The story of Endurance

August 8, 1914

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One of the earliest references to Shackleton’s ad is thought to be in the October 1949 edition of The 100 Greatest Advertisements 1852–1958: Who Wrote Them and What They Did, by Julian Lewis Watkins. The Antarctic Circle.

This advertisement, rumoured to have appeared before the departure of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, has long been celebrated as one of the most brilliant ever published but, its origin, remains uncertain: did Shackleton really write it?

Probably not.

Ernest Shackleton

Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer.

Shackleton, born in 1874, is best remembered for his 1914 Antarctic expedition aboard Endurance. The planned crossing from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, via the South Pole, ended in disaster when the ship became trapped in pack ice. After months of waiting for spring, Shackleton and his crew reached Elephant Island, where they were stranded until he set out for rescue with five companions in a small whaling boat. Together, they crossed roughly 800 miles of open sea to South Georgia.

By extraordinary endurance and resourcefulness, he brought his entire party home alive in 1917.

Frank Hurley

Australian photographer, cinematographer of documentary films, and director of drama feature films.

Frank Hurley was in Australia when Shackleton’s telegram reached him, summoning him to the Endurance enterprise. The two men met during the crew’s brief stay in Buenos Aires in October 1914. Hurley, eager upon a so rare opportunity, joined the famous expedition.

The invaluable photographs secured during the voyage seemed destined to be lost when the Endurance was ground to destruction by the ice. Yet, Hurley’s resolve preserved them for future generations. As the ship settled slowly beneath the frozen waters, he jumped into the icy sea to recover the glass plates right before the vessel should vanish altogether. Shackleton, for his part, maintained that many of the plates were too burdensome to be carried, while the party struggled to haul their lifeboats toward open water.

Hurley then set himself to the arduous task of examining more than 600 plates and in a way that no hesitation might cross his mind afterwards, he destroyed more than 400 that he deemed less worthy.

Endurance, 2022

More than a century after the 144-foot-long full-rigged vessel sank into the depths of the Weddell Sea, researchers finally located its wreck. For now, it remains remarkably well preserved.

In March 2022, the Sabertooth underwater vehicle explored 3000 meters beneath Antarctic ice to scan the wreck with remarkable details. Using more than 25000 captions, the team created a 3D digital model of the ship and released it to the public.