Adventure, shipwreck, storms and survival

The crew of the Weddell Sea Expedition 2019 has been lucky so far. Its researchers have completed their scientific mission in Antarctica. Now they are beginning a new quest: to find Ernest Shackleton’s doomed ship, The Endurance, which sank over 100 years ago.

The team is “upbeat,” the director of exploration, Mensun Bound, told The Guardian. The conditions are “favourable”, and they hope to find the ship with robotic submarines later this week. “We are relishing the chance to be involved in a search of such significance.”

But who was Shackleton?

The story begins in August 1914. The world was on the brink of the First World War. Shackleton was a well-known British explorer, and he hoped to lead the first expedition across Antarctica. He offered to suspend the mission when war broke out, but the Admiralty sent a single-word telegram: “proceed”.

So instead of joining up, Shackleton and his crew of 27 men sailed to Antarctica. But in January 1915, The Endurance was trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea. They were stuck — and the mission became one of survival.

The crew spent months living on the ship, hunting penguins and seals for food. They played football and hockey on the ice. In October, “after long months of ceaseless anxiety and strain,” the ship was crushed “beyond all hope of ever being righted.” They were forced to abandon it and live on the ice. “It is hard to write what I feel,” wrote Shackleton.

It finally sank in November. With just three lifeboats and a few supplies, the men set off for land in April 1916, eventually reaching Elephant Island. It was their first dry land in 497 days, and they were “laughing uproariously”.

But civilisation was still more than 900 miles away, at a whaling station in South Georgia. And so Shackleton and five others set out across the open sea in search of rescue. The waters were treacherous; at one point the boat almost capsized. And when they arrived in May, the journey was still not over. Shackleton led two other men on a 36-hour trek across the mountains until they reached a settlement.

In August 1916, two years after setting sail from England, Shackleton returned to Elephant Island to rescue the rest of his crew. Not a single life was lost.

Breaking the ice

What lessons can we draw for this tale? Since he arrived home, Shackleton’s epic survival story has been retold countless times. He is hailed as an amazing leader who not only saved his men’s lives, but kept their spirits up along the way.

But should we really admire him? It was his ego that put people in danger in the first place. Would we view him differently if the crew had been killed? Or would he still be admired for his ambition, like Scott before him?