls. | 0:52:18 | 0:52:22 | |
We knew other expeditions were listening, | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
and we knew that everybody in Nepal could hear us. | 0:52:25 | 0:52:27 | |
I can see a boot. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:31 | |
The second boot | 0:52:31 | 0:52:32 | |
appears to be on his foot. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:35 | |
The leg is angulated... | 0:52:35 | 0:52:38 | |
..angulated fracture, so... | 0:52:39 | 0:52:41 | |
my first guess is that he took a fall. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:43 | |
Again, you can see rope around his body. | 0:52:46 | 0:52:50 | |
OK, this is the collar... | 0:52:53 | 0:52:56 | |
-Here. -Wait. This is George Mallory. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:03 | |
-Really? -George Mallory. -Oh, my God! | 0:53:03 | 0:53:06 | |
Oh, my God! | 0:53:06 | 0:53:08 | |
-You see that? George Mallory. -Oh, my God! | 0:53:08 | 0:53:11 | |
The failure that human beings | 0:53:15 | 0:53:18 | |
experienced in going up Everest | 0:53:18 | 0:53:22 | |
in turn drove the need to explore it, | 0:53:22 | 0:53:26 | |
to reach the top. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:27 | |
Finding Mallory didn't prove if he'd made it to the top, | 0:53:28 | 0:53:31 | |
but telling the story on TV | 0:53:31 | 0:53:33 | |
helped cement the mountain's iconic status. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:37 | |
Another film, made in 2003, revealed how, | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
in the 50 years since it was first climbed, | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 | |
Everest had also become a mecca for casual trekkers. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:46 | |
For most of these amateur adventurers, | 0:53:46 | 0:53:49 | |
the goal isn't to reach the top, | 0:53:49 | 0:53:51 | |
it's Base Camp, at the bottom. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:53 | |
From Gorakshep, a three-hour walk up the adjacent peak | 0:53:56 | 0:53:59 | |
of Kala Patthar gives the best view of Everest | 0:53:59 | 0:54:02 | |
a trekker can get. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:03 | |
When the sun shines and Everest is clear, | 0:54:05 | 0:54:07 | |
hundreds of trekkers make their way to the top every day, | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
each one of us reaching our own personal summit. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:13 | |
Well, actually, it has been a lifelong dream | 0:54:15 | 0:54:18 | |
to come to Everest and come to Nepal, | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
and it's been more than I could have hoped for. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:22 | |
It has been very overwhelming. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:24 | |
When we went down to Base Camp, I just burst out crying. | 0:54:24 | 0:54:28 | |
I feel tearful at the moment, yes, | 0:54:28 | 0:54:30 | |
because I have finally achieved it. | 0:54:30 | 0:54:32 | |
-And cheese! -ALL: Cheese! | 0:54:35 | 0:54:37 | |
Thank you. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:38 | |
But there is an easy way. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:41 | |
For the cost of a two-week trek, | 0:54:43 | 0:54:45 | |
you can have half an hour hovering above Base Camp. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:47 | |
The film captures the new industry of Everest in full flight, | 0:54:49 | 0:54:53 | |
with no longer the summit at its epicentre, but Base Camp | 0:54:53 | 0:54:57 | |
the final destination for trekkers. | 0:54:57 | 0:55:00 | |
The press warned that here at Base Camp, the crowds of trekkers | 0:55:00 | 0:55:03 | |
and the huge commercial expeditions had wrought havoc - | 0:55:03 | 0:55:06 | |
Everest had been desecrated by rivers of human faeces, | 0:55:06 | 0:55:10 | |
piles of oxygen bottles and, | 0:55:10 | 0:55:12 | |
on the mountain itself, human remains. | 0:55:12 | 0:55:14 | |
In fact, the Everest clean-up expeditions | 0:55:14 | 0:55:17 | |
have done a pretty good job, | 0:55:17 | 0:55:19 | |
and those who make it here enjoy a tangible sense of achievement. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:22 | |
They are after all, at Base Camp, the very bottom of Everest. | 0:55:22 | 0:55:25 | |
Well, here we are. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:28 | |
-Here we are. -Everest Base Camp. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:30 | |
-Finally. -After two weeks. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:32 | |
-It has been a long haul. -Two weeks, one day. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:34 | |
We've got groups coming down off the hill at the moment. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:37 | |
I think it's going to be such a buzz to meet those boys. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:40 | |
I didn't come to Everest Base Camp to see Everest, I came to... | 0:55:40 | 0:55:45 | |
to meet the people who challenge it and beat it | 0:55:45 | 0:55:49 | |
and some lose against it. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:51 | |
This is just a buzz, | 0:55:51 | 0:55:53 | |
being up this far and just the whole excitement in the camp. | 0:55:53 | 0:55:57 | |
It's fantastic. | 0:55:57 | 0:55:59 | |
-Not to mention to crack this can of Stella that I've lugged... -Yeah. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
When are you cracking that? | 0:56:02 | 0:56:04 | |
-All right, OK. -A well-beaten Stella... | 0:56:04 | 0:56:07 | |
-Well-beaten Stella. -..all the way from England. | 0:56:07 | 0:56:09 | |
Sorry, Mum, | 0:56:09 | 0:56:12 | |
but it had to be done. | 0:56:12 | 0:56:13 | |
Adventure tourism I think is great. | 0:56:16 | 0:56:18 | |
People can just set out from home and discover the world, | 0:56:18 | 0:56:22 | |
and there's something delightful about that. | 0:56:22 | 0:56:24 | |
It's no longer the preserve of the specialist. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
But there are consequences. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
And those consequences can be grave. | 0:56:30 | 0:56:32 | |
You're starting to develop a tourist industry in a place | 0:56:32 | 0:56:35 | |
which was isolated, self-sufficient. | 0:56:35 | 0:56:38 | |
What's happening on Everest is being repeated in wildernesses | 0:56:40 | 0:56:43 | |
around the globe, for better or worse. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:46 | |
Exploration has opened up our landscape | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
and television has shown it to the world, | 0:56:49 | 0:56:52 | |
spurring each of us to our own adventures. | 0:56:52 | 0:56:55 | |
The critical question is whether the way we consume is going to outstrip | 0:56:57 | 0:57:03 | |
our capacity to explore. | 0:57:03 | 0:57:04 | |
And will that be the end of the history of exploration? | 0:57:07 | 0:57:11 | |
As I've examined how television has told the story of exploration, | 0:57:17 | 0:57:21 | |
I've been struck by just how much | 0:57:21 | 0:57:23 | |
our notions of conquest and discovery, | 0:57:23 | 0:57:26 | |
even our very heroes, change from one generation to the next. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:32 | |
And what's been most amazing is to see how, in the 20th century, | 0:57:32 | 0:57:36 | |
film has latched onto the drama of discovery and exploration, | 0:57:36 | 0:57:40 | |
becoming an integral part of the story. | 0:57:40 | 0:57:43 | |
It has captured feats of incredible human endurance, | 0:57:45 | 0:57:49 | |
and the most intimate moments of the quest. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:53 | |
It's helped create heroes or made us reconsider them. | 0:57:53 | 0:57:58 | |
It's even helped to rewrite history. | 0:57:58 | 0:58:01 | |
And television will continue to tell the story of exploration, | 0:58:02 | 0:58:06 | |
wherever it leads. | 0:58:06 | 0:58:08 | |
It may seem like we have run out of places to discover, | 0:58:11 | 0:58:15 | |
but centuries of history prove the opposite. | 0:58:15 | 0:58:18 | |
There is always a new frontier. | 0:58:18 | 0:58:20 | |
Exploration will go on. | 0:58:20 | 0:58:23 | |
And following along will be a camera, chronicling the journey. | 0:58:23 | 0:58:27 |