Antarctica in Shackleton’s footsteps: Retracing his legendary journey
The discovery of the wreck of the Endurance in 2022 reignited the enduring global fascination with Sir Ernest Shackleton and his never-say-die attitude in the face of unfathomable adversity. Read on to find out what all the fuss is about.
In March 2022, the regular news cycle of war, famine, and disease was temporarily suspended by the revelation that a hundred-year-old wooden ship had been found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.
There were many reasons people were so captivated by the discovery of the Endurance 107 years after she’d been wrecked. The remote location certainly had something to do with it: The Endurance was found, using an icebreaker ship and underwater robots, at a depth of 9,869 feet and thousands of miles from the nearest populated landmass.
The deluge of still and video footage showing the ship’s “brilliant state of preservation” was another contributing factor. As Mensun Bound, Director of Exploration for the recovery efforts, explains: “Without any exaggeration this is the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen.” The absence of wood-consuming parasites at the bottom of the Weddell Sea means that the ship’s timbers are “as fresh as the day the ship went down,” adds Bound – a man known as the “Indiana Jones of the Deep”.
“Get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton”
But arguably the biggest reason for the world’s rapture was the Endurance’s association with Sir Ernest Shackleton, a man who has become synonymous with never giving up. Born in Ireland in 1874, he’s one of the main figures in an era known as the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration”. Other cast members include Norway’s Roald Amundsen – the first person to reach the South Pole – and Robert Falcon Scott, the British explorer who famously died shortly after being beaten to the pole by Amundsen.
Shackleton was different. As Darrel Bristow-Bovey writes in his (highly recommended) book Finding Endurance, Shackleton “never made it to the South Pole. He never crossed Antarctica. He didn’t die tragically in his sleeping bag, pen in pale fingers and lashes frosted to his cheek while the snow piled up against his tent. He really didn’t do anything except come back alive, and what’s the big deal about that?” He continues, “Shackleton wasn’t the best or the first or even the last. He wasn’t anything. He was, by most standards, a failure.”
For a long time that is the way Shackleton was remembered, but in recent times his legacy has been resurrected as an example of never giving up in the face of adversity. As Sir Raymond Priestley, who was part of Antarctic expeditions under both Scott and Shackleton put it: “Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency, but, when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
In 2002, Shackleton – a man who “was, by most standards, a failure” – came in at number 11 in a poll of 100 Greatest Britons. Scott didn’t make the top 50.
What did Shackleton do?
By the time he embarked on his 1914 expedition aboard the Endurance, Shackleton already had a fairly impressive Antarctic resumé. He was third officer on Scott’s 1901-1904 Discovery expedition and, as leader of the 1907-1909 Nimrod expedition, he and three of his men got within 97 geographical miles of the South Pole – a record at the time which earned him a knighthood. But it is for the Endurance expedition that Shackleton is remembered.
By the time the Endurance left Britain (on the very day World War I began), Amundsen had already beaten him to the South Pole. Instead, Shackleton set out to become the first man to cross the Antarctic from sea to sea, via the pole. When he reached South Georgia, the last inhabited island before Antarctica, the signs were not good: the resident Norwegian whalers confirmed that the sea ice was thicker that summer than it had been in living memory. But Shackleton had funders to please and, although he waited as long as he could before heading to Antarctica, turning back was never an option.
Just two days after leaving South Georgia, on December 5, 1914, the Endurance was surrounded by pack ice and the ship’s progress slowed to a crawl. Over the next few months, the wooden vessel struggled to navigate through the dense ice. After several false alarms, the Endurance eventually became fully immobilized, drifting helplessly with the ice. The crew worked tirelessly to free the ship, but increasing pressure from the ice pack caused severe damage to the hull. By October 1915, as temperatures rose and the ice began to melt, the ship was briefly freed before being crushed by pressure waves. Shackleton ordered the abandonment of the Endurance on October 27, 1915. As he wrote at the time, “We have been compelled to abandon the ship, which is crushed beyond all hope of ever being righted, we are alive and well, and we have stores and equipment for the task that lies before us. The task is to reach land with all the members of the expedition. It is hard to write what I feel”.
On 21 November, after almost a full year trying to escape the ice, the Endurance broke up and sank to the floor of the Weddell Sea. It would not be seen again for 107 years.
What happened next?
For almost five months, Shackleton and his men stayed put in the vain hope that the ice floe would bring them closer to terra firma. “There was no alternative,” wrote Shackleton, “but to camp once more on the floe and to possess our souls with what patience we could till conditions should appear more favorable for a renewal of the attempt to escape.” On April 9, 1916, Shackleton’s crew took to their lifeboats after their ice floe broke apart. After five difficult days at sea (many of the men were suffering from dysentery and “at least half the party were insane”), they landed on Elephant Island, 346 miles from where the Endurance had gone down. It was their first time on solid ground in 497 days.
Knowing that there was zero chance of being rescued from such a remote outpost, Shackleton planned an open-boat journey to the whaling stations on South Georgia Island. He chose the strongest lifeboat, the 20-foot James Caird, for the treacherous 800-mile journey. He also handpicked five crew members, including captain Frank Worsley and carpenter Harry McNish, who made several improvements to the lifeboat in anticipation of the challenge.
On April 24, the James Caird set sail, enduring stormy seas for 15 days before reaching South Georgia. “The boat tossed interminably on the big waves under grey, threatening skies,” recorded Shackleton. “Every surge of the sea was an enemy to be watched and circumvented.” Though hurricane-force winds initially prevented landing, they eventually made landfall on the island’s uninhabited southern shore. Instead of embarking on another sea journey, they decided to attempt a terrestrial crossing. Shackleton, Worsley, and Tom Crean embarked on a dangerous 36-hour trek across 32 miles of mountainous terrain to reach the whaling station at Stromness on May 20.
After recovering from his ordeal, Shackleton organized a rescue for the men stranded on Elephant Island. His first three attempts were blocked by sea ice, but it was to be fourth time lucky when he secured a Chilean naval tug, the Yelcho. On August 30, 1916, after four and a half months of isolation, all 22 men were successfully evacuated from Elephant Island. As Shackleton wrote to his wife, “I have done it … Not a life lost and we have been through hell: Soon I will be home and then I will rest.”
When the Yelcho arrived in Punta Arenas, Alexander Macklin, one of two surgeons onboard the Endurance, wrote, “the harbor was full of ships and as we steamed all the ships hoisted their flags and blew their sirens. The noise was deafening … As we got nearer, we saw that all the wharves were crowded with people… We had done our best to make ourselves clean and respectable, but in spite of all our efforts we were dirty and grimy … The pier was so crowded that we could barely make our way along it. I was astonished at the feeling shown by the people. The men shouted and shook our hands: there were women, many of whom were weeping copiously.”
Two ways to reach Antarctica
On all of his Antarctic expeditions Shackleton went via South America, with his last stop typically being the British-owned island of South Georgia. This remains the most popular way to access Antarctica, with most of our Antarctica expeditions departing from either Chile or Argentina. A particularly poignant itinerary is our 21-day Antarctica & South Georgia Wildlife Cruise which follows closely in Shackleton’s footsteps with visits to both South Georgia (including to Shackleton’s grave) and Elephant Island.
It’s also possible to reach Antarctica via Cape Town, South Africa. In his days as a young sailor on the Union-Castle Line, Shackleton was a frequent visitor to Cape Town. The 2022 expedition which discovered the wreck of the Endurance departed from Cape Town. And it used a South African research vessel, S.A. Agulhas II, with an all-South African crew of 45, to get there.
Now intrepid travelers can follow in their footsteps on a one-of-a-kind adventure which flies out of Cape Town and includes a week of ice-climbing, cave dwelling, abseiling, and bike riding among Emperor penguins. The highlight of this bucket-list 12-day experience is a trip to the Geographic South Pole.
Postscript
After the trauma of the Endurance expedition, Shackleton could have been forgiven for hanging up his boots. But he did not find civilian life easy (he took to drinking heavily) and by 1920 he had resolved to embark on yet another expedition aboard a Norwegian sealer which he renamed Quest.
While Quest was moored in Rio de Janeiro, Shackleton suffered a suspected heart attack, but he refused medical attention and continued south. On January 5, 1922, he suffered a second, fatal, heart attack off the coast of South Georgia. Leonard Hussey, a veteran of the Endurance expedition, offered to accompany the body back to Britain. But when he reached Uruguay, he received a telegram from Lady Shackleton requesting that her husband be buried on South Georgia. Hussey duly returned to the remote island and on March 5, 1922, after a short service in the Lutheran church, Shackleton was finally laid to rest.
As Macklin recorded in his diary: “I think this is as the boss would have had it himself, standing lonely on an island far from civilization, surrounded by a stormy tempestuous sea, and in the vicinity of one of his greatest exploits.”
Quest continued on its mission under the leadership of Frank Wild, conducting research in the Eastern Atlantic, Tristan da Cunha, and Gough Island before finally arriving in Cape Town to a heroes’ welcome on 18 June.
Have Shackleton’s exploits inspired you to experience the White Continent for yourself? Check out our wide array of sample itineraries here, then speak to a Destination Expert about curating your own Antarctic adventure.