Ernest Shackleton, Hero of the Golden Age of Antarctic Exploration

Shackleton gained invaluable sailing skills on his first voyage, battling his way around Cape Horn and up to Valparaiso. “It’s not all honey at sea,” he wrote to a fellow teenage friend, “It is a queer life and a risky one." His own captain called Shackleton, “the most pig-headed, obstinate boy I have ever come across.” Despite it all, Ernest Shackleton continued on his career path. At age 20, he qualified as a Second Mate and by the age of 24, after running trade shipments to Asia and America, he qualified to command a British ship, “anywhere on the Seven Seas.”

While Shackleton had seen more of the world than most, he longed for greater exploits than simply running the mail between England and South America. His main concern was impressing a certain young lady (Emily Dorman) to marry him. However, Shackleton also worried that he would lose the best years of his life biding his time and waiting to be promoted, rather than chasing his destiny.

Pulling strings and using his schoolboy connections, Shackleton landed a meeting with Llewellyn Longstaff (primary funder for British Antarctic exploration), who landed him a spot as third officer on the first British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-3). About to leave England, Shackleton was handed a letter from Emily’s father granting him permission to marry his daughter, if he returned.

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What we do know is that while Shackleton was given lower tasks like “seawater analysis,” his ability to get along well with many different personalities was an advantage in the empty white isolation of Antarctica. His widespread popularity rubbed Scott the wrong way, but it did not stop him from including Shackleton on his attempt to set a farthest south record.

The two-month walk proved difficult and slow, but a few days after Christmas (when Shackleton shared the plum pudding he’d been hiding in his socks), the team of three men reached 82°17′S—a new record. Alas, the return trip was a struggle—all 22 dogs perished, while Shackleton developed scurvy and had to be pulled in the sled. Upon their return to England, Scott’s published account, The Voyage of the Discovery, framed Shackleton poorly, describing him as weak, breathless, and often taking to his bed, “pretending to be stronger than he is.”

Shackleton Leads His First Expedition to the Antarctic in 1907

With his ego bruised, Shackleton launched his own expedition aboard the Nimrod (1907-09). He achieved his own records: summiting Antarctica’s tallest peak, Mt. Erebus; and reaching a new farthest south at 88°23′S—a little over 100 miles from the South Pole. Shackleton also proved himself a sensible and capable leader who put others before himself. Fellow explorer, Frank Wild, wrote that he would never forget the moment, when down to bare-boned rations, Shackleton gave him his daily meal—a single dry biscuit. When asked if he was sorry for not reaching the South Pole on his second attempt, Shackleton told his wife, “A live donkey is better than a dead lion”—now a legendary Shackleton quote.

Fame, energy, and excitement (and monetary backing) blossomed around Shackleton, propelling him towards a bigger, more monumental goal: completing the first transect across the Antarctic continent.

Shackleton Recruits for the HMS Endurance Expedition

Legend states that Shackleton took an ad out in the Times of London, stating, “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success.” Whether or not the ad ever existed, the expedition received over 5,000 applications, from which 27 men were chosen (the 28^th joined as a stowaway in South America).

Surviving the Endurance Shipwreck

Two months later, the ship arrived in South Georgia, then continued southward into the pack ice of the Weddell Sea. The Endurance moved slowly, navigating the unyielding ice floe until February 1915, when Shackleton realized his ship was firmly stuck in the ice pack. For nine cold, dark months, the crew sat out the natural movement of the sea ice, until the following Antarctic summer, when the shifting floe began to squeeze and break apart the ship.

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Shackleton finally gave orders to abandon ship, setting up a survival camp on the ice as they watched the Endurance become inexorably crushed. For the next six months, Shackleton’s crew camped on the moving ice, becoming more alarmed as their summer home slowly broke up into smaller and smaller pieces. Finally, in April 1916, Shackleton loaded up their three lifeboats and sailed to ice-covered, uninhabited Elephant Island, in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands—nearly 800 miles west of South Georgia and 581 miles south of the sparsely populated Falkland Islands. There he deposited 22 of his men to shelter in place, and subsist on a diet of penguin and seal meat.

Five men left with Shackleton—Frank Worsley, Tom Crean, Harry McNish, Timothy McCarthy and John Vincent—aboard the James Caird. A 6.9 meter (22.5 ft) longboat, the James Caird was what Shackleton and his rescue crew pinned their hopes on, planning to sail across 800 miles of rough and open ocean. The journey was treacherous, with subzero temperatures, precarious waves, and total darkness for more than 13 hours a day. After 16 days at sea, after a legendary feat of navigation, the bedraggled team landed on the steep and mountainous shores of South Georgia. Shackleton took two of his men and then hiked for 22 miles (35 km) up and over the mountains and glaciers some 1,200 m (3,900 ft) high. After 36 hours of nonstop hiking Shackleton reached the Norwegian whaling station at Stromness Bay.