As I’ve explained in this space before, inspiration for Then and Now each week is something of a moving target. Sometimes I see something and have an immediate, specific historical moment I wish to highlight as a parallel. Other times the news involves a topic I know to be rich and interesting and want to do a little digging into. This week, well, this week there’s just something cool to talk about.
Dan Snow and the other Antarctic explorers of the Endurance 22 mission have just uncovered the long-lost wreckage of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance. “The world’s most elusive shipwreck, lying at a depth of some 3,000 metres on the bottom of the ice-choked Weddell Sea, has been identified,” Snow announced on his online expedition hub, HistoryHit. “There were cheers from the exhausted crew when the data showed her on the seabed. Tears when the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) returned safely to the surface. Remarkably, the discovery came 100 years to the day since Shackleton was laid to rest in his grave on South Georgia.”
As can be seen in the truly amazing photos, the wreckage has been astonishingly well preserved. “The cold water temperatures mean that no wood-eating organisms live in this part of Antarctica,” Snow explained. “The paintwork is glistening, the nails still shine, the planks look like new. The name Endurance on the stern is still in its original colours.”
Snow and his team were the first people to find the Endurance since it had lodged in the ice in January 1915. Shackleton, the great Antarctic explorer, had entered the Weddell Sea in late 1914 despite clear warnings from whalers on South Georgia that, thanks to a record ice fall that year, any attempted voyage through the Weddell Sea to the Antarctic mainland would end in calamity.
Shackleton, by all accounts, was himself a legendary figure. Born in County Kildare, Ireland, in 1874, Shackleton rose quickly through the ranks of the North West Shipping Company and won himself the rank of master mariner by 1898, meaning he had earned the right to command a British ship anywhere in the world. He signed on to his first Antarctic expedition in 1901. Known as the Discovery Expedition, after its main ship, it embarked that year from London under the command of Capt. Robert Scott. His third expedition, that of the Endurance, was his grand attempt to be the first to succeed in crossing Antarctica.
As the team at HistoryHit recounted: “Endurance became trapped in the ice, and sank after 10 months, in November 1915. Shackleton and his men camped on the ice for several more months before sailing in a small lifeboat to Elephant Island. Known for his dedication to his men, Shackleton gave his mittens to Frank Hurley, one of his crew, on the journey, getting frostbitten fingers as a result. He subsequently led a smaller party to South Georgia Island: after landing on the wrong side of the island to the whaling station, the men traversed the mountainous interior, eventually reaching the Stromness whaling station 36 hours later, in May 1916, before returning for his men. The expedition has gone down in history as one of the most remarkable feats of human endurance, courage and sheer luck.”
