Shackleton's Expedition: Survival and Death at the Bottom of the World

There are few places more unforgiving than Antarctica. A frozen, barren landscape, ravaged by high winds and long, dark nights. At the center of this bleak, merciless continent lies the south pole, which by the early 20th century, was one of the last places on earth yet to be reached by humans.

Among the several expeditions to Antarctica that were launched around this time, some succeeded and others failed, but none were as ill-fated as the harrowing journey led by Ernest Shackleton. With his ship broken, and stranded in the icy abyss, thousands of miles from any possible rescue, the trip would have meant certain death for most crews in history, but Shackleton was no ordinary leader.

Today we’re going to dive into one of the greatest tales of survival in human history, where on the roughest seas and uncharted mountains, the crew refused to let go of their last shreds of hope. Where mental and physical endurance of the human body were pushed beyond their limits, and where every decision carried the weight of life or death.

The Southward Race

Before we get to the fateful journey that we’ll be discussing today, it’s important to note that it wasn’t the first time Ernest Shackleton had been to Antarctica.

Born in Ireland and raised in England, Shackleton’s adolescence was plagued with a craving for adventure, and despite his natural academic excellence, he had no interest in furthering his studies. When he was 16, he got his first glimpse at life on the sea, landing a position as an apprentice on a merchant ship, where he quickly rose in both rank and popularity.

In 1902, Shackleton ended up on the crew of the Discovery, a ship destined for the frozen continent with scientific research as their primary goal. This period of history was known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, a few decades where 10 nations on earth sent 17 major expeditions to Antarctica in the hopes of making history, and the United Kingdom was at the forefront of this race.

Of course, the ultimate goal was to eventually reach the south pole, but the Discovery expedition wasn’t quite ready for that yet. After setting foot on the continent, the captain chose Shackleton and one other crewmate to accompany him on a southward march, in an attempt to reach the new southernmost latitude in Antarctica. The team did achieve their stated goal, reaching a new record farthest south latitude, but the return trip slowly devolved into a nightmare.

The first of these problems came with the dogs, who were critical to pulling the supply sleds across the frozen ground. At some point, the dogs’ food supply became contaminated, and all 22 of them died, leaving the crew to pull their supplies all on their own. Ultimately, all three men would suffer from scurvy, frostbite, and snow blindness, but Shackleton’s condition was the worst of the three.

Ailing from a constant cough, constantly out of breath, and overall weak, he was in such a terrible state that the other two feared he wouldn’t survive the hundred and sixty-mile return trip.

He did survive, however, and the team returned to the ship a little more than three months after they’d left before safely departing home.

In January, 1908, Shackleton set foot on Antarctica once again, this time as a part of the Nimrod expedition. This trip once again saw a small party venture southward and break the latitude record once more, getting just 112 miles from the south pole. They also became the first to climb Mt.

Erebus, Antarctica’s most active volcano. Once again, though, the harshness of the continent struck the team, as fierce storms slowed their return march. At one point, they realized that they were so far behind pace to return to the ship, that they would run out of food long before making it back.

Daily rations were cut in half to save food, and the hungry team pressed on. It was during this race against starvation that everyone got a glimpse into the kind of leader that Shackleton was, as at one point, he gave his one daily biscuit to Frank Wild, who had fallen ill with dysentery. Frank later wrote in his diary,

“All the money that was ever minted would not have bought that biscuit and the remembrance of that sacrifice will never leave me”

Soon after, the entire party came down with severe enteritis, likely from tainted horse meat. But despite the fever, body aches, diarrhea, and nausea, they had no choice but to continue. Resting in one place for too many days would not only run their food supply even shorter, it also could cause the crew waiting on the ship to assume their deaths, and leave without them.

“We are so thin that our bones ache as we lie on the hard snow”, wrote Shackleton as the team’s optimism continued to decline. Finally, after weeks and weeks of marching through icy winds on empty stomachs, the team caught a break, reaching one of their supply depots that had recently been resupplied by the main crew.

Food was no longer an issue, but there was a bigger fear now, the fear of being completely abandoned in Antarctica. Before departing on their southward trek, Shackleton had instructed the crew of Nimrod to sail home if he didn’t return by March 1st. That was now only a few days away, and they were still 38 miles from where the ship had been anchored. To make matters worse, a blizzard then rolled in, with such intensity that the 4 men were forced to shelter in place for 24 hours.

After the storm cleared, they rushed to catch their ride home, but one crewman, Marshall, collapsed from exhaustion, unable to take another step. Shackleton made the split-second decision to leave Marshall where he fell, with one other crewman staying behind to keep an eye on him, while Shackleton and Wild continued ahead as quickly as they could. They reached the bay on the night of February 28th, and set fire to a shelter to catch Nimrod’s attention.

Soon after, the ship came into view and took them aboard, before quickly sending a team to rescue the other two members further behind on the trail. Shackleton had reached the coastline and gotten the ship’s attention likely just hours before they’d departed. Any later, and the four would have been doomed to a frozen death at the bottom of the world.

Stranded on the Ice

After returning from his narrow survival on the Nimrod expedition, Shackleton was hailed as a hero in the United Kingdom, and was even knighted. However, his achievement was soon overshadowed when in 1911 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the elusive south pole. The ultimate goal had been reached first by someone else, leaving Shackleton to chase a new goal.

His dream was now to not just reach the south pole, but to continue past it, and become the first to cross the entirety of Antarctica from coast to coast. For months, he spent his time fundraising and contacting wealthy investors, as well as advertising for a crew, for which he received more than 5,000 applications.

By August, 1914, he was ready to depart, and set sail for Antarctica the same week that the United Kingdom entered the First World War.

The voyage involved two ships, each carrying 28 men. The first was the Endurance, which would sail to the coast near where Shackleton’s previous expeditions had taken place, up to where the team would disembark and begin the crossing. The second ship, Aurora, would sail around Antarctica, and land on the opposite side of the continent, where the crew would march inland just a bit and set up supply depots for Shackleton to reach during the final leg of the crossing.

As we’ve already covered, Shackleton was no stranger to the hostilities of Antarctica, but nothing could have prepared him for what would come next. In December of 1914, the Endurance was approaching Antarctica, slowly navigating their way through surprisingly thick pack ice in the Weddell Sea, when conditions began slowly getting worse. Day by day, the ice was getting thicker, and the ship was making less progress, until finally, on January 19th, 1915, the Endurance was completely stuck, frozen in a drifting ice floe.

Initially, the crew did their best to chip off the ice with whatever tools they had, but it was simply too thick to fight. Realizing that they would be frozen in place until the ice would thaw eight or so months later, Shackleton ordered the men to transform the ship into a winter shelter. Something similar had happened to a ship known as Deutschland just a few years earlier, which after 6 months of being trapped in pack ice, was able to break free and sail off.

Shackleton had great hopes that they could achieve the same, and so they remained in place for nearly all of 1915. To keep spirits high, Shackleton ordered his men to maintain a strict exercise routine, set up allotted time for games and entertainment, and even led the crew in singing songs.

Optimism was high when the ice began to melt in October, but these hopes quickly turned into fears as the shifting pressures of the ice and water began pressing on the hull with audible cracking sounds as the days went by. Soon, water was pouring into the ship, and the reluctant order was given to abandon her.

The crew took everything useful they could find and made a more permanent camp on the ice. Three weeks later, the Endurance began collapsing into the ice, and had soon slipped beneath the surface. Everyone was now stranded on this drifting ice floe, not only thousands of miles from home or rescue, but not even close to the coast of Antarctica itself. The scariest part is that no rescue team would even be sent as nobody had any clue that they were in danger.

For nearly two months, they remained on this chunk of ice, as Shackleton hoped that it would drift to Paulet Island, which not only had old stores of food on it, but also a bustling penguin population that could prove to be a long-term source of nutrition. The only problem was that Paulet Island was still 250 miles away.

After months of drifting at sea, the ice floe had drifted just 60 miles from the island, and Shackleton decided it was worth an attempt to cross the sea ice on foot to reach her. In preparation for this march, all the weakest animals were shot, including the carpenter’s cat, Mrs. Chippy, and a puppy that had become the surgeon’s pet. Pulling their gear and the three lifeboats on sleds, they began marching across the ice, but were barely able to make progress as the shifting conditions turned the path into a labyrinth of icy ridges and dangerous ravines.

By December, conditions were worsening on the ice sheets. The temperature was rising, which is something that would be wonderful if they were on solid ground, but is the last thing you want when ice is the only thing between you and the depths of the Southern Ocean. In fact, the ground was getting so warm that the ice on the surface was turning into slush, and the men were knee-deep in it as they marched onward.

Morale was plummeting by this point. The crew was stuck on melting ice in the middle of the sea, with no ship, and food was getting so scarce that the dog teams were shot to provide some more meat. The carpenter at one point broke down and refused to follow orders, citing that with the ship now gone, Shackleton had no authority over him, but he was able to defuse the situation and keep order.

Keeping the order and maintaining stable morale was Shackleton’s greatest talent. He knew that if everyone succumbed to the true hopelessness of the situation they were faced with, they would have no chance of survival. He had to keep a glimmer of hope alive in the men, even if he barely had one for himself.

The attempted ice march came to an abrupt end in April, when the melting ice began breaking the ground beneath their camp. There was now no choice but to pile everyone into the three lifeboats and make a daring journey to the nearest land.

Out of the three or four options available, Shackleton decided that they had the best chance of reaching Elephant Island, located near the Antarctic Peninsula. Now back at sea, the crews struggled to row through the channels of water in the frozen maze, often getting trapped by ice, or pulled up on to it entirely, and had to wait for breaks to appear that they could rush through. Covered in icy seawater and food left, the conditions were nothing short of miserable, and at the mercy of the winds, there was a constant fear of being swept into the open sea and lost forever.

During a tumultuous thunderstorm, one of the lifeboats, the Dudley Docker, was pulled away from the group, and tossed into the darkness.

Miraculously, after more than three straight days of rowing in the most dreadful conditions imaginable, the two remaining boats made it to Elephant Island, and as their shivering crews disembarked, still mourning the loss of their friends at sea, someone called attention to the horizon, where the third lifeboat, was spotted, making its way to the shore.

All three lifeboats made it to Elephant Island with their crews still intact, an almost unbelievable achievement. However, there still wasn’t much joy to be found about standing on solid ground for the first time in a year and a half. Elephant Island is little more than a glorified iceberg, a mountainous chunk of land almost completely covered in permafrost, with absolutely zero native plant life and only occasionally visited by a few animals in certain seasons. The men made a new permanent camp on a gravelly beach on the north face of the island.

But as we said, Elephant Island is no place to call home, especially since there weren’t even any nearby shipping or whaling routes to hope for an accidental discovery. With only a few weeks’ worth of supplies left, Shackleton knew that they would have to find help if there would be any chance of rescue, and so he put together a plan for one of the most dangerous and daring journeys ever attempted in history.

One in a Million

The nearest help was a port in the Falkland Islands, but the winds were facing the wrong way to attempt a trip to it with only a lifeboat. And so, it was decided that the most realistic help could be found in whaling stations on the island of South Georgia to the northeast, a jaw-dropping 800 miles away from Elephant Island.

The carpenter, who had previously clashed with Shackleton, got to work on one of the lifeboats, called the James Caird, doing his best to make it more seaworthy. Seal blood and lamp oils were used to coat and waterproof his works with makeshift wood and canvas that had been pulled off of Endurance, and a new two-sailed mast was added using parts taken from another lifeboat.

5 men were selected to accompany Shackleton on the seemingly impossible voyage, including his most skilled navigator, Worsley, and, surprisingly, the carpenter McNish, who volunteered as he would be indispensable in maintaining the ships integrity on such rough seas. Shackleton’s choice for the crew was a bit peculiar, as it seemed he had selected a few of the more rebellious members. In hindsight, it’s believed that this was a deliberate strategic move to keep potential troublemakers under his own personal watch, instead of leaving them on the island unsupervised, where they could have easily stirred up discontent.

As the lifeboat departed, Shackleton placed Frank Wild in charge of the camp on Elephant Island, the same man he had given his biscuit to during their race against starvation several years prior. This was a man whose loyalty he knew he could count on.

By midnight, the James Caird had gotten clear of Elephant Island and her surrounding ice, and now the real challenge had begun. Ahead of them now lay more than 700 miles of open ocean, the water just above freezing, the high winds piercing them to their core, and the waves some of the roughest in the world, especially once they reached the dreaded Drake Passage. If they were somehow able to survive the waves, success of the trip would entirely dependent on Worsley’s navigation, despite him being armed with only a sextant and a map, forced to use them under less-than-ideal conditions as the ship bobbed up and down with no reprieve.

If his calculations had been off by just a degree, they would be so far off course that they would never even catch a glimpse of South Georgia island, and the next nearest land after that would be South Africa, far too distant for the crew to even survive the journey, let alone return in time to save their comrades on Elephant Island. The entire trip was a desperate shot in the dark, but this was their only choice.

The six men on James Caird took turns in three-man shifts, with one managing the sails, one guiding at the helm, and the other constantly bailing water. Worsley’s calculations, based on brief glimpses of the sun over the horizon, and in his own words, “a merry jest of guesswork”, showed after a few days that they were 128 miles north of Elephant Island, and course was then shifted eastward to head directly to South Georgia. During this second leg of the journey, the weather struck hard.

First, the temperature rapidly plummeted below freezing, and every man had to crawl out onto the deck with hatchets and chip away the ice as to not suffer the same fate as the Endurance. Then, winds were so dangerously high that they were forced to use a sea anchor to remain relatively still for 48 hours. But the worst came on May 5th, when the seas were so rough that Shackleton wrote,

“We felt our boat lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf”

They’d been at sea for more than two weeks now, and it was taking a heavy toll on the men, especially on one man, Vincent, who had collapsed and was no longer participating as part of the crew. As they came within a couple hundred miles of South Georgia, Worsley warned Shackleton that he would no longer be sure of the boat’s location with an accuracy of less than 10 miles, meaning they now risked being swept past the island by the intense currents if they were slightly off. To minimize the chance of this, course was altered slightly, with the safer goal of now landing on the uninhabited south-west coast of the island, after which they would work around the shoreline to the other side.

You can only imagine the relief they felt when on May 8th, South Georgia became visible on the horizon, but as they approached, heavy winds made landing too dangerous to attempt. For more than a day, the crew was forced to float idly by as they waited for the weather to calm down, hoping and praying that they wouldn’t capsize now after making it so far. Later, they would learn that this very storm sank a 500-ton steamer that had just departed from Buenos Aires.

During a brief lull in the maelstrom, a rough landing was made on a cold, seaweed covered beach. The boat was flipped over as makeshift shelter, and a tiny camp was set up. Against all odds, they’d reached South Georgia, but now a new problem was faced, as the lifeboat was far too damaged to take back into the water, and the men were on the wrong side of the island.

Uncharted Ice

South Georgia is a fairly large island, and it would have taken far too long to walk along the coasts, so Shackleton now had no choice but to hike across the mountains and glaciers in a direct 17-mile crossing, a route completely uncharted as it had never been previously attempted. Shackleton and two men set out on this adventure, armed with a bit of rope, a carpenter’s tool known as an adze, and screws that they’d shoved into the soles of their boots for added grip on the ice. They climbed over snowfields, glaciers, and mountains, all of which had been previously untouched by human hands.

After nearly reaching the summit of one of the peaks, they then slid down an icy slope, descending 900 feet in just a few minutes. At 6PM the next day, they had a brief meal, and continued their march.

With a full moon lighting their path, they trudged on, before realizing that they’d made a wrong turn, forcing them to backtrack several miles. Hours and hours of walking and climbing ensued, on frozen and bloody feet, until they reached the bottom of a rocky slope. Shackleton’s companions, Worsley and Crean, curled up to rest under an overhang and were asleep within seconds. Shackleton was tempted to join them himself, but resisted the urge, noting that it would be,

“…disastrous if we all slumbered together, for sleep under such conditions merges into death.”

After just 5 minutes, Shackleton woke them up, and informed them that they’d been asleep for half an hour. Rejuvenated by the clever deception, they resumed their journey, their bodies so stiff from the brief rest that they could barely bend their knees for the next 10 minutes or so.

After climbing the next ridge, Shackleton heard the faint sound of a whistle, which he assumed to be the signal to get the whalers out of bed. He rushed back to the other two and told them to quietly wait until exactly 7:00, which is when the second whistle would be blown to call the whalers to work. Right on the dot, a faint whistle was heard. No sweeter sound could be imagined: rescue was within reach.

But the final leg of the journey would be no walk in the park. As they marched across a plateau, Shackleton noticed that his feet were suddenly wet, and realized that he was sinking through the snow into water below, as it turned out they were standing on a frozen lake. The men stretched themselves out spread-eagle to distribute their weight, where they stayed still for a moment to come up with a plan, which was to get up and rush to a ledge that indicated the shore of the lake.

They escaped the lake without becoming submerged entirely, but now they had no choice but to get wet. As they reached the edge of the rocky peaks, they could now see the whaling stations down below, a ship in the harbor, and even the tiny silhouettes of workers moving about. However, the only way down the steep hillside seemed to be in a stream that flowed down from the mountains to the sea.

Into the water they went, waist deep as they half-walked, half-fell until they reached a waterfall. After tossing their few items down the ground below, they used their rope to lower Crean past the waterfall, where he went completely underwater before emerging and swimming to the shore. Then went Shackleton, and finally Worsley, who went last due to being the lightest.

All that remained was a mile and a half walk to the whaling station. Upon arrival, the manager came out to see who the three men were, hunched over, beards overgrown, and barely able to speak. He initially seemed doubtful of their story of shipwreck and crossing the island, until finally his eyes widened in shock when one of the men put out his hand and introduced himself as Shackleton.

The three were immediately taken in and fed, and the next day the other three on the opposite side of the island were picked up.

But this still left 22 men stranded on Elephant Island, who couldn’t be reached initially due to frozen seas.

Confined to one of Elephant Island’s rocky beaches now for four and a half months, and with the seals and penguins having long left or been hunted out, the crew was now subsisting off of putrid, leftover meat scraps and mollusks that they fished for with their bare hands in the shallow waters off the coast. During their time here, one of the men would survive a heart attack, and another would develop severe frostbite on his toes. These had to be amputated, which was done in a surgery as best as they could manage in such circumstances. Frank Wild had been instructed to make another boat journey to a third island if Shackleton didn’t return by a certain time, something that none of the men wanted to even attempt, especially without their leader.

Finally, in October 1916, Shackleton reached Elephant Island, commanding the ship Yelcho, which had been loaned to him by the Chilean government.

Everyone was evacuated and taken back to Chile. Miraculously, not a single life was lost from the original crew of the Endurance.

At every step of the way, Shackleton had defied death. He kept his crew’s morale up as they sat on the ice, giving them tasks and hope to keep their minds occupied. He succeeded in one of the most dangerous boat journeys ever undertaken in some of the worst weather imaginable, and to top it all off, he crossed uncharted mountains and glaciers for 36 straight hours to reach rescue. The next successful crossing of South Georgia island wouldn’t come until 1955, and commenting about the first three men to do it, the team said,

“I do not know how they did it, except that they had to… three men of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration with 50 feet of rope between them—and a carpenter’s adze.”

The End of an Era

While all of this had been going down, the Aurora, the second ship that was supposed to sail to the opposite side of Antarctica, also ran into some troubles. Many of the men of this party were left stranded in Antarctica when their ship was blown off her anchor into the open sea, and, damaged, was unable to return and instead drifted until she reached New Zealand. Shackleton traveled there and joined the rescue party, making it back to Antarctica to save the stranded men there, of which three had sadly lost their lives. Remarkably though, despite the challenges they faced, they still completed their task of setting up supply depots across their section of Antarctica, having no clue that Shackleton and his team had never even reached the continent.

Returning home to the United Kingdom in 1917, there was little to no fanfare for the safe return of the heroic crews. News outlets were far too busy, as World War 1 was still raging on, and with the United States having just joined the war. Despite being far too old to be drafted, Shackleton enlisted in the Army almost immediately, and repeatedly requested to be sent to the frontlines in France. He ended up being sent on attempted diplomatic missions to South America to secure alliances, on which he was unsuccessful, and was later made a Major to train British soldiers in arctic warfare that they would be fighting as they aided in the Russian Civil War.

By 1920, his heart once again yearned for adventure, and he gathered money for another Antarctic expedition, this time hoping to circumnavigate the continent and explore lesser-known islands. After he’d secured financing for the trip, he was joined by many former crew members from the Endurance, despite many of them never receiving their full pay for the previous trip.

However, this last expedition would never even begin. When the party arrived in Rio de Janeiro to gather supplies, Shackleton suffered what was suspected to be a heart attack. Years of heavy drinking were catching up with him, and a short while later, on January 5th, 1922, while anchored in harbor off the coast of South Georgia, he suffered a second heart attack, this one fatal. He was just 47 years old.

Shackleton was buried on the island of South Georgia, and next to him, the ashes of Frank Wild would later be placed. A fitting final resting place for a man with an unparalleled obsession with exploring the most remote and unforgiving parts of our planet.

Key Takeaways

• Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expeditions were marked by extreme hardship and survival against all odds.
• Shackleton’s leadership kept morale high during the Endurance expedition, despite being stranded in the ice.
• The crew’s journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia in a lifeboat was one of the most perilous in history.
• Shackleton’s uncharted crossing of South Georgia’s mountains and glaciers was a feat of endurance and navigation.
• Despite his heroic efforts, Shackleton’s later expeditions and personal health declined, leading to his early death.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Ernest Shackleton?

Ernest Shackleton was an Irish-born British explorer who led several expeditions to Antarctica in the early 20th century. He is known for his leadership and survival skills during his most famous expedition aboard the Endurance.

What was the Endurance expedition?

The Endurance expedition was led by Ernest Shackleton and aimed to cross Antarctica from coast to coast. The ship Endurance became trapped in pack ice and eventually sank, leaving the crew stranded on ice floes.

How did Shackleton and his crew survive after the Endurance sank?

After the Endurance sank, Shackleton and his crew survived by camping on drifting ice floes, then journeying in lifeboats to Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton and a small team sailed to South Georgia in the James Caird lifeboat to seek rescue.

What challenges did Shackleton face during his earlier expeditions?

During his earlier expeditions, Shackleton faced severe conditions such as scurvy, frostbite, and starvation. On the Nimrod expedition, he and his team had to march back to the ship with limited food and faced blizzards and exhaustion.

What was the significance of the James Caird journey?

The James Caird journey was a daring 800-mile voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia in a small lifeboat. Shackleton and his crew navigated treacherous seas and harsh weather to reach South Georgia, where they sought help to rescue the rest of their crew.

How did Shackleton maintain morale among his crew during the Endurance expedition?

Shackleton maintained morale by keeping his crew busy with tasks, encouraging exercise, and organizing entertainment. He also ensured that everyone had a sense of hope and purpose, even in the most desperate situations.

What happened to the Aurora during Shackleton’s Endurance expedition?

The Aurora, the second ship in Shackleton’s expedition, was blown off its anchor and drifted into the open sea. It was unable to return to Antarctica and instead drifted until it reached New Zealand, leaving some of its crew stranded on the continent.

What was Shackleton’s final expedition?

Shackleton’s final expedition aimed to circumnavigate Antarctica and explore lesser-known islands. However, he suffered a heart attack in Rio de Janeiro and died on January 5, 1922, while anchored off the coast of South Georgia.

How did Shackleton’s leadership style contribute to his crew’s survival?

Shackleton’s leadership style was characterized by his ability to keep morale high, make tough decisions, and maintain a sense of hope. He ensured that his crew had tasks to keep them occupied and made strategic choices to keep potential troublemakers under his watch.

Sources

• Original Into the Shadows video: Shackleton’s Expedition: Survival and Death at the Bottom of the World
• Hero image source by Carina Gsottbauer / openverse, by-sa.

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