Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 14, 2017
Ernest Joyce (c. 1875 – 1940) was a Royal Naval seaman and Antarctic explorer who served under both Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton in the early years of the 20th century. Joyce entered the navy as a boy seaman in 1891; his Antarctic experiences began in 1901 when he joined Scott's Discovery Expedition. In 1907 Shackleton recruited him to take charge of dogs and sledges on the Nimrod Expedition, a role he performed with distinction. Thus Shackleton employed him in a similar capacity in 1914, as a member of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition's Ross Sea party. Despite Joyce's acknowledged heroism during that expedition, it ended his exploring career, although he made attempts to join other expeditions. An abrasive and sometimes truculent character, his effectiveness in the field was nonetheless widely acknowledged. He was awarded a lifesaving Albert Medal and a Polar Medal with four bars, but Joyce made no significant material gains from his exploits, living out his post-Antarctic life in humble circumstances before dying suddenly in 1940. (Full article...)