Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage to the Antarctic

"I first read this book many years ago, when I was starting to become interested in the polar regions. It’s the story about how Ernest Shackleton led his men to safety after his ship, the Endurance, was beset and then crushed by sea ice in the Weddell Sea of Antarctica. The ship had set sail for the Antarctic in 1914 on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, conceived by Shackleton as an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. By the time of the expedition, the South Pole had already been ‘conquered’ by Roald Amundsen in 1911. Crossing the continent was viewed as the last great feat in Antarctic Exploration. It didn’t work out as planned. The ship became trapped by ice in October of that year and had to be abandoned when it started to sink. The crew saved all they could and stayed on the sea ice until it started to break up, at which time they used the ship’s lifeboats to reach Elephant Island, just beyond the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. There, most of the crew found shelter and food and hunkered down while Shackleton and five others took the largest of the lifeboats, modified as they could for the open seas, and managed to navigate to South Georgia Island where there was a whaling station. Upon landing at South Georgia, he and two of his men crossed the Island on foot to reach the station. It took Shackleton three months and three tries before he successfully approached Elephant Island in a borrowed vessel to rescue the rest of his men. “ Whenever I think I have it rough I think back to Shackleton’s voyage. It helps to put things into perspective” I’ve read the book several times now, and every time I do, the stories of what Shackleton and his crew went through sends shivers down my spine. Again and again they escaped what seemed like certain death, and in the end they all survived. Especially bone chilling is the part about how Shackleton and his chosen crew of five managed to navigate to South Georgia Island – seemingly a tiny speck of land in the frigid, wave-tossed Southern Ocean – in a modified lifeboat. How they didn’t all die, of hypothermia, being tossed into the sea, or dashed upon the rocks as they tried to make landing, seems beyond comprehension. Much of the polar exploration of the past was driven by nationalism, greed and plain old ego and glory, and the failed Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was no different in this respect, but these guys were the real deal. Whenever I think I have it rough I think back to Shackleton’s voyage. It helps to put things into perspective."