Antarctica - the great escape of Earnest Shackleton

Everyone needs a hero and for the British Isles this would cause a great deal of debate, but for the prize of the greatest escape from adversity, I would have to go with Ernest Shackleton. Many will have heard of the name and with the news of a new biopic movie due out in 2021, it started me thinking about some of the locations I visited in 2019 associated with this moment in history.

Shackleton reached national notoriety in 1909 when he got within 112 miles of the South Pole which at that time was the closest by any human. He could have gone for glory, but deciding the risks on his men were too high, returning home with his expedition having found the position of the magnetic South Pole and registered the first recorded ascent of Mount Erebus.

With the South Pole having been conquered by Roald Amundsen by 1911, Shackleton’s thoughts turned to completing the first transcontinental crossing of Antarctica, and with funding secured, set sail on the Endurance in 1914. After stopping off at the Island of South Georgia, the crew headed deep into the Weddell Sea only to get trapped in the pack ice in January 1915.

The sea ice of the Antarctic

The thawing of the pack ice would not occur for several months with the crew enduring a long dark Antarctic winter. The crushing ice finally sinking the Endurance on the 21st of November. So started one of the greatest escape stories of all time.

A replica of one of the three lifeboats from the Endurance, the James Caird

After camping out on the shifting ice flows which eventually take the crew of 28 to open water, the three salvaged lifeboats known as the Stancomb-Wills, Dudley Docker, and James Caird were used to reach Elephant Island, some 346 miles from where the Endurance had sunk. To put this into perspective, the crew had already been at sea/stranded for 16 months.

Approaching Elephant Island, 152 miles NE of the Antarctic peninsula

Elephant Island is an inhospitable place just some 29 miles in length with the crew finding an isthmus where they camped out living in the upturned lifeboats feeding off penguins and seals.

One of the crew wrote a poem in an attempt to relieve the boredom.

“My name is Frankie Wild-o.

Me hut’s on Elephant Isle.

The wall’s without a single brick

And the roof’s without a tile.

Nevertheless, I must confess,

By many and many a mile,

It’s the most palatial dwelling place

You’ll find on Elephant Isle.”

Soon the realisation set in that being far from the shipping lanes, the chance of rescue was slight. The world by now would have assumed the expedition must have perished in the transcontinental attempt.

Cape Wild, where the crew of the Endurance would set up camp on Elephant Island

Shackleton’s answer was to take five crew members and himself and the strongest of the lifeboats, the James Caird, and aim for the whaling stations on South Georgia and help. This would involve sailing across 800 miles of open ocean, aiming for an island just a hundred mile long using dead reckoning navigation. If they missed, they would carry into the Atlantic and almost certain death by starvation.

Launching from the now named Cape Wild, the 22.5 foot long James Caird left on the 24th April 1916 encountering severe gales and major icing, amazingly sighting South Georgia after 14 days. It would take another two days struggling against the currents and hurricane winds to land. A 500-tonne steamer inbound to South Georgia was sunk in the same storm.

Karabatic winds of Gale force 10 hit the sea's off South Georgia

But their troubles were not over yet, having landed on the southern coast, the mountain range which forms the spine of the island lay between them and the Stromness whaling station some 26 miles away on the northern coastline.

The mountains and glaciers Shackleton would have crossed back in 1916

Armed with just fifty metres of rope, a carpenter’s adze used as an axe, and screws in the soles of their boots for extra grip, it would take another heroic effort tackling the mountains and glaciers in an exhaustive condition. Finally making it to the whaling station some 36 hours later and knocking on the door of the house of an astonished site manager on the 20th May 1916.

The view Shackleton would have seen of the distant whaling station of Stromness although it would have been covered in snow and ice in May

Today the old whaling station is the home to some of the animals it deemed to destroy

The manager's house at Stromness

It would take four attempts for Shackleton to get a boat to Elephant Island because of the winter ice, finally reaching the Island on the 30th August on board the Chilean steam tug “Yelcho” captained by Luis Pardo. Amazingly all the crew had survived a second Antarctic winter. Today a statue of Luis Pardo can be seen at the location of the camp on Cape Wild.

The statue of the captain of Chilean steam tug “Yelcho", Luis Pardo

Returning to the UK during the Great War years, Shackleton would plan one last Antarctic expedition in 1921. But died of a heart attack in the January of 1922 while anchored off South Georgia. Today he is buried in the cemetery of the old whaling station at Grytviken.

The old whaling cemetery at Grytviken

For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organisation, give me Scott; for a Winter Journey, Wilson; for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time.

Quote by Apsley Cherry-Garrard