CTV's Mark Stevenson filed a reporter diary as he travelled with a group of students and scientists to the Antarctic. He was there gathering material for a number of stories on global warming, wildlife and ecological threats facing the continent. Check 'More Details' for his earlier reports and photos.

Elephant Island, Antarctica - It is cold and windy and Jonathan Shackleton is dodging glaciers in an inflatable boat, trying to get a closer look at an island that still haunts his family.

Ahead is a small patch of rock covered by Chinstrap penguins, an exposed shelf that is the only safe landing on a towering island rimmed by black cliffs, capped with ice.

"The closer we get to it the harder it is to believe," says Mr. Shackleton, 51.

"You can read about it, but to actually see that little bit of land where they had the camp is the closest thing we can get to experiencing what those guys lived through for four winter months. Most people who come to the Antarctic never see Elephant Island or the place where they had their camp."

After living for five months on the pack ice off Antarctica once their ship, the Endurance, was crushed by ice in the Weddell Sea, Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 fled here in three small boats. They landed on April 17, 1916, farther down the coast. But the wind and waves were too rough. Searching the shoreline for a safer landing, they eventually discovered Point Wild.

"It was very, very grim," says Shackleton, bundled in a wool hat and layers despite the Austral summer. "Very bitter, very cold."

Facing limited supplies and an advancing Antarctic winter, Ernest Shackleton made a quick decision to seek help at a whaling station 1,300 kilometres away on the island of South Georgia. He and five others headed off to sea in a small lifeboat, the James Caird, on an epic voyage that would define his legend. Meanwhile, the remaining men were left to fend for themselves, sheltered by two overturned boats.

"You couldn't pay me to stay here," he says.

"We don't have an inkling of what it was like for them."

Although he has been to the Antarctic eight times, most recently with a Canadian youth expedition called Students on Ice, Jonathan Shackleton has never been close enough to Elephant Island to see Point Wild, a place that represents a pivotal moment in the Shackleton legend, when the "survival of the whole team really depended on what he did there," he says. "It was a key point in his leadership."

A second cousin of the Antarctic explorer, Jonathan Shackleton is an organic farmer who lives about 30 miles from where Ernest was born in Country Kildare, Ireland. Tall, hard of hearing and slightly disheveled, he resembles a scholar more than a farmer.

Despite carrying the Shackleton name, he wasn't fully aware of his famous cousin until his aunt gave him a biography when he was 12. Later, in the 70s, while completing a Master's in botany at Ohio State University, he was asked to lecture to the polar club on his cousin. After researching in preparation, he was hooked. He became "totally obsessed" with his cousin, to the point where he now spends much of his spare time exploring the Shackleton history while simultaneously working to ensure his legacy.

It's a daunting job, especially for someone carrying the Shackleton name. The explorer has been the subject of intense interest in recent years, including a wave of books, exhibits, documentaries, and a feature Hollywood film is said to be in the works. Producers, writers and reporters invariably come calling. His website, ErnestShackleton.net, receives hundreds of thousands of hits. What's more, he says, there are the "Shackleton freaks" who inundate him with requests and the British tabloid media who seem bent on ensuring a rivalry between Shackleton and Antarctic adversaries like explorer Robert Falcon Scott.

Recently, Jonathan Shackleton has weighed in with his own addition to a growing body of work on the explorer with Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica Jonathan Shackleton and John MacKenna. Lilliput Press, Dublin 2002)which places more emphasis on the influence of the Irish branch of the family that came to Ireland in 1720 from West Yorkshire to start a school. A combination of Quaker and Anglo-Norman roots made Ernest hardworking, egalitarian, romantic and restless -- qualities that inevitably inspired fierce loyalty among his crew, says Jonathan Shackleton. As well, being Irish made the explorer less deferential to British authority, which he had to court to raise funds for his various Antarctic expeditions, says Jonathan Shackleton.

"He wasn't going to be dominated by institutions," he says.

"And quite a few of them didn't like him. That didn't bother him. It only spurred him on."

Given British antipathy towards Shackleton at the time, Jonathan Shackleton says the explorer's present growing popularity in the U.K. makes him uncomfortable. A recent BBC series on the 100 Greatest Britons ranked Shackleton 11th. Meanwhile, Robert Falcon Scott, the Antarctic explorer who died on the Ross Ice Shelf with four companions after reaching the South Pole, placed somewhere around 60th.

"It amuses me because they worshiped Scott, their great hero who died," he says.

"It's only recently that Shackleton's popularity has grown because of his appeal in North America. It's great now that he's recognized and respected. I'm happy with that."

Jonathan Shackleton is not pleased, however, with how the business community has made Shackleton into a business-management icon. Although his ability to motivate, develop skills and foster teamwork in his crew are applicable, Jonathan Shackleton says it happened under circumstances that cannot and should not be replicated.

"They were life threatening (conditions) and there was next to no hope," he says.

"Whereas with business people, if a business fails they can skip and go to another company or start another one. It's a protected environment. The physical environment doesn't come into it… That was a very important pressure on their survival, physically surviving."

Living on the pack ice for five months in the Antarctic, it is impossible for historians to appreciate the pressure Shackleton and other Antarctic explorers were under. By contrast, modern explorers, with a few exceptions, are really adventurers who are going places others have already been before under safer conditions.

"They're going where other people have been, but they're doing it in a more demanding, more difficult way, like going to the North Pole solo," he says.

"It enriches the human spirit for adventure, but it can end up in disaster and having to be rescued… It is very difficult (today) imagining a situation where there is no hope… it's almost incredible to try and really know what it was like."

Jonathan Shackleton never met his famous cousin, who died in 1922 before he was born. But he tries to connect with the explorer, he says, to understand the difficulties he overcame by retracing his footsteps in the Antarctic. A few years ago, Jonathan Shackleton visited his cousin's gravesite on the island of South Georgia. He brought with him stones from Ernest Shackleton's Irish birthplace, placing them on his grave.

"He died quite young, at age 47. When I stood there I was also 47." he says.

"That was one of really two occasions when I got closest to him, emotionally close," he says.

"I felt like I could almost talk to him. Both of those were moments which I shall never forget."

The other moment took place recently at Point Wild on Elephant Island. Approaching the barren patch of land by inflatable boat where Shackleton's crew awaited rescue, Jonathan Shackleton and his daughter, Hannah, 15, stepped ashore. Standing in front of them on the rocky ledge now overtaken by penguins sits a statue commemorating their rescue by a Chilean captain, more than four months after Shackleton sailed to South Georgia seeking help.

Despite the overwhelming odds of surviving the loss of their ship and being stranded in the Antarctic, Shackleton had ensured that every member of his crew had survived, a feat, Jonathan says, that made his cousin a true hero, even though Ernest never made it to the South Pole despite repeated attempts.

"I never ever thought I'd be here," he says, putting an arm around his daughter, as tears welled in his eyes. "We're the first Shackletons to step foot here since Ernest."