Had a first walk of the year today. Actually the first walk for some time. The purpose of today's walk was to pay a visit to Mrs Chippy and her master. …

Mrs Chippy's master was a seaman called Harry McNeish. He was a ship's carpenter. Not just any ship. McNeish was the ship's carpenter, the chippy, on the Endurance, Earnest Shackleton's ship for his 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Apparently Mrs Chippy was so called because she followed McNeish around everywhere in the ship. I do not know what name McNeish had initially given to Mrs Chippy.

Anyone with some knowledge about the early twentieth century Antarctic expeditions knows what sad fate awaited the brave loyal Mrs Chippy. When Endurance was lost and the crew started their desperate march on ice,Shackleton decided they could only take the essentials, but no animals. (They had many sled dogs, too.) He ordered dogs shot. He is said to have then taken Mrs Chippy away from McNeish and shot her himself.

A kiwi folklore I heard a couple of times has it, in his death bad, McNeish was said to have uttered his famous last words, 'Shackleton shot my cat! …'

This was my third visit to McNeish grave, which is well known to the locals as "the one with the cat on". I continued to walk on further 80 minutes following roughly the same route as this walk in 2010.

:coffee:

FYI
New Zealand Antactica Society's article about Mrs Chippy
Wikipedia article on Mrs Chippy

PS
I just bumped into this sentence in the above Wikipedia article, 'One month after the ship set sail for Antarctica it was discovered that, despite her name, Mrs. Chippy was actually a male, but by that time the name had stuck.' 😆 Now I've read it, I suddenly remembered I heard this before. Nonetheless I will continue to call Mrs Chippy "she". :p

[UPDATE]
Found more Mrs Chippy related articles 🙂
BBC
Famous Felines site
Review of the book Mrs Chippy's Last Expedition 1914 – 1915 (by Caroline Alexander)