Ernest Shackleton: Survival Stories From An Explorer Trapped Near Antarctica
Hurley/Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge/Getty Images
Crew members of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, which was trapped near Antarctica.
Ernest Shackleton led his crew on an expedition to Antarctica in 1914. He had a goal: to be the first man to cross the entire continent on foot.
“From the sentimental point of view, it is the last great Polar journey that can be made,” the Irish explorer declared. Shackleton and his crew set off on August 1, 1914, on the 300-ton vessel Endurance. The ship carried a crew of 26 men, 69 sled dogs, and a tiger tabby tomcat named Mrs. Chippy.
In late October, one stowaway, the 20-year-old Welshman Perce Blackborow, who had been shipwrecked off the coast of Uruguay, climbed aboard the ship before it left Buenos Aires. Though Shackleton was initially furious, he eventually made the stowaway a steward of the ship.
By November, the ship reached South Georgia, a whaling isle that served as the last port before Antarctica. In December, it returned to its route toward Antarctica. But two days after it set sail, the ship struck ice. Shackleton’s crew had to maneuver the ship between loose icebergs for six weeks.
On January 18, 1915, the Endurance became totally trapped in dense pack ice “like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar,” as one crew member put it. As the ice floes drifted out to sea, so did the trapped ship. For the next nine months, the Endurance remained adrift. Ernest Shackleton and his crew were forced to survive on what little supplies were left.
Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesErnest Shackleton received acclaim and awards for leading his crew back home safely.
As the ice tightened its grip around the ship, the crew abandoned the vessel. They set up a makeshift camp on the ice dubbed “Ocean Camp.” As their food supplies dwindled, Shackleton’s crew began hunting penguins and seals. Frank Wild, Shackleton’s next in command, killed a leopard seal by shooting it and then later discovered a supply of undigested fish in its guts. The men shared a nice feast that night.
But the survival stories of Shackleton and his men quickly grew more desperate. The crew had to kill all the sled dogs to eat (the cat, it seems, was shot but not eaten). The men were also forced to abandon their camp due to the melting ice. Their only option was to use their lifeboats to land on a tiny, barren piece of land called Elephant Island — and then make the 800-mile journey back to South Georgia.
From Elephant Island, Ernest Shackleton and five of his men set off in a small lifeboat named James Caird to find help. Although the boat certainly wasn’t fit for high seas voyages, they had no other choice.
The rescue mission braved the ocean for two and a half weeks, facing dangerous waves and extreme weather. The men suffered bleeding sores, saltwater boils, and frostbite during the nonstop voyage, and they could only make out a handful of sextant readings to navigate.
And when they finally made it to South Georgia, they had to hike more than 20 miles of desolate terrain to reach the whaling station on the eastern side of the isle. It took them 36 hours. When they finally arrived, the whalers could not be happier — or more shocked — to see them alive.
Frank Hurley/Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge/Getty Images
Explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew playing soccer after their ship got trapped in pack ice near Antarctica.
Incredibly, Ernest Shackleton managed to rescue every last member of his stranded crew on Elephant Island when he returned there on August 30, 1916. They all returned to England in October 1916 — more than two years after departing from the country.
Even though Shackleton failed to accomplish his original goal of trekking Antarctica by foot, the story of his perseverance and his heroic rescue of the men remains one of the most celebrated survival stories in history.
