The Imperial Transantarctic Expedition, led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, aimed to cross the Antarctic continent by land but failed. The ship Endurance became trapped in pack ice, and the expedition was abandoned. The men survived on pack ice and eventually landed on Elephant Island. Five men set off to seek help and eventually made it to South Georgia, where they obtained ships to rescue the rest of the men. All participants survived the ordeal.
The Imperial Transantarctic Expedition, also known as the Endurance Expedition, is an Antarctic expedition that took place in 1914-1917. It is generally considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, which is the pre-World War I era of Antarctic exploration characterized by a lack of effective mechanized transport and outside radio contact. The expedition failed in its goal of crossing the Antarctic continent by land, but is still famous for the heroic story of survival associated with it.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, who in 1908 had set the record for the furthest journeys south of any expedition. After Roald Amundsen’s conquest of the Pole in 1911, Shackleton regarded the crossing of the Antarctic as the last remaining great milestone and set out for this purpose in the tall ship Endurance. A support group, the Ross Sea party, would be responsible for setting up supply depots at the opposite end of the continent so that the group would survive the journey from one side to the other.
After five months of voyage, in February, shortly after reaching the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic, the Endurance became trapped in pack ice and the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was temporarily suspended. Shackleton hoped that drifting pack ice would carry the vessel ashore, but after eight months of waiting during the Antarctic winter, by October, encroaching pack ice crushed the vessel like an eggshell. By this time the men had removed most of the ship’s supplies and built igloos on the pack ice. The expedition was now ruined and the men turned their attention to survival. Without radio contact, floating on ice in completely uninhabited Antarctica, how would they ever get back to civilization?
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was officially abandoned following the destruction of the Endurance. They decided to set out for nearby islands with known caches of food, taking three lifeboats with them. The men tried to walk on the ice shelf, but it was melting under the heat of the Antarctic summer, causing huge deformations in the ice up to 10 m high. In two days’ march, the party covered only two miles. They decided to set up another camp, “Ocean Camp” on the pack ice, and continued to salvage supplies from the Endurance, which was located nearby, until it finally slipped under the ice.
The worst was yet to come. Instead of walking on ice, the group had to wait for ice floes to take them to where they wanted to be. Pack ice floated near several islands, too far away to reach on foot, as progress could only be a mile a day. The Antarctic summer has made the ice soft and melted, almost impossible to walk on. In April, the ice pack suddenly parted and the men were adrift with three lifeboats. They traveled to Elephant Island, at the tip of Graham Land in Northern Antarctica. After several days of scouring the coasts, a narrow rocky beach was finally located and the lifeboats landed.
30 men were stranded on the small frozen and rocky island, which was rarely visited by anyone. To get home, they’d have to seek help from South Georgia, a remote whaling outpost 800 miles (1,300 km) across the Southern Ocean. Five men set off in a reinforced lifeboat across the most dangerous and stormy sea on the planet. Long story short, they almost died on the way, but made it to South Georgia, the uninhabited part of the island. After a difficult 30 hour hike across the rugged island, which had never been done before, they arrived at the whaling outpost of Stromness. From there, they traveled to the Falkland Islands to obtain ships to pick up the rest of the men from Elephant Island. After three failed attempts, Shackleton was finally able to rescue his men and return home to London. The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was finally over, having failed in its objective, but at least all the men who participated in it survived the ordeal.
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