Disney's new documentary, The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition,follows celebrated maritime archaeologist Mensun Bound's 2022 expedition to locate the Endurance, the ship that Ernest Shackleton and his 27 crewmen had left at the bottom of the Antarctic's Weddell Sea in November 1915. The film intersperses the trials and tribulations of Bound's new explorers in finding the ship, with the hardships of Shackleton's men 100 years previously as they attempted a hitherto virgin transatlantic crossing in the best traditions of British exploration, which had been hit hard in 1911 when Norwegian Roald Amundsen beat Captain Robert Scott to the South Pole.
Shackleton had joined Scott on his 1901 Discovery expedition, which was ultimately abandoned with Scott being invalided back to the UK, suffering from snow blindness, frostbite, and scurvy. There was some conjecture that Scott and Shackleton's relationship had broken down on the trip, and Scott wrote that he felt Shackleton's days as an explorer were over: "He ought not to risk further hardships in his present state of health." Once recovered, however, per the BBC, Shackleton led the highly successful Nimrod Expedition (1907-1909) back to the Antarctic, for which he was knighted and received a prized silver Polar Medal.
Sir Ernest Shackleton Joined The British Army After The Endurance Sinking
Despite Encroaching Ill-Health, Shackleton Played His Part
Given his health issues on the Discovery voyage, according to The Guardian, coupled with the severe damage contracted during the Endurance expedition, it is unsurprising that Shackleton was considered too old and infirm to be conscripted into the British Army. Nevertheless, he repeatedly asked to be posted to the front. Instead, in 1917, he was posted to Buenos Aires, Argentina on an abortive diplomatic mission to persuade the Argentinians and their Chilean neighbors to join the Allies. From there he was sent to Spitzbergen, Tromso, and Murmansk, on missions contributing to the war effort.
Promoted to the rank of major in 1918, he served in Northern Russia's expeditionary force, advising on arctic warfare. He was awarded an OBE, but after the Bolsheviks took control, he was forced back to Britain in March 1919 and was discharged six months later. Famously disastrous with money, and considerably in debt, he set about publishing his own account of the Endurance expedition, South,and embarked on a long and strenuous public speaking tour. Tiring quickly of the lecture circuit, Shackleton itched to be back at sea: "I am just good as an explorer and nothing else," he wrote to his wife.
Ernest Shackleton's Final Expedition & Death Explained
Shackleton Suffered A Fatal Heart Attack on South Georgia Island
In 1920, funded by old school friend John Quiller Rowett, he put together a new Antarctic project, acquiring a 125-ton Norwegian sealer, Foca I, which he renamed Quest. The Shackleton-Rowett expedition's goals were unclear, though Shackleton described it as an "oceanographic and sub-antarctic-expedition," and he left England in September 1921, arriving at his old haunt, South Georgia island, on the 4th of January 1922. He was immediately taken ill with a suspected heart attack but refused his doctor's advice to rest, and the next morning he suffered a final, fatal heart attack. He was 47 years old.
Arrangements were made to return Shackleton's body to England, before a message came from his wife Emily, asking that he be buried in South Georgia. A memorial service was held with full military honors at St Paul's Cathedral in London, attended by King George V. He died heavily in debt, with less than £600 left on his estate (roughly £40,000 today). Shackleton was buried in the Grytviken cemetery, per sgmuseum.gs, on 5th March 1922, and a century later the ashes of Frank Wild, his second-in-command on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, were interred on his right-hand side.
How Ernest Shackleton's Death Marked The End Of The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
Shackleton and Scott Were British Heroes
Photo By Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
With the passing of Scott and Shackleton, a period of heroic polar expeditions undertaken by European explorers came to an end. In the early 1900s, the Antarctic was seen as an undiscovered continent, ripe for geographical and scientific exploration, but the two British heroes, along with the Norwegian Amundsen, had, to varying degrees, conquered it. Shackleton was generally seen as a secondary figure to Scott, whose South Pole effort had more completely captured the public's attention, but as time wore on, a new appreciation of Shackleton's exploits emerged, according to navyhistory.au. Endurance is Mensun Bound's contribution to that effort.
Despite seemingly insurmountable odds in his fight for his crew's survival, he was able to keep all 27 men alive.
A short book entitled Shackleton in the Antarctic, published in 1943 by the Oxford University Press, set about redressing the balance. Although Shackleton failed to achieve many of his exploration goals, his sheer indefatigability and leadership skills came to be better understood. In Endurance, the filmmakers give proper weight to Shackleton's Antarctic adventures, noting how, time and time again, despite seemingly insurmountable odds in his fight for his crew's survival, he was able to keep all 27 men alive. "We lived long dark days in the south," he wrote, "simply for dogged persistent endeavor to do what the soul said was right."
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition is a documentary recounting Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to Antarctica. The film details the harrowing journey of Shackleton and his crew aboard The Endurance, which became trapped in ice, and their subsequent struggle for survival and eventual rescue after almost two years.
Photo By Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust 
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