To stop this from happening and neutralize the depression as much as possible, Shackleton organized Sunday evening gramophone concerts and monthly lectures by the Endurance’s photographers, among many other jolly events that helped the sailors keep their spirits up. The Endurance in young sea ice. Now, those on board removed their last remaining belongings from the ship and set up camp on the ice. Sir Ernest Shackleton, the intrepid explorer, is best remembered for embarking on a fateful voyage aboard the Endurance in a bid to cross the Antarctic. For several weeks, the ship poked and prodded its way through leads in the ice, gingerly making its way south; but on January 18, a northerly gale pressed the pack hard against the land and pushed the floes tight against each other. Frank Hurley/Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge/Getty Images. The expedition intends to transverse the Antarctic continent by dog sledge. “It is a return to the Ice Age—no warmth, no life, no movement. The Endurance steamed through loose open ice till 8 a.m. on the 11th, when we entered the pack in lat. Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) was a British explorer most famous for his Endurance expedition to Antarctica (Larson, 2011). "Leadership in Crisis: Ernest Shackleton and the Epic Voyage of the Endurance." His story is one of the human spirit in all its wonder and all its frailty. Born on February 15, 1874, in Ireland, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton is now widely considered one of the principal figures of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. In 1914 Ernest Shackleton launched an expedition to Antarctica aboard a ship called the “Endurance”. But finally, on May 10, the James Caird reaches the south coast of South Georgia! The first ship on which Shackleton set out ran dangerously low on fuel while trying to navigate the pack ice, and was forced to turn back to the Falkland Islands. 59° 46' S., long. #BLACKFRIDAY 12min - Get your career back on track! Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects all together, and it has driven some men mad.”. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. They're manifested to cross the continent of Antarctica. With his death, Wild took the ship to Antarctica; but it proved unequal to the task, and after a month spent futilely attempting to penetrate the pack, he set a course for Elephant Island. From there a small party, including himself, would set out on the first crossing of the continent, ultimately arriving at the Ross Sea, south of New Zealand, where another group would be waiting for them, having laid depots of food and fuel along the way. By late October 1915, still frozen immobile in the enormous ice pack, Endurance drifted over 500 nautical miles to the north-east. It had been 128 days since the James Caird had left; within an hour of the Yelcho appearing, all ashore had broken camp and left Elephant Island behind. All year, the ship had been trapped, the ice pushing and pinching the hull, the wood howling in protest. And old Norwegian whaler recoded the scene when the three men stood before the station manager Thoralf Sørlle: “Manager say: ‘Who the hell are you?’ And the terrible bearded man in the center of the three say very quietly: ‘My name is Shackleton.’ Me – I turn away and weep.”. It was headed toward Antarctica to cross the continent on foot. Shackleton and his twenty-seven crew members abandon the boat and … He had a wide, sensuous but expressive mouth that could curl into a laugh or tighten into a thin fixed line with equal facility. The initial plan was to march across the ice toward land, but that was abandoned after the men managed just seven and a half miles in seven days. Shackleton was bold and daring when approaching lords, kings, business men and physicians for sponsoring his voyage He was confident of his abilities as a leader Pictured to the right: Frank Worsley, Ernest Shackleton, and Tom Crean After the Voyage of the Endurance (1917) He failed. After his death, the name of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton—who died in debts due to many failed business endeavors—was largely forgotten by both his compatriots and the world, contrary to that of his one-time captain and longtime rival afterward, Robert Falcon Scott. After his death, the name of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton—who died in debts due to many failed business endeavors—was largely forgotten by both his compatriots and the world, contrary to that of his one-time captain and longtime rival afterward, Robert Falcon Scott. And then he adds something even more central about his character, something almost superhuman in an Ahab-or-Santiago-kind-of-way: “Whatever his mood—whether it was gay and breezy, or dark with rage—he had one pervading characteristic: he was purposeful.”. Lupoid, one of Shackleton's sledge dogs, named for his resemblance to a wolf. On April 9, 1916, the ice pack breaks in two, and The James Caird, Stancomb Wills and Dudley Docker are launched for a voyage to Elephant Island, a remote and uninhabited island far from all shipping lanes. In the time that passed between abandoning Endurance and watching the ice swallow it up completely, the crew salvaged as many provisions as they could, while sacrificing anything and everything that added weight or would consume valuable resources— including bibles, books, clothing, tools and keepsakes. He launched one more expedition to the Antarctic, but the Endurance veterans who rejoined him noticed he appeared weaker, more diffident, drained of the spirit that had kept them alive. Through it all, Captain Worsley navigated through the spray and the squalls, until after six days at sea, Clarence and Elephant Islands appeared just 30 miles ahead. But, very soon—in the middle of January 1915, to be exact—they happened upon another ice pack, some 200 miles from Vahsel Bay. Shackleton is not: he knows that this is merely the beginning of the rescue journey. Hoping that a new ice floe will drift them to safety, on December 29, Shackleton sets a new camp on another ice pack, and dubs him “The Patience Camp.”. In 1914, Ernest Shackleton led an expedition in an attempt to become the first to cross Antarctica on foot. Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton CVO OBE FRGS FRSGS (/ ˈ ʃ æ k ə l t ə n /; 15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. South With Endurance The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914 – 1917. In that instant, they felt an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. Frank Worsley, Captain of the Endurance and navigator on the James Caird.Seen here on board the Endurance Endurance may have been the name of Shackleton’s ship, but it’s almost the strapline for his entire expedition, too. During the months of May and June, using borrowed ships (Southern Sky, Instituto de Pesca No. Immediately understanding the extent of this new misfortune, Shackleton had no choice but to order his crew to leave Endurance and start building a camp on a nearby floe of ice, while salvaging as much material and food as possible. 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