Shackleton

Hoping to one-up his predecessors, Shackleton, of the United Kingdom, attempted the first transcontinental crossing of Antarctica in 1914. Shackleton planned the trip by using two ships, the Aurora and the Endurance, at opposite ends of the continent. Aurora would sail to the Ross Sea and deposit supplies. On the opposite side, Endurance would sail through the Weddell Sea to reach the continent. Once there, the team would march to the pole with dog teams, dispose of extra baggage, and use supplies left by Aurora to reach the other end of the continent.

The plan failed. The Endurance became frozen in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea. The pack ice crushed and sunk the ship. Shackleton’s team survived for roughly four months on the ice by setting up makeshift camps. Their food sources were leopard seals, fish, and, ultimately, their sled dogs. Once the ice floe broke, expedition members used lifeboats to reach safer land and were picked up on Elephant Island 22 months after they’d set out on their journey. Although some of the crew sustained injuries, they all survived.

The journey of the Endurance expedition symbolizes the Heroic Age, a time of extreme sacrifice and bravery in the name of exploration and discovery. Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard, a polar explorer, summed up the Heroic Age in his book The Worst Journey in the World "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.”Read more