Shackleton: Epic of Survival
Photographs by Maria Stenzel
Text by Caroline Alexander
As the ship Endurance began to splinter, crewman/photographer Frank Hurley wrote in his diary, "The ship groans and quivers, windows splinter, whilst the deck timbers gape and twist. Amid these profound and overwhelming forces, we are the absolute embodiment of helpless futility."
For nine months, Sir Ernst Shackleton and his expedition of 27 men had lived aboard the ship, which had became trapped in the polar ice "like an almond in a piece of toffee." Their hopes of being the first to cross the continent on foot already gone, they now watched as their shelter and salvation was crushed and sucked down into the sea. The next nine months would prove to be the second half of the very greatest survival story in the annals of exploration. More than 80 years later, it still leaves one gasping.
NGM 1998/11