Survival against all odds: The incredible journey of Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Henry Shackleton was born on 15 February 1874 in Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland, as the second child in a family of ten.

His father was Henry Shackleton who originally worked as a farmer but later pursued a medical degree, so the family moved to London in 1884.

Young Ernest, who initially showed little interest in formal education at Fir Lodge Preparatory School and then Dulwich College, read widely outside the classroom and developed an early interest in travel and exploration. 

By the age of sixteen, he already had little patience for academic life and a great desire to see the wider world, which led him to convince his father to let him go to sea.

He had joined the merchant navy as an apprentice and had begun a maritime career that would eventually make him well known across the British Empire.

As a result of his early experiences, he acquired practical skills in seamanship and navigation that later often helped him survive in extreme conditions. 

In 1890, Shackleton took up an apprenticeship aboard the square-rigged ship Hoghton Tower, which launched his career in the British merchant service.

Over the next decade, he had completed voyages to far-flung locations including the West Indies, South America, and the Far East, and he had steadily risen through the ranks until he qualified as a Master Mariner in 1898.

By this point, he had earned the authority to command a British vessel anywhere in the world. 

Soon after, Shackleton began to take an active interest in polar exploration. He applied for a place on the British National Antarctic Expedition, which had been organised by the Royal Geographical Society under the command of Robert Falcon Scott.

He had been accepted as third officer aboard the Discovery, which departed on 6 August 1901 with the goal of conducting both scientific research and territorial exploration in Antarctica. 

During the expedition, Shackleton was chosen to join Scott and Edward Wilson on a sledging journey toward the South Pole.

The men travelled south for weeks across barren ice fields and endured extreme cold, poor visibility, and limited supplies.

They reached 82°17′S before illness and exhaustion forced them to turn back.

Shackleton, who had collapsed from scurvy and physical strain, was diagnosed by Dr. Reginald Koettlitz and sent home in early 1903.

Scott's decision to exclude him from further polar work created lingering tension between the two men, yet Shackleton remained determined to return to Antarctica under his own command. 

When he returned to Britain, Shackleton took up work as a journalist and lecturer, but he never abandoned his dream of leading his own expedition.

In 1907, largely with private sponsorship and limited government assistance, he launched the British Antarctic Expedition aboard the ship Nimrod.

He chose Cape Royds on Ross Island as his base and during the southern summer, he carefully prepared supplies, surveyed the surrounding region, and planned an attempt to reach the South Pole.

For the main sledging journey, he selected Frank Wild, Jameson Adams, and Eric Marshall, who together marched across the Great Ice Barrier and up the Beardmore Glacier.

They hauled heavy sledges across terrain full of crevasses and endured freezing temperatures.

On 9 January 1909, they reached 88°23′S, closer to the Pole than anyone before them.

Instead of pushing recklessly onward, Shackleton made the decision to turn back to save his men’s lives. 

The expedition achieved several important results. The team discovered new geological formations, conducted magnetic observations, and became the first to climb Mount Erebus, Antarctica’s most active volcano.

Meanwhile, another party led by Edgeworth David, Douglas Mawson, and Alistair Mackay reached the South Magnetic Pole, an accomplishment that was a turning point in scientific polar exploration.

On his return to Britain, Shackleton received wide praise for his success, and King Edward VII later knighted him for his contribution to British exploration. 

By 1914, Shackleton had planned a new attempt to complete the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent, from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea.

He secured funding, purchased a ship called Endurance, and assembled a crew of 28 men.

Built in Norway in 1912, the Endurance had a reinforced oak hull covered with greenheart and pitch pine, designed to withstand polar ice.

The ship left South Georgia Island in December and entered the Weddell Sea early in 1915.

Within weeks, the ship became locked in sea ice that thickened quickly and held the Endurance in place. 

For ten months, Shackleton and his men had lived aboard the stuck ship that drifted with the ice as winter deepened.

Eventually, the pressure from the surrounding pack ice began to crush the wooden hull and, on 27 October, Shackleton ordered the crew to abandon ship and establish camp on the ice.

They recovered the supplies they could, set up tents, and waited, and they patiently hoped for a break in the weather or a shift in the ice.

Instead, the Endurance was destroyed. 

Over the following months, the crew had drifted slowly northward on the ice, and they had dragged lifeboats behind them.

In April 1916, the ice broke apart beneath their feet, and Shackleton gave the order to launch the boats.

After five days of exposure, hunger, and bitter cold, they reached Elephant Island, an uninhabited rock isolated from shipping routes and with no chance of rescue.

There, the crew sheltered under upturned lifeboats including the Dudley Docker and Stancomb Wills, while Dr. Alexander Macklin provided medical care and helped keep morale up. 

At this point, Shackleton made the decision to sail for help. He selected five men, including Frank Worsley and Tom Crean, and prepared the James Caird, a 22.5-foot lifeboat modified by ship's carpenter Harry McNish.

The boat, which was fitted with makeshift decking and rigging, was readied for the journey.

They had set off across 1,300 kilometres of dangerous open sea, and they had steered toward the whaling stations of South Georgia.

The voyage took 16 days, during which they endured storms, freezing spray, and constant bailing out of water to stay afloat.

Historians later often compared it to the greatest small-boat journeys in maritime history. 

They landed on the island’s southern coast, but the whaling station lay on the opposite side.

Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean then walked across glaciers and mountains without maps or climbing equipment, and they reached Stromness on 20 May 1916.

The rescue of the men on Elephant Island, however, proved more difficult. Four attempts were made before the ice let a ship through. 

Finally, on 30 August 1916, Shackleton returned aboard the Chilean steamer Yelcho and rescued all 22 men who had remained behind.

Remarkably, every member of the Endurance expedition survived. For many people, the result showed that Shackleton valued human life more than glory or records. 

After the end of World War One, Shackleton continued to look for new challenges.

In 1921, he began to prepare for what would become the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition, whose goal was to explore unknown islands and complete scientific surveys across the South Atlantic and Antarctic regions.

He obtained a small, ageing ship named Quest and assembled a crew that included several of his old comrades.

At only 125 tons, the ship was poorly suited to polar conditions, yet Shackleton remained committed to the voyage. 

As the expedition headed south, Shackleton began to experience signs of physical decline, including chest pain and fatigue.

His physician, Dr. Alexander Macklin, urged him to rest and drink less alcohol, but Shackleton ignored the advice and did not seek further medical attention.

On 5 January 1922, as the ship lay anchored at South Georgia, he suffered a heart attack and died in his cabin at the age of 47.

His sudden death brought a premature end to the final expedition of a man who had faced down so many dangers at sea. 

His widow, Emily Shackleton, asked that he be buried on South Georgia. He was buried in Grytviken, not far from where the Endurance had begun its last voyage.

A simple granite headstone was erected at his grave, facing the sea. By the time of his death, Shackleton’s reputation had largely shifted from exploration to leadership studies.

His sound decision-making inspired loyalty among his men and prompted acts of personal courage that later inspired generations of military officers, adventurers, and scholars.

Alfred Lansing's 1959 book, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, helped reintroduce his story to a global audience.