Shackleton and the Endurance

Shackleton’s Endurance, setting out to cross Antarctica on foot, was trapped and crushed by the ice of the Weddell Sea. After a year and a half on the ice and in small boats, all 28 men came home alive.

Leaving South Georgia in December 1914, the Endurance was caught in the ice of the Weddell Sea in January 1915. For ten months the ship drifted with the pack until it was crushed in October; it sank on 21 November. The men camped on the floe for five months, and when it broke up rowed three boats to Elephant Island in April 1916 — their first land in 497 days.

With five others Shackleton sailed the 7-metre James Caird 1,300 km across the roughest sea in the world, reaching South Georgia in sixteen days, then crossed its uncharted icy mountains in 36 hours to the whaling station at Stromness. After three attempts were blocked by ice, the small Chilean steamer Yelcho rescued all 22 men on Elephant Island on 30 August. The Endurance was found in March 2022, 3,008 m down on the floor of the Weddell Sea and almost intact.