Ernest Shackleton

Explorer

• Born: February 15, 1874
• Birthplace: Kilkea, Ireland
• Died: January 5,1922
• Place of death: Grytviken, South Georgia

Early Adventures

In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, Irish explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton set out on a daring quest to cross Antarctica. Many people regard the ordeal faced by his expedition as one of the most incredible stories of survival in human history.

Born in Kildare, Ireland, in 1874 to Henry Shackleton and Henrietta Gavan, Ernest was the second-oldest of ten children and the eldest of two brothers. To escape economic difficulties in Ireland, Shackleton's family moved to England when Ernest was ten years old. He attended Dulwich College (which later became a part of the University of London) but did not do well in school. As a teenager, Ernest dropped out of school and joined the merchant marine. While his assignments over the next few years proved difficult, he refused to quit.

His determination paid off. In 1901, explorer Robert Falcon Scott recruited Shackleton for a voyage heading south on the ship Discovery. The expedition's mission was to explore Antarctica for scientific research. During this period, many countries sought to be the first to conduct new scientific research and explore new regions. The Antarctic region remained uncharted territory, and the race to reach the South Pole first was on.

Scott's mission was unsuccessful, as the frigid temperatures and extreme conditions caused the team to fall ill. The crew came within 460 miles of the South Pole but had to turn back when illness, extreme temperatures, and other obstacles made continuing the mission impossible.

Although the mission failed to accomplish its primary goal, the team documented useful information about Antarctica. The relationship between Ross and Shackleton became strained after the difficult voyage, and both men announced plans to return to the region separately.

Upon his return to England in 1903, Shackleton worked as a journalist for a time and was named secretary of the Scottish Geographical Society in Edinburgh. He also spent some time working for an engineering company. He married Emily Dorman in 1904; the couple would have three children together. In 1906, Shackleton tried his hand at politics, but he failed to win office.

An explorer at heart, Shackleton announced plans in 1907 to return to the Antarctic. His primary goal was to be the first to reach the South Pole, and he also intended to gather further knowledge about the continent and find the magnetic South Pole. He solicited funding from private donors, as obtaining government funds proved too difficult. In early 1908, Shackleton found himself once again in the Antarctic, on his second of four voyages to the region.

Heading South

Shackleton put together an eleven-man crew and an elaborate plan for his voyage aboard the Nimrod. After leaving England in late summer 1907 and picking up three additional crew members, the ship left the crew at a base camp on Ross Island in early 1908 and picked them up in February 1909.

The team used a prefabricated shack that they assembled at the site. The fifteen-member crew lived in this small shelter for the duration of the winter before splitting up for three separate expeditions. From the base camp, the crew kept busy with scientific studies. They were also the first to climb to the top of Mount Erebus, an active volcano.

For the primary expeditions, the crew split up into three groups. One set out for King Edward II Land, a yet-unexplored region. Another set out to reach the magnetic South Pole, while Shackleton and his team aimed for the geographic South Pole.

In addition to dogs, which helped pull the expeditions' sleds, Shackleton also took Manchurian ponies on the voyage. These ponies, which came from the Siberian region, were acclimated to cold weather. The animals would help transport gear and would be used for meat. Most of the ponies died early in the voyage, and those that survived proved to be clumsy for Shackleton's purposes. Shackleton also brought a motor car specifically designed for the region, a first for this type of expedition.

The three-member expedition to the magnetic South Pole used the car to transport supplies, but it failed quickly, unable to maneuver through the snow. This team reached the magnetic South Pole on January 16, 1909, the first explorers to do so.

The journey to the geographic South Pole undertaken by Shackleton and his three-member team was almost two thousand miles long. Originally, Shackleton thought that the ponies would be able to pull much more weight than the dogs. However, as the ponies died, the men ended up pulling most of the weight. None of the ponies survived, which meant the team lost an important source of food; they were forced to eat the pony feed instead. The lack of food, combined with severe storms and diminished oxygen at higher altitudes, forced Shackleton's team to turn back before reaching the pole. However, they managed to surpass Scott's earlier expedition, missing their goal by only 97 miles.

Despite its ultimate failure, the Nimrod expedition did yield significant geographic and scientific research and discoveries. Shackleton's decision to place his team's well-being ahead of his quest for glory demonstrated the qualities that would aid him on his next expedition. When Shackleton returned to Antarctica aboard the Endurance, his leadership and survival skills would be tested to the limit.

Upon his return to England, Shackleton was viewed as a hero. King Edward VII knighted him, and the British government repaid some of the expenses incurred in the failed Nimrod voyage. Shackleton also delivered numerous lectures about the expedition and published the book The Heart of the Antarctic: Being the Story of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1907–1909 (1909).

The Endurance

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole in 1911. Robert Falcon Scott also reached the South Pole, but he died on the return trip, along with his fellow travelers. Although Shackleton missed the opportunity to be the first to reach the pole, he came up with a new plan: he proposed a mission to travel across Antarctica, a 1,800-mile voyage, using dogs and sleds.

In December 1913, Shackleton publicly announced his plans to return to Antarctica, in what was called the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The following August, he was ready to set sail when World War I began. Although he offered his ships to the British government for the war effort, he was told to proceed with his voyage.

Shackleton began his expedition with two ships. The Endurance would head into the Weddell Sea and land in Antarctica, while the Aurora would head for the Ross Sea and drop off supplies for the crew. As the Endurance entered the region, the crew learned from local whalers that the Weddell Sea was nearly impassable due to ice. The voyage went ahead, however, and on January 19, 1915, the Endurance became trapped in the ice just short of its destination.

Over the next ten months, the ship remained stuck in the ice, which slowly drifted thousands of miles northward. During the Antarctic winter, the crew lived in total darkness for nearly three months. In October 1915, the crew abandoned the leaking ship, which they watched sink in November.

At this point, Shackleton decided to try to walk across the ice toward an island more than 350 miles away, taking lifeboats from the ship and as few supplies as possible. As the ice began to break up with the warmer months, however, the group missed the island and headed for Elephant Island instead, hundreds of miles from where the Endurance went under. They landed on April 15, 1916.

With most of his crew remaining on the uninhabited Elephant Island, Shackleton and five others left on a lifeboat for South Georgia Island on April 24, 1916. In the tiny boat, they faced severe weather conditions, but they arrived at their destination. On South Georgia Island, Shackleton and two others trekked across the island to reach a whaling station.

After some failed attempts to return to Elephant Island to rescue his crew, Shackleton finally succeeded on August 20, 1916. All the men left behind had survived. They credited their belief in Shackleton and his positive example as a significant factor in their survival. Shackleton chronicled the expedition in his book South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914–1917, first published in 1919.

The crew of the Endurance returned home in 1917, while World War I was still being fought. Shackleton led several wartime expeditions for the British government but did not serve in combat. He left on his final trip to Antarctica in September 1921, aboard the Quest. On January 5, 1922, Shackleton suffered a fatal heart attack on South Georgia Island, where he was buried at the request of his wife.

Bibliography

Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage. 1959. New York: Basic, 2014. Print.

Shackleton, Jonathan, and John MacKenna. Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2002. Print.

Smith, Michael. Shackleton: By Endurance We Conquer. London: Oneworld, 2014. Print.