Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton

1874-1922

Ernest Shackleton was an English Antarctic explorer of extraordinary ambition, determination, and leadership.  Born to middle-class parents, he joined the British Merchant Navy at the age of 16.  He progressed through the ranks showing rare leadership ability.  But a standard naval career did not interest Shackleton; he wanted an extraordinary life with extraordinary challenges. In 1901, he got it.

He was recruited as a member of Robert F. Scott’s expedition to Antarctica.  This first major expedition to the last frontier on earth pushed south to 745 miles of the pole. The experience changed Shackleton for good.  In 1907, Shackleton returned to Antarctica as the leader of an expedition which got within 97 miles of the pole before having to turn back.  Upon his return to England, he was hailed a hero and knighted by the king.  In 1911, Robert Scott, using Shackleton’s route made it to the pole but was beaten by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.  Scott and his team died on the return trip, pinned down by weather and out of supplies.    Meantime, American Robert Peary had made it to the North Pole.  With the poles conquered, Shackleton came up with the audacious idea of crossing the southern continent on foot.  Many felt the expedition would do little beyond advancing the fame of Ernest Shackleton.  But for Shackleton, a man with a gigantic ego and unstoppable ambition, that was sufficient. He sent two years raising funds and support for his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.  He purchased a ship that had been built for Arctic hunting trips and re-christened her Endurance. She had three masts and a coal-fired steam engine capable of driving the ship at 10 knots.  In August of 1914, just days after the beginning of the Great War, Shackleton and his 27 man crew set sail from Plymouth, England for Antarctica.  Little did they know they were starting what is considered to be one of the greatest survival stories of all time.

Photograph by F. Hurley

The Endurance arrived at South Georgia Island near the tip of South America in November 1914.  Fishermen told Shackleton  that the pack ice around the Wendell Sea was as bad as they had ever seen it and that it was doubtful that Endurance would get through to land.  Nonetheless, Shackleton pressed on.  Within days they encountered the thick pack ice.  They sailed for two days skirting the ice before finally turning south.  Endurance squeezed through the ice very slowly, sometimes even coming to a stop.  In open water, the Endurance could cover 200 miles in a day.  By Christmas 1914, they were averaging only 30 miles a day. Then in mid-January, the ice was suddenly gone and the Endurance steamed south at an astonishing rate.  But soon the pack ice gathered around the ship again and froze solid.  They were within 200 miles of land.  The crew hoped for a gale to break up the pack but the gale never came.  On January 24^th, a crack opened 50 yards ahead of the ship.  The sails were set and the engine given a full head of steam for three hours, but the ship didn’t move.  The Endurance was stuck for good. 

Photograph by F. Hurley

For the remained of the Antarctic summer, the men lived off the abundant wildlife on the ice and prayed for the ice to break up.  The dogs were used to make short excursions away from the ship to hunt seal.  Soon, the polar night returned and the crew of Endurance braced for the long, bitterly cold winter.  The ice was slowly carrying Endurance north-northwest, parallel to Lassiter Coast.  If they could survive, the ice could break up the following spring, allowing their escape.  But Endurance was built with straight sides, perpendicular to the ice so that she did not rise out of the water as the ice squeezed her.  By October, she began to take on water as her great beams were slowly crushed.  The pumps were manned constantly but soon the crew sensed the inevitable.  Supplies and lifeboats were carried out onto the ice and shelters constructed.  On October 27^th, 1915, Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship.  It would be another three weeks before the ship finally sank into the Weddell Sea, leaving Shackleton and his 27 men alone on the ice.

To be continued...

Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage. Carroll & Graf, 1959.




Question of the Day: Who was Frank Hurley and why is he an important part of the story of the Endurance?