Australian photographer and adventurer (1885-1962) who participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official photographer with Australian forces during both world wars. Hurley was also the official photographer on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition which set out in 1914 and was marooned until August 1916. Handwritten poem by Frank Hurley entitled "A Song of the Trail," penned on a 4.25 x 7 album page aboard the SS Orissa on October 17, 1916, with Hurley signing his name at the bottom and adding "Shackleton Expn" to the upper right. The poem, in part: "An explorer's life is the life for me / O'er the ice to roam a life so free. / 'Cross plateau vast by barrier wall / with comrades true the sledge we haul. / And though every inch we fight, tis / our keen delight. / O'er untrodden snows to steer - a / course to us so dear / Send me your strongest, the men / who never fail / For I'm the blizzard, King of the southern trail." In fine condition. A brilliant poem that echoes the camaraderie and ruggedness needed for such an undertaking. Moreover, this was penned by Hurley on his final voyage home to England; he boarded the mail ship Orissa on October 15, his 31st birthday, after convalescing with other members of the Shackleton Expedition in South America.
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