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Lost and found: the extraordinary story of Shackleton’s Endurance epic

Vessel located more than a century after it sank on voyage of exploration in the Antarctic

• The Endurance found – in pictures

T he Endurance left South Georgia for Antarctica on 5 December 1914. Onboard were 27 crew members plus a stowaway, 69 dogs and one cat. Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition leader, was aiming to establish a base on Antarctica’s Weddell Sea coast and then keep going to the Ross Sea on the other side of the continent.

Within two days, the ship encountered the barrier of thick sea ice around the Antarctic continent. For several weeks, the Endurance made painstaking progress, but in mid-January a gale pushed the ice floes hard against one another and the ship was stuck – “frozen like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar”, according to a crew member, Thomas Orde-Lees.

The men could do nothing but wait. After nine months of being beset in ice, they abandoned the badly damaged ship, decamping on to the ice. From the ship they took food, bibles, books, clothing, tools, keepsakes and – crucially – three open lifeboats. The cat and some of the dogs were shot.

A few weeks later, on 21 November 1915, almost a year after they had set out, the Endurance finally sank . Using basic navigational tools, Frank Worsley, the ship’s captain and navigator, recorded its location. Without that information, it would almost certainly never have been found.

The men formed a plan to march across the ice towards land. But after travelling just seven and a half miles (12km) in seven days, they gave up. “There was no alternative but to camp once more on the floe and to possess our souls with what patience we could till conditions should appear more favourable for a renewal of the attempt to escape,” wrote Shackleton.

When the ice broke up the following April, the crew took to the lifeboats, rowing to Elephant Island, a remote and uninhabited outcrop. The men were exhausted, some afflicted by sea sickness, others convulsed with dysentery. “At least half the party were insane,” wrote Frank Wild, Shackleton’s second in command.

But they made it. On 15 April they clambered ashore on Elephant Island. It was the first time the men had stood on solid ground in almost 500 days.

After nine days of recuperation, Shackleton, Worsley and four others took one of the boats another 8oo miles (1,300km) across rough seas and in biting winds to South Georgia. “The boat tossed interminably on the big waves under grey, threatening skies. Every surge of the sea was an enemy to be watched and circumvented,” wrote Shackleton. It took 16 days to reach their destination.

It was an extraordinary feat of survival, but their epic journey was not yet over. Three of the men, including Shackleton, then crossed South Georgia’s peaks and glaciers to reach a whaling station on the other side of the island. In August, after several failed attempts, a rescue party set out for Elephant Island, where the remaining 22 crewmen were waiting.

In early 1922, Shackleton launched a new expedition to the Antarctic. On 5 January, while his ship was docked at South Georgia, he died of a heart attack , aged 47.

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Endurance Expedition: Shackleton's Antarctic survival story

The Endurance Expedition was a failed mission to cross the Antarctic on foot, leaving 28 explorers stranded.

Endurance Expedition

Shackleton's rescue mission, fate of the second crew, shackleton's earlier expeditions, additional reading, bibliography.

The Endurance Expedition was a British mission to cross the Antarctic on foot in 1914-17. Launched in August 1914, the expedition became one of the most famous survival stories of all time after the expedition's ship, Endurance, became stranded and then sank during the voyage to the Antarctic. 

The Endurance's crew became stranded on the remote Elephant Island and were only rescued over four months later, in August 1916, after expedition leader Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) left to seek help. The miraculous survival of the Endurance expedition crew earned Shackleton worldwide fame though his goal to cross the Antarctic on foot was never achieved. 

The location of the sunken ship Endurance was lost for 107 years until being rediscovered on March 5, 2022. 

Formally known as the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the Endurance Expedition to Antarctica began in August 1914. The crew sailed to the Weddell Sea via South Georgia. "His expedition would consist of two ships: one would drop supply depots for him and the other from the other side of the continent, which he would personally lead," British explorer and Shackleton biographer Sir Ranulph Fiennes told All About History magazine. "He hoped to cross Antarctica and make a famous name for himself over and above Scott." On the other side of the continent, the second crew, called the Ross Sea Party, planned to drop off depot supplies from their ship Aurora. With a crew of 28 (including Shackleton), Endurance entered the Weddell Sea but became trapped in pack ice during Dec. 1914. Stuck fast in the ice, with the crew unable to break Endurance free, the ship drifted to within approximately 30 miles (48km) of Antarctica in January 1915, before drifting north. 

Endurance was slowly crushed by the moving ice, until Shackleton ordered the crew to abandon ship on Oct. 27, 1915. The ship sank shortly afterwards and the crew escaped with three lifeboats and limited supplies. Shackleton led his men through the shrinking ice pack for months while they tried to reach land. 

On April 9 1916, the Endurance Expedition crew left the ice floe in the lifeboats, reaching the uninhabited and remote Elephant Island on April 14. Ten days later, Shackleton set off to find help. He selected five crew members to join him and set sail in the 22.5-foot-long (6.9-meter-long) lifeboat called the "James Caird". He left the remainder of his men in the care of his second-in-command Frank Wild, who upturned the two remaining lifeboats to use as shelter. 

Related: When did Antarctica become a continent?

Shackleton and his small crew sailed over 800 miles (1,300 km) across the Southern Ocean to a group of whaling stations in South Georgia. The audacious rescue mission later became known as the Caird voyage after their small lifeboat. "It was the most amazing suffering over a long period. There were constant rebuffs and to be wet and cold is utterly debilitating," Fiennes said. "How none of them went completely mad over that period of floating is just incredible. I have never experienced hot or cold suffering that reminded me in an even miniscule way of Shackleton’s Caird voyage."

Shackleton and his men endured heavy seas, Force-9 winds and ice build-ups on the hull that threatened to capsize their vessel. Shackleton later recounted that the waves reached heights of over 100 feet (30 meters) and moved at speeds of 50 mph (80kmph). On May 5, 1916, the boat was even struck by a tidal wave that Shackleton initially mistook for the sky. He later wrote: "I have never seen a wave so gigantic."

The James Caird somehow survived the voyage, which Fiennes credits to Shackleton’s leadership. "They had already experienced Endurance sinking and lived on ice floes for months before trying to work out the safest way out. Whatever way Shackleton chose, death was the likely outcome but he kept cheerful."

After 17 days at sea, the James Caird landed on the southern coast of South Georgia — the opposite side of the island from their destination. After recovering from the voyage, Shackleton and two of his crew trekked for 36 hours across the island, reaching Stromness station on May 20. Shackleton next arranged a rescue ship to collect the remaining 22 crew stranded on Elephant Island.

After several aborted rescue attempts, Shackleton was lent a tugboat called Yelcho by the Chilean government and he finally reached Elephant Island on August 30, 1916. A smoke signal was sent from the shore while Shackleton approached the beach in a small boat. Figures emerged from the capsized lifeboats and when he was within earshot Shackleton called out: "Are you alright?"

“All well!” Came the reply. All the men on the island had survived. "It is an absolutely incredible survival story,” Fiennes said.

The story of the Endurance's crew is a supreme example of survival against the odds. However, the neglected Ross Sea Party became stranded off Antarctica until January 1917. "Shackleton was criminally negligent in his planning for the other side," Fiennes said. "Three of the party (including the commander Aeneas Mackintosh) died and of course there was no way of knowing that the Endurance had sunk. The three men died horribly for nothing. They had actually managed to drop most of the food off, even though their ship with most of their kit had been caught in the ice and taken away before they had unloaded properly. It was a disaster.”

Because the story of Endurance has become so famous, the sufferings of the Ross Sea Party and the fact that Shackleton achieved none of his actual objectives during 1914-17 have almost been forgotten.

It wasn’t until Sir Vivian Fuchs’s Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955-58 that the first overland crossing of Antarctica was completed. Fuchs achieved this by using tracked snow vehicles and it wasn’t until Fiennes’ own mission, named the Unsupported Antarctic Continent Expedition (1992-93) that a crossing of Antarctica by foot was successful.

In 1901 Shackleton served as Third Officer under the command of Captain Robert Falcon Scott on the British National Antarctic Expedition, named after the expedition's ship 'Discovery'. The expedition  was a milestone in British polar exploration, and the group conducted extensive scientific and geographical research into what was then a largely unexplored continent. 

The Discovery Expedition also included an early attempt to reach the South Pole. Shackleton accompanied Scott and Dr Edward Wilson on this journey and they reached a ‘Farthest South’ record of 420 miles from the Pole on Dec. 30 1902. 

During the attempt to reach the South Pole, Shackleton suffered from ill health, though this did not stop him continuing with the journey. “Shackleton did show an incredible willpower and it had to be greater than anybody else because of his illnesses," said Fiennes. "He had a weak heart and knew it so he wouldn’t allow anyone to test it. He also had lung problems, which were exacerbated by altitude… On all of his expeditions most people would have withdrawn with that state of health.”

In 1907, Shackleton returned to the Antarctic but this time he was in command of what was known as the ‘Nimrod’ Expedition. Along with fellow explorers Jameson Adams, Eric Marshall and Frank Wild he achieved the record for reaching the furthest south, in his attempts to once again reach the South Pole. "Shackleton got much further south by finding an inlet at Mount Hope to get to the Beardmore Glacier," Fiennes said. "He then got to within 97 miles of the South Pole, which was amazing. This was a world record and I would call it a success on the way to the ultimate success. It wasn’t a failure but Shackleton realised that his critics would deem him a failure because he hadn’t quite reached the Pole."

As well as reaching the farthest south, a separate group from the expedition reached the estimated location of the South Magnetic Pole. The expedition also achieved the first ascent of Antarctica’s second-highest volcano, Mount Erebus, and Shackleton was knighted by Queen Victoria upon his return.

Historian Dan Snow spoke to Ranulph Fiennes about his research into Shackleton's expedition and his own Antarctic exploring. The Royal Geographical Society has a wealth of fantastic home-schooling, classroom or personal study resources on Shackleton's Antarctic expeditions.  

• " Shackleton: A Biography " Ranulph Fiennes (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House, 2021)
• Alfred Lansing, Endurance. The true story of Shackleton’s incredible voyage to the Antarctic (Phoenix, 2003)
• Shackleton Endurance Expedition - Timeline, Royal Geographic Society 
• Ranulph Fiennes' expeditions and challenges , Marie Curie 
• Navigation of the James Caird on the Shackleton Expedition , Records of the Canterbury Museum, 2018 Vol. 32: 23–66 Canterbury Museum 2018
• THE ANTARCTIC PHOTOGRAPHS OF FRANK HURLEY, HERBERT PONTING AND CAPTAIN SCOTT  

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Tom Garner is the Features Editor for History of War magazine and also writes for sister publication All About History . He has a Master's degree in Medieval Studies from King's College London and has also worked in the British heritage industry for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust , as well as for English Heritage and the National Trust . He specializes in Medieval History and interviewing veterans and survivors of conflicts from the Second World War onwards. 

• Timothy Williamson Editor-in-Chief, All About History

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The Stunning Survival Story of Ernest Shackleton and His Endurance Crew

By: Kieran Mulvaney

Updated: May 2, 2024 | Original: October 21, 2020

All year, the ship had been trapped, ice pushing and pinching the hull, the wood howling in protest. Finally, on October 27, 1915, a new wave of pressure rippled across the ice, lifting the ship’s stern and tearing off its rudder and its keel. Freezing water began to rush in.

“She’s going, boys,” came the cry. “It’s time to get off.”

From the moment Ernest Shackleton and his crew aboard the British expedition ship, HMS Endurance had become immobilized in Antarctica's ice 10 months earlier, they had been preparing for this moment. Now, those on board removed their last remaining belongings from the ship and set up camp on the ice. Twenty-five days later, what remained of the wreck convulsed once more, and the Endurance disappeared beneath the ice.

Incredibly, all 27 men under Shackleton's command would survive the grueling Antarctic expedition, but their ship remained sunk and lost to history—until 106 years later. 

On March 9, 2022, a team of scientists and adventurers announced they had  finally located what remained of the Endurance at the bottom of Antarctica's Weddell Sea. The team made the discovery using submersibles and undersea drones and released stunning photos of the long-lost wooden ship where it had lodged in the seabed nearly 10,000 feet deep in clear and icy waters. 

Endurance Is Locked in by Ice

Endurance had left South Georgia for Antarctica on December 5, 1914, carrying 27 men (plus one stowaway, who became the ship’s steward), 69 dogs, and a tomcat erroneously dubbed Mrs. Chippy. The goal of expedition leader Shackleton, who had twice fallen short—once agonizingly so—of reaching the South Pole, was to establish a base on Antarctica’s Weddell Sea coast. 

From there a small party, including himself, would set out on the first crossing of the continent, ultimately arriving at the Ross Sea, south of New Zealand, where another group would be waiting for them, having laid depots of food and fuel along the way.

Two days after leaving South Georgia, Endurance entered the pack ice—the barrier of thick sea ice that stands guard around the Antarctic continent. For several weeks, the ship poked and prodded its way through leads in the ice, gingerly making its way south; but on January 18, a northerly gale pressed the pack hard against the land and pushed the floes tight against each other. Suddenly, there was no way forward, nor any way back. Endurance was beset—in the words of one of the crew, Thomas Orde-Lees, “frozen like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar.”

They had been within a day’s sailing of their landing place; now the drift of the ice was slowly pushing them farther away with each passing day. There was nothing else to do but to establish a routine and wait out the winter.

Shackleton wrote Alexander Macklin, one of the ship’s surgeons, “did not rage at all, or show outwardly the slightest sign of disappointment; he told us simply and calmly that we must winter in the Pack; explained its dangers and possibilities; never lost his optimism and prepared for winter.”

In private, however, he revealed greater foreboding, quietly expressing to the ship’s captain, Frank Worsley, one winter’s night that, “The ship can’t live in this, Skipper … It may be a few months, and it may be only a question of weeks or even days … but what the ice gets, the ice keeps.”

Survival on an Ice Floe

In the time that passed between abandoning Endurance and watching the ice swallow it up completely, the crew salvaged as many provisions as they could, while sacrificing anything and everything that added weight or would consume valuable resources— including bibles, books, clothing, tools and keepsakes. Some of the younger dogs, too small to pull their weight, were shot, as was, to the chagrin of many, the unfortunate Mrs. Chippy.

The initial plan was to march across the ice toward land, but that was abandoned after the men managed just seven and a half miles in seven days. “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.” Slowly and steadily, the ice drifted farther to the north; and, on April 7, 1916, the snow-capped peaks of Clarence and Elephant Islands came into view, flooding them with hope.

“The floe has been a good friend to us,” wrote Shackleton in his diary, “but it is reaching the end of its journey, and is liable at any time now to break up.” 

On April 9, it did just that, splitting beneath them with an almighty crack. Shackleton gave the order to break camp and launch the boats, and all at once, they were finally free of the ice that had alternately bedeviled and supported them. 

Now they had a new foe to contend with: the open ocean. It threw freezing spray in their faces and tossed frigid water over them, and it batted the boats from side to side and brought brave men to the fetal position as they battled the elements and seasickness.

Through it all, Captain Worsley navigated through the spray and the squalls, until after six days at sea, Clarence and Elephant Islands appeared just 30 miles ahead. The men were exhausted. Worsley had by that stage not slept for 80 hours. And while some were crippled by seasickness, others were wracked with dysentery. Frank Wild, Shackleton’s second-in-command, wrote that “at least half the party were insane.” Yet they rowed resolutely toward their goal, and on April 15, they clambered ashore on Elephant Island.

Marooned on Elephant Island

It was the first time they had been on dry land since leaving South Georgia 497 days previously. But their ordeal was far from over. The likelihood of anybody coming across them was vanishingly small, and so after nine days of recuperation and preparation, Shackleton, Worsley and four others set out in one of the lifeboats, the James Caird, to seek help from a whaling station on South Georgia, more than 800 miles away. 

For 16 days, they battled monstrous swells and angry winds, baling water out of the boat and beating ice off the sails. “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.” Even as they were within touching distance of their goal, the elements hurled their worst at them: “The wind simply shrieked as it tore the tops off the waves,” Shackleton wrote. “Down into valleys, up to tossing heights, straining until her seams opened, swung our little boat.”

The next day, the wind eased off and they made it ashore. Help was almost at hand; but this, too, was not the end. The storms had pushed the James Caird off course, and they had landed on the other side of the island from the whaling station. And so Shackleton, Worsley and Tom Crean set off to reach it by foot—climbing over mountains and sliding down glaciers, forging a path that no human being had ever forged before, until, after 36 hours of desperate hiking, they staggered into the station at Stromness.

'My Name Is Shackleton'

There was no conceivable circumstance under which three strangers could possibly appear from nowhere at the whaling station, and certainly not from the direction of the mountains. And yet here they were: their hair and beards stringy and matted, their faces blackened with soot from blubber stoves and creased from nearly two years of stress and privation.

And old Norwegian whaler recorded the scene when the three men stood before the station manager Thoralf Sørlle:

“Manager say: ‘Who the hell are you?’ And the terrible bearded man in the center of the three say very quietly: ‘My name is Shackleton.’ Me – I turn away and weep.”

Rescue Mission to Elephant Island

Once the other three members of the James Caird had been retrieved, attention turned to rescuing the 22 men remaining on Elephant Island. Yet, after all that had gone before, this final task in many ways proved to be the most trying and time-consuming of all. The first ship on which Shackleton set out ran dangerously low on fuel while trying to navigate the pack ice, and was forced to turn back to the Falkland Islands. The government of Uruguay proffered a vessel that came within 100 miles of Elephant Island before being beaten back by the ice.

Each morning on Elephant Island, Frank Wild, whom Shackleton had left in charge, issued the call for everyone to “Lash up and stow” their belongings. “The Boss may come today!” he declared daily. His companions grew increasingly dispirited and doubtful. “Eagerly on the lookout for the relief ship,” recorded Macklin on August 16, 1916. “Some of the party have quite given up hope of her coming.” Orde-Lees was clearly one of them. “There is no good in deceiving ourselves any longer,” he wrote.

But Shackleton procured a third ship, the Yelcho, from Chile; and finally, on August 30, 1916, the saga of the Endurance and its crew came to an end. The men on the island were settling down to a lunch of boiled seal’s backbone when they spied the Yelcho just off the coast. It had been 128 days since the James Caird had left; within an hour of the Yelcho appearing, all ashore had broken camp and left Elephant Island behind. Twenty months after setting out for the Antarctic, every one of the Endurance crew was alive and safe.

While Shackleton's crew miraculously made it back to England, his ship did not. For more than a century, the Endurance remained among history's most elusive shipwrecks. But in 2022, an international team of marine archaeologists, explorers and scientists located the Endurance at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, approximately four miles south of the position originally recorded when Endurance sank. 

“We have made polar history with the discovery of Endurance, and successfully completed the world’s most challenging shipwreck search,” said John Shears , the leader of Endurance22, the expedition team that used submersibles and drones to locate the wooden ship.

Photos released from the Endurance22 expedition revealed the sunken, three-masted ship in mesmerizing detail, including an image of its stern where its name "ENDURANCE" was visible above a five-pointed star.

Shackleton's Early Death

Ernest Shackleton never did reach the South Pole or crossed Antarctica. He launched one more expedition to the Antarctic, but the Endurance veterans who rejoined him noticed he appeared weaker, more diffident, drained of the spirit that had kept them alive. On January 5, 1922, with the ship at South Georgia, he had a heart attack in his bunk and died. He was just 47.

With his death, Wild took the ship to Antarctica; but it proved unequal to the task, and after a month spent futilely attempting to penetrate the pack, he set a course for Elephant Island. From the safety of the deck, he and his comrades peered through binoculars at the beach where so many of them had lived in fear and hope. 

“Once more I see the old faces & hear the old voices—old friends scattered everywhere,” wrote Macklin. “But to express all I feel is impossible.”

And with that, they turned north one last time and went home.

Alexander, Caroline,  The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition  ( Alfred A. Knopf , 1998) Heacox, Kim,  Shackleton: The Antarctic Challenge ( National Geographic Society, 1999) Huntford, Roland,  Shackleton ( Hodder & Stoughton, 1985) Lansing, Alfred,  Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage ( Perseus Books , 1986) Shackleton, Ernest,  South  ( Macmillan , 1920) Worsley, F.A.,  Shackleton’s Boat Journey ( Hodder & Stoughton, 1940)

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7. Shackleton’s Quest for the South Pole

Sir Ernest Shackleton first headed south in 1901, under Scott’s command [item 58] . Their personal differences began a heated rivalry that led Shackleton to organize three further expeditions on his own. On the Nimrod Expedition (1907–1909), Shackleton came within 97 miles (156 km.) of the South Pole. Considering his party’s failing supplies and exhaustion, Shackleton made the heartbreaking decision to turn back, having gone further south than anyone before. Because the pole had been reached by Amundsen and Scott in 1911–12, the goal of Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition (1914–1916) was to make the first transcontinental crossing of Antarctica, but was beset by disaster [item 61] . Finally, Shackleton embarked on the Quest in 1921 to circumnavigate Antarctica, but he died of a heart attack in January 1922 as the ship arrived at South Georgia [item 60] . This section uses some of the artifacts from Shackleton’s expeditions to gain insight to life on the ice.

These pictures were taken of Shackleton during Scott’s Discovery Expedition, showing his arrival in New Zealand and then, during a reconnaissance mission, the Terra Novacrashing through the flows of pack ice in an attempt to reach land. About the latter, Shackleton wrote:

"It was not long before we were in the pack ice, and our stout ship was crashing through mighty flows and even then every now and again reeling back from the shock ... we were fortunate enough to penetrate farther east and discover new land ... On the 19th I was given a small party to make a sledge reconnaissance of the South west in order to see what chances there were for getting to the South by sledge journeys ... so we are now making preparations for the Southern trip ...”

58. “Shackleton on arrival at Lyttelton”

58.  “Terra Nova in Pack Ice”

59. Frank Hurley and others

Photograph album, Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–1917

This volume contains eight sepia-toned illustrations of Shackleton on his last expedition, including the Quest “Frozen in the Ice” and Shackleton’s burial cairn: “We left him under the Southern Cross.” This copy of the album was signed by Captain Frank Worsley.

60. Southward on the Quest: Shackleton’s Last Antarctic Expedition

“Scala Souvenir,” ca. 1922

Shackleton’s Endurance reached the Weddell Sea in January 1915, to start his cross-Antarctic trek. But the ship was crushed in an ice pack. The party lived on ice flows until they finally reached Elephant Island in boats; from there Shackleton led an epic voyage of about 800 miles (1,290 km) to South Georgia in an open boat. After landing, the team had to hike over the mountainous terrain [see item 38 in section 5] before they reached a settlement and rescue. Amazingly every member of Shackleton’s party survived this 497-day ordeal.

61. Frank Hurley

The Endurance at Night, June 1915

This map serves as an overview of Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition, including the routes taken by the Nimrod and the route that Shackleton pioneered party towards the South Pole. Shackleton added the routes of other explorers to put his journey into context.

62. Ernest H. Shackleton

“British Antarctic Expedition, 1907: General Map Showing the Explorations and Surveys of the Expedition, 1907–09”

From: Geographical Journal 34, no. 5 (1909): after 500

Shackleton wore this harness on the southward trek to the South Pole in 1909. Unlike Amundsen’s team, which traveled on skis with dog sleds, Shackleton had thought to use Manchurian ponies to haul their supply sledges. Unfortunately the ponies did not survive so Shackleton and his men had to pull their own sledges up the Beardmore Glacier themselves, for almost all of the 1,755-mile trek.

The harness saved Shackleton’s life on numerous occasions as his party negotiated the crevasse-seamed glacier. He remembered one occasion: “Just before we left the Glacier I broke through the soft snow, plunging into a hidden crevasse. My harness jerked up under my heart, and gave me rather a shakeup. It seemed as though the glacier were saying: ‘This is the last touch of you; don’t you come up here again.’”

63. Shackleton’s Sledge Harness, 1907–1909

Shackleton abandoned three crates of malt whisky beneath his hut at his camp on Ross Island in McMurdo Sound after the 1908–1909 winter. The crates were retrieved from the ice in 2007 by members of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage trust; three bottles underwent scientific analysis in Scotland in 2011 in order to recreate determine the original recipe. Every detail, from the label to imperfections in the glass, was meticulously recreated. 

64. Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt, 1909

A week after returning to New Zealand, Shackleton made this four-minute long recording, in which he summarized the achievements of the expedition:

“We reached a point within 97 geographical miles of the South Pole; the only thing that stopped us from reaching the actual point was the lack of 50 lbs. of food. Another party reached, for the first time, the South Magnetic Pole; another party reached the summit of a great active volcano, Mount Erebus.  We made many interesting geological and scientific discoveries and had many narrow escapes throughout the whole time.”

65. Ernest H. Shackleton

Edison Amberol recording of Shackleton’s “My South Polar Expedition,” 1909

Shackleton voiced his feelings about the beauty and challenge of the Antarctic in this poem, annotated as, “The last Rhyme in the South Polar Times | written on the Southern Sledge Journey | Dec 1902.” (The expedition’s “newspaper” appeared as a typewritten manuscript issued in a single copy.)

“We shall dream of those months of sledging through soft and yielding snow.

The chafe of the strap on the shoulder the whine of the dogs as they go.

Our rest in the tent after marching, our sleep in the biting cold,

The Heavens now grey with the snow cloud anon to be burnished gold

The threshing drift on the tent side exposed to the blizzard’s might.

The wind-blown furrows and snow drifts, The crystal’s play in the light. . . .”

66. Ernest H. Shackleton

Autograph poem “L’Envoi,” ca. 1907

67. Shackleton’s Onoto patent self-filling pen, 1921

Portrait miniature of Ernest Henry Shackleton, [1909] 

The first book printed and bound in Antarctica. Frank Wild and Ernest Joyce had taken a quick course in printing before their departure from England and, despite the cold and the cramped conditions of the hut at Cape Royds, they printed ninety copies in the winter of 1907–1908. The boards of the binding were made from empty wooden chests and the books were bound using old harness leather for the backstrip.

The book included articles and poems contributed anonymously by expedition members that were intended for an audience of friends at home. It was illustrated with lithographs and etchings by G. Marston, facsimiles of several of which are also on display: a view of the printing office, wedged between a large sewing machine and two bunk beds in a room measuring six by seven feet; a view of the kitchen (mess room); the wooden book cover, stenciled with “beans” on the front cover and “soup” on the back.

69. Ernest H. Shackleton (editor)

Aurora Australis

East Antarctica: at the Sign of the Penguins, by Joyce and Wild, 1908

The eagerness with which the public followed the exploits of the polar explorers is shown by these collectible cards distributed by Player’s Cigarettes. The colorful chromolithographic illustrations were based on actual black and white photographs.

70. John Player & Sons

Cigarette cards: “Lieut. Sir E. H. Shackleton, C.V.O.” / “A Sledge Team” / “A Sledge Party Crossing a Crevasse” / “Captain Scott” / “Commodore Evans” / “The Terra Nova off Cape Evans” / “Setting up Camp” / “Dr. Wilson” / “Captain Gates” / “Demetri, the Russian Dog-Driver” / “Capt. Oates Exercising a Siberian Pony” / “Lieut. Bowers”

In conjunction with the First International Polar Year (1882–1883), Adolphus Greely established a research station to collect astronomical and magnetic data at Lady Franklin Bay in the high Arctic. Only six of the twenty-five men survived their harrowing three years of isolation. Although the rescued men were initially treated as heroes, their fame was later tainted by rumors of cannibalism.

71. B. W. Kilburn

Stereoview from the Greely Expedition prepared for the Columbian Exposition

Stereographic viewer

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The History of Shackleton’s Endurance

In 1914, famed explorer Ernest Shackleton, along with a skilled crew, sailed ‘Endurance’ towards the South Pole, hoping to be the first to cross Antarctica from sea to sea via the South Pole.

Endurance was a barquentine, three-masted ship that was designed by Ole Aanderud Larsen and built at the Framnæs shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway. The ship was completed on December 17, 1912, and is best remembered for its last voyage, carrying Ernest Shackleton, Captain Worsley, and their crew on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship was trapped in and later crushed by the polar ice in the Antarctic. It was lost for 107 years before finally being discovered in March 2022. 

Who was Ernest Shackleton? 

Ernest Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish explorer born in February 1874. He is remembered for three British expeditions that he led into the Antarctic.  His first voyage was abroad Discovery , accompanying Robert Falcon Scott from 1901 to 1904. Later, he and his companions on the Nimrod set a new record for the “farthest South latitude” in 1909. He was knighted by King Edward VII for his early achievements.

Shackleton was famous for his accomplishments, becoming a public hero well-loved by the British public and a well-respected explorer who was praised by the likes of Roald Amundsen and others. 

It was in 1911 that Shackleton set a new goal—to cross Antarctica from sea to sea via the South Pole (which had recently been reached by Roald Amundsen). Shackleton leaned on his prestigious and previous successes in order to fund the expedition, raising £10,000 from the British government (close to £1,000,000 or $1,312,000 today). Sailors from around the world applied to become part of his journey (reportedly, he received more than 5,000 applications).

The expedition became known as the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and it lasted from 1914 to 1917. It was this fateful voyage onboard Endurance, that doomed the ship and led to a series of catastrophic events that have been described as the most incredible survival story in history. 

The Last Voyage of the Endurance 

While Shackleton is the best-remembered member of the Endurance crew, the ship was actually captained by Captain F. Worsely. He was an incredibly experienced seaman who is usually credited with navigating the crew to safety, especially in the small boats (a skill that Shackleton was lacking). The crew also included the second in command, Frank Wild, carpenter Harry McNish, Alexander Macklin (a surgeon), the meteorologist Captain L. Hussey, and famously, a male cat named Mrs. Chippy. 

Timeline of Events 

Below is a timeline of events leading up to and following the loss of the Endurance : 

Setting Sail

The crew set sail from Plymouth

Start of the Journey

The ship left Buenos Aires, stopping at Grytviken, a whaling station on South Georgia Island

Grytviken Departure

Endurance  left Grytviken

Slowing Progress

Two days later, the ship ran into the polar ice pack, and progress slowed

Several Weeks of Slow Progress

The ship moved slowly through the pack for several weeks (around 30 miles a day)

Nearing Vassal Bay

Endurance  was 300 miles from Vassal Bay, the crew’s destination

Endurance  set sail briefly before becoming trapped again

The ship was icebound as far as the crew could see

Unsuccessful Attempt of Removing Ice

The crew tried unsuccessfully to break the ship free from the ice manually

Impassable Route through the Ice

The water opened for a quarter of a mile ahead, but the pack around the open area was solid and impassable

Winter Begins

Antarctic winter begins, and the sun rises and sets for the last time

Drifting (March-May)

Worsley estimates that the ship is drifting with the ice, moving more than 100 miles to the northwest

Blizzard Breaks Ice (July 14th-16th)

A blizzard moves the ship and breaks the ice into smaller pieces

Movement in the Ship from Ice

Movement in the pack tilts the ship, allowing it to float for the first time in six months. Movements continue, moving and compressing the ship violently and dangerously

Leak Discovery

Shackleton and the crew attempt to move the ship and take advantage of an opening, but a leak is discovered. The ice closed in again two days later

Departing off the Ship (October)

The ship continued to be damaged by the ice, with the pressure steadily increasing. The deck of the ship buckled upward, and the men were ordered out of the ship and onto the ice for their own safety

Endurance Sinks with Crew Stranded

Endurance  was lost beneath the icy waters of the Antarctic, and the crew’s situation became even more perilous

How the Crew of Endurance Survived

The crew of the E ndurance , after losing their ship to the polar ice flows, took to the ice in a desperate bid for survival. The crew recovered some critical items from the ship, but the dangers of remaining on board were too great, and the bow was crushed on November 13, 1915, and the remaining wreckage was hit by another pressure wave a few days later. The next day, Endurance had sunk, obliterating any trace of the ship. What happened next has long been regarded as one of the most remarkable feats of survival in the history of exploration. 

The crew camped on the ice for nearly two months while Shackleton and Worsley hoped that the ice would drift towards a known island more than 400 km away. Eventually, Shackleton, against the wishes of his captain, decided that the crew’s best hope of survival was to pack their crucial belongings onto the lifeboats and drag them across the ice. This trek didn’t last more than a few days or make it more than a few miles. Noting the dangers of damage to the lifeboats, Shakulton decided to make another camp, known as “Patience Camp, “on another ice flow. Again, the crew hoped that the ice would take them closer to a safe harbor.

On April 9, 1916, Shackleton ordered the crew into their meager lifeboats with the hope of sailing toward Elephant Island. Their destination was a small, rocky, and inhospitable destination that would take around five days to reach. While sailing, the crew endured unimaginable conditions. This included the freezing cold, seasickness, lack of food, unsuitable clothing and provisions, and frostbite.

During this period, Shackleton is described as caring for his crew in every way possible, including giving his mittens to the famed photographer of the expedition. Captain Worsley, whose skill in small boats saved the crews’ lives more than once, was almost entirely responsible for navigating them to the small Elephant Island. The crew, against all odds, reached the island. But they were far from safe. 

A select few, including Shackleton, Worsely, and Harry McNish, set off once more in the James Caird, one of the three small lifeboats. The crew outfitted it, breaking down the other two lifeboats, in order to ensure that it would survive the 720-mile journey to the South Georgia whaling station they departed from nearly a year earlier. The captain’s second in command, Frank Wild, was left on Elephant Island along with the remaining members of the crew to wait for Shackleton’s and Worsley’s return with help.

Shackleton packed supplies for around four weeks, refusing to take more from his stranded crew. He was well aware of the risks of the journey and knew that if they did not make it to South Georgia within the four-week time period that everyone would be lost. It took from April 24th-May 8th to reach South Georgia Island. By this point, Shackleton and his small band were near death.

Unfortunately, the small boat landed on the wrong side of the island. Rather than set sail again, part of the small group traveled 32 miles over dangerous, unmapped alpine mountain terrain for 36 hours straight in order to reach a whaling station on May 20. 

Shackleton and Worsley immediately organized a rescue for the twenty-two other crew members on Elephant Island. The crew was successfully rescued, after four failed attempts, on August 30, 1916. Amazingly, every member of Shackleton’s crew survived their harrowing months in the Antarctic. 

The Discovery of the Endurance Wreck 

Incredibly the wreck of Endurance was discovered in the Antarctic by The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, using the South African icebreaker Agulhas II, on March 5, 2022, exactly 100 years after the funeral of Ernest Shackleton and 107 after the ship was crushed by the polar ice. 

The ship was found upright and in what scientists are calling remarkably good condition. It is in, as the director of the exploration Mensun Bound noted, “a brilliant state of preservation.” It’s even possible to make out the name “Endurance” on the stern. The wreck is considered one of the most important shipwreck discoveries in modern history.

Was the ship Endurance ever found?

Yes, Endurance was recently discovered on March 5, 2022. It was lost for 107 years in the Antarctic waters and, amazingly, was found in excellent condition. The rock is now considered one of the most important maritime discoveries in recent history.

Did the crew of Endurance survive?

Yes, the entire crew of the Endurance survived their ordeal. Their survival story is harrowing and incredibly hard to imagine. Today, it is considered one of the most remarkable survival stories in the history of exploration.

Where did Endurance sink?

Endurance sank in the Antarctic. Captain Worsley recorded it at 68° 38.5’S 52° 58’W in the middle of an impassable ice flow. 

How long were Shackleton’s crew on Elephant Island?

Shackleton’s crew was on Elephant Island from April 15, 1916, until they were rescued on August 30, 1916. All told the crew’s journey lasted more than two years. 

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Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Crossing of South Georgia

The map of the shackleton crossing.

South Georgia, with the South Sandwich Islands, is a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. It lies 800 miles southeast of the Falkland Islands, a ruggedly beautiful landscape permanently covered with ice over more than half of its extent.

The only residents of the island are two British Government Officers and the British Antarctic Survey staff who man two research stations.

Captain James Cook made the first landing on South Georgia in 1775, and claimed the territory for King George III. Seal hunting for furs began soon afterwards, followed by whaling activities until the mid-twentieth century.

Due to rapidly changing environmental conditions mapping is vital for the island, and assists in assessing glacier change. Dennis Maps printed the latest map, which was published by British Antarctic Survey for the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

The Shackleton Crossing

This map shows both the island, and on the reverse, the famous Shackleton Crossing of 1916. Sir Ernest Shackleton had taken part in Captain Scott’s South Pole expeditions, and was now attempting to cross Antarctica from sea to sea via the Pole.

Disaster strikes

His ship Endurance was trapped by pack ice and crushed in the Weddell Sea . Taking to the lifeboats the crew were stranded on Elephant Island, 800 miles southwest of South Georgia. With five companions, Shackleton set off to find help, and landed at King Haakon Bay on South Georgia’s south coast.

Three men waited there while Shackleton and two others set off across the unknown interior to get help at the whaling stations at Stromness Bay on the other side of the island.They had enough provisions for three days, a length of rope, rudimentary equipment, and a sketch map.

A treacherous journey

Disoriented, they headed off in the wrong direction but realising their mistake changed course, and heard the steam whistle of one of the whaling stations calling men to work. But although they now had a clear destination there were still dangerous obstacles to overcome, including a lake in which one man sank to his waist.

Against all odds and despite several setbacks, they managed to reach Stromness, ‘a terrible trio of scarecrows’, eleven days after setting out.

A boat was immediately sent to pick up their fellow crew members in King Haakon Bay, but it took more than three months to evacuate the men stranded on Elephant Island, due to the sea ice blocking the approaches to the island.

Sir Ernest Shackleton died of a heart attack in 1922 during a later expedition, while his ship was moored in South Georgia. At his wife’s request he was buried on the island.

Sir Ernest Shackleton – an inspiring leader

Looking at the map of the Shackleton Crossing provides a small insight into the extraordinary achievement of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his companions. Even today, with sophisticated maps drawn with the help of satellite images, technical clothing and specialist equipment, the journey is an obviously formidable and dangerous one.

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If you’re interested in environmental issues of the world take a look at our other post about Greenland and the European Arctic map and climate change.

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