In 1911, the famed explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton declares there is still one great polar prize left to claim: the complete traverse of Antarctica from one end of the continent to another. Three years later in 1914, his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set out to achieve this goal, setting sail from London on the ship Endurance.
We are leaving now to carry on our white warfare, and our farewell message to our country is that we will do our best to make good
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
November 5th 1914
Endurance arrives in South Georgia. Shackleton and his crew of 28 men spend a month in the whaling station of Grytviken, the hub of the booming Antarctic whaling industry. Shackleton is warned by several whalers that the sea ice in the Weddell Sea is particularly severe this season and his expedition’s chances of success are slim. Undeterred, he decides to proceed.
The whaling captains at South Georgia were generously ready to share with me their knowledge of the waters in which they pursued their trade… confirming earlier information as to the extreme severity of the ice conditions in this sector of the Antarctic.
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
January 15th 1915
Endurance sails from Grytviken meeting its first pack ice just two days into its voyage south. After seven weeks of difficult navigation through ever-tightening fields of ice, the ship becomes entirely held fast by the frozen pack. The polar party is trapped just one day’s good sail from their proposed landing spot on the Antarctic coast.
The floes are very thick and are covered by deep snow. The brash between the floes is so thick and heavy that we cannot push through without a great expenditure of power, and then for a short distance only. We therefore lie to for a while to see if the pack opens at all when this north-east wind ceases.
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
February 21st 1915
Although gripped by the ice, the ship nevertheless continues to move south thanks to the slow clockwise gyre of the Weddell Sea. Endurance reaches 77ºS, 35ºW, its furthest point south, before the churn of the ice begins to drag it north. The expedition is now destined never to make landfall on the Antarctic continent.
The idea of spending winter on the ship is extremely unpleasant, more so, owing to the necessarily cramping of the work and the forced association with the ship’s party – who, although being an amicable crowd are not altogether partial to the scientific staff.
- Frank Hurley, photographer
October 27th 1915
The days shorten and the dark Antarctic winter closes in. Shackleton works hard to maintain the morale of his men. Temperatures drop even further. Ice continues to put pressure on Endurance until its creaking hull makes it unsafe to remain on board. Shackleton orders the ship to be abandoned, and for a camp to be set up on the sea ice.
It is hard to write what I feel. To a sailor his ship is more than a floating home… Now, straining and groaning, her timbers cracking and her wounds gaping, she is slowly giving up her sentient life at the very outset of her career.
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
November 1st 1915
Shackleton makes a plan to march over the pack ice to Snow Hill on the Antarctic peninsula where there is a hut with an emergency store. The ship's carpenter Henry McNish attaches sledge runners to the ship's lifeboats to allow them to be dragged, and several of the Endurance's sled dogs are shot to save rations, along with McNish's beloved cat, Mrs Chippy. After three days of hard pulling on impossible ice, the march is abandoned, and Ocean Camp is established 2km from the beleaguered Endurance.
As always with [Shackleton] what had happened had happened. It was in the past and he looked to the future… Without emotion, melodrama or excitement [he] said ‘ship and stores have gone – so now we’ll go home.
- Alexander Macklin, surgeon
November 21st 1915
The Endurance finally succumbs to the pressure of the ice. To the dismay of all, her crushed and broken hull is swallowed whole and she sinks to the bottom of the Weddell Sea.
At 5pm she went down by the head: the stern, the cause of all the trouble was the last to go under water. I cannot write about it.
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
April 9th 1916
The party moves to a new location they dub Patience camp, with the hopes they will drift to a better position. The last of the sled dogs are shot. After 100 days, and with the ice finally breaking up, the three lifeboats at long last take to the water. The boats are renamed for the expedition's benefactors: the James Caird, the Stancomb Wills, and the Dudley Docker. Shackleton decides to head for the nearest land at Elephant Island.
We were in the middle of confused lumped seas which were far more dangerous for small boats than the straight-running waves of an open sea. It was inpossible to dodge every sea and, at intervals, I shipped a heavy one. Then it was “Bale!’ Bale like hell!”
- Frank Worsley, captain
April 15th 1915
The three boats, entirely exposed to the weather, take five days to reach Elephant Island. The men are suffering from exposure and dehydration, with many also showing signs of frostbite. They land at Cape Valentine – the first time they have set foot on solid ground in 497 days. The spot is soon discovered to be dangerously exposed to high tides, and the party soon decamps to a rocky spit they dub Point Wild, named for Shackleton's second-in-command Frank Wild.
Conceive our joy on setting foot on solid earth after 170 days of life on a drifting ice floe, each day filled with anxiety.
- Frank Hurley, Endurance photographer
April 24th 1915
Shackleton orders that the James Caird be outfitted for an audacious rescue voyage: sailing 800 miles through some of the roughest seas in the world to the whaling stations on the island of South Georgia. McNish makes the tiny vessel as seaworthy as he can, and joins Shackleton along with the Endurance captain Frank Worsley, second officer Tom Crean and Able seamen Timothy McCarthy and John Vincent.
All hands knew that the perils of the proposed journey were extreme. The risk was justified solely by our urgent need of assistance. The ocean south of Cape Horn in the middle of May is known to be the most tempestuous storm-swept area of water in the world… We had to face these conditions in a small and weather-beaten boat, already strained by the work of the months that had passed.
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
May 10th 1915
The tiny James Caird, cramped and over-ballasted makes heavy work in rough seas. All the men are constantly seasick. The weather is so bad the navigator Worsley is only able to take their bearings a handful of times and is forced to rely on dead reckoning. After 17 days during which they are nearly sunk by a massive rogue wave and a hurricane, they finally reach the South Georgia coast and make landfall at King Haakon Bay.
During twenty-six years’ experience of the ocean in all its moods I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white-capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for many days. I shouted, “For God’s sake, hold on! It’s got us!”
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
May 18th 1915
King Haakon Bay is on the uninhabited western side of South Georgia and with the James Caird now rendered unseaworthy, Shackleton decides to march across the mountainous and uncharted interior of the island to raise the alarm. On May 18 under a full moon, he sets out with Crean and Worsley, screws from the boat set into their boots to act as crampons. After an epic 30-hour hike, the three men reach the whaling station at Stromness Harbour.
The great snowy uplands gleamed white before us. Enormous peaks towered awe-inspiringly round about, and to the south was the line of black crags, while northwards lay the silvered sea.
- Frank Worsley
August 1915
On Elephant Island, Frank Wild remains in charge. As winter deepens, the penguins and seals they rely on for food start to depart. As hunger sets in, the best meal of the day is the fantasy recipe read aloud from the pages of a salvaged cookbook.
Had we plenty to eat and to smoke, our minds would have been our real peril, which would have been very dangerous to the morale of the camp.
- William Bakewell, able seaman
August 25th 1915
Shackleton makes an immediate attempt to rescue the men of Endurance on a whaling ship but is turned back by heavy sea ice. Two further missions also end in failure. After four and a half months, the men at Point Wild are on the brink of starvation. On his fourth attempt, in the steam tug Yelcho lent the by Chilean navy, he finally reaches Point Wild. and carries his men to safety. All 28 men of the Endurance survive the ordeal.
I have done it. Damn the Admiralty… Not a life lost and we have been through hell.
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
March 5th 1922
In 1921 Shackleton heads south a final time on the Quest Expedition, aiming to map new parts of the Antarctic coast. He lands in Grytviken in South Georgia on March 4th 1922, but the following day dies of a massive heart attack, aged 47. He is buried in the whaling station's cemetery. With his death, the so-called Heroic Age of polar exploration closes forever.
In the darkening twilight I saw a lone star hover, gem like above the bay.
- Shackleton’s final diary entry on the eve of his death
March 5h 2022
Exactly 100 years to the day after his funeral, the wreck of the Endurance is discovered 3000m below the ice of the Weddell Sea by the Endurance22 expedition team led by the polar geographer Dr John Shears. The wreck is left undisturbed and quickly designated a protected historic site and monument. The last act of the expedition before returning to port is to call at Grytviken to raise a toast at Shackleton's grave.
The Endurance22 expedition has reached its goal. We have made polar history with the discovery of the Endurance, and successfully completed the world's most challenging shipwreck search.
- Dr John Shears, 9th March 2022
There are many more comfortable ways to explore Antarctica & South Georgia today than an open boat on the ice.
Find your dream cruise adventure with Swoop Antarctica.
