Historic journeys through history that were hard to survive

The Irish Potato Famine – 1845 – 1852

During the 1900s, Ireland’s main crop was potatoes since the landowner’s restrictions and local weather didn’t allow them to grow large amounts of grain. The entire population relied so heavily on this one vegetable that when a disease hit in 1845 that stopped them from growing, the whole country was devastated both financially and in its population. Around 1 million people died mostly from starvation and countless thousands left for America on the famous “famine ship”.

(The famine ships also gained the name of coffin ships due to the high mortality rate, but for the average person they were the only choice)

People would sell everything they had to take a trip to America on this sailing ship, but getting to the other side alive was another story. The trip would take around 3 months and since the people on board sold everything they had just for the ticket, that left little to put towards food for the journey. The other problem was that in a time when there’s no such thing as refrigeration, you’d need to take something that could last, which more often than not was hardtack, a very hard piece of bread that’s been over-baked to remove all the moisture so it doesn’t spoil. A trip on the famine ship would mean that for many people their diet would be nothing but a small amount of rock-hard bread each day while sitting patiently on a cramped wooden shelf converted into a bed.

Early Antarctica explorer – 1800’s

There have been many attempts to map the vast expanse of the continent of Antarctica, but no one knew just how big it was until the mid-1900s. In the early days of exploration, people had no idea how long they’d be walking until they found something, and this journey would require food that could not only last but would provide the necessary amount of calories required for such a harsh environment.

In McMurdo research station the field workers eat between 4,000 and 6,000 calories a day just to maintain normal fat and energy levels, so walking through the snow all day in 1800’s trench coats would require food closer to the higher end of the scale. The only thing the early explorers had that could provide this amount without taking up too much room was fat.

Meat and vegetables could be frozen for the journey but are often heavy and take up space, so large amounts of fat were taken to provide the calories needed. Wading through waist-deep snow all day just to sit down for a meal of boiled pork with half a pound of fat in it doesn’t sound like much of a reward.

Even with all of the food they took there were a huge amount of cases where people ran out, and it may be for this reason people discovered eating the liver of animals that live in extreme cold can kill you. A condition called hypervitaminosis A can be caused by eating too much vitamin A and causes your liver to shut down, and this vitamin is especially concentrated in arctic animals such as husky dogs. An adult polar bear’s liver contains enough vitamin A to kill several dozen people.

One of Hannibal’s soldiers during the crossing of the Alps – 218 BC

Hannibal was the thorn in Rome’s side for many years and was a sworn enemy of the empire. In an attempt to slip past Rome’s forces, he took his entire army and led them over the Alps mountain range. He had around 60,000 troops at the start of the crossing and a number of elephants, but as good of a commander as he was, he had no idea just how hard taking an army used to hot weather and leading them across a frozen mountain range would be.

His troops could only carry so much food as wagons were too wide to make it up the paths, so it didn’t take long before people started to run out. Since most of his army were dressed in soldiers gear designed for fighting in hot weather countries they had a real problem with the extreme winds and freezing temperatures at night. The crossing saw between 30,000 and 35,000 of his troops run off or die, mostly from starvation followed closely by hypothermia.

A builder on the Great Wall of China – 221–206 BC

Many parts of the wall were built over the 200 years after its completion but it wasn’t until Emperor Qin Shi Huang connected it that it became a single defensive wall. Many of the fortifications were added after Qin Shi Huang completed the base section, but this part was by far the most dangerous and required the most intense labor.

Many of the workers were ordered to serve the nation by constructing the wall, which meant they couldn’t be on their own land farming crops. This led to around 400,000 people dying during the construction of the wall, with many of those who died being put into the actual wall itself. Intense labor combined with a lack of food is guaranteed to kill a bunch of people, but to the guy in charge, building something was more important than looking after his people.

The North American yearly exodus of the 1800s

Traveling from Europe to the east coast of America would take anywhere between 2 and 4 months depending on the type of ship and how kind the weather was, but in order to reach the west coast you had two options, walk or sail. A trip on a boat would take months and be very expensive, as well as being very dangerous and not practical if you wanted to take farm animals with you, so the yearly exodus was formed.

Each year at the end of the main harvest, people would form into a huge convoy that consisted of hundreds of wagons and thousands of people and herd animals, all ready to walk 2,500 miles across the country to reach California. The route was set out and only required people to make the journey, but the problem was that no one attempting it had ever walked 2,500 miles before. They would normally have enough food as animals and wagons were taken, but the biggest problem came from people without wagons who became ill. If you couldn’t walk and weren’t able to hitch a ride then your only option would be to stay put with your limited food supply.

Hundreds of people died along the way to California during the 1800s and most who got sick or ran out of food were left on their own since no one wanted a diseased person sitting on their wagon or sharing their limited food supplies. The most famous story from these journeys is the Donner Party who became stuck up a mountain and had to resort to eating each other.