Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

For the 1955–1958 expedition, see Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Endurance under sail, Antarctic Ocean, c. 1915 Paget colour photograph by Frank Hurley

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings".[1] Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.

Shackleton had served in the Antarctic on the Discovery expedition of 1901–1904 and had led the Nimrod expedition of 1907–1909. In this new venture, he proposed to sail to the Weddell Sea and to land a shore party near Vahsel Bay, in preparation for a transcontinental march via the South Pole to the Ross Sea. A supporting group, the Ross Sea party, would meanwhile establish camp in McMurdo Sound and from there lay a series of supply depots across the Ross Ice Shelf to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. These depots would be essential for the transcontinental party's survival, as the group would not be able to carry enough provisions for the entire crossing. The expedition required two ships: Endurance under Shackleton for the Weddell Sea party, and Aurora, under Aeneas Mackintosh, for the Ross Sea party.

Endurance became beset—trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea—before it was able to reach Vahsel Bay. It drifted northward, held in the pack ice, throughout the Antarctic winter of 1915. Eventually the ice crushed the ship, and it sank, stranding its complement of 28 men on the ice. After months spent in makeshift camps as the ice continued its northwards drift, the party used lifeboats that had been salvaged from the ship to reach the inhospitable, uninhabited Elephant Island. Shackleton and five other members of the group then made an 800-mile (1,300 km) open-boat journey in the James Caird, and were able to reach South Georgia. From there, Shackleton was eventually able to arrange a rescue of the men who had remained on Elephant Island and to bring them home without loss of life. The remarkably preserved wreck of Endurance was found on the seafloor in 2022.[2][3]

On the other side of the continent, the Ross Sea party overcame great hardships to fulfill its mission. Aurora was blown from her moorings during a gale and was unable to return, leaving the shore party stranded without proper supplies or equipment. Although the depots were still able to be laid, three people died before the party was eventually rescued.

  1. ^ Shackleton 1919, p. xi.
  2. ^ Alexw (9 March 2022). "Endurance is Found". Endurance22. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  3. ^ Fountain, Henry (9 March 2022). "At the Bottom of an Icy Sea, One of History's Great Wrecks Is Found". The New York Times.