Bay Harbour: March 23, 2022

Wednesday March 23 2022 Bay Harbour News
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Treasures from the past:
Shackleton and the Endurance
NEWS 19
WITH THE news on March 10
that the Antarctic exploration
ship Endurance had been found
3000m deep in the Weddell Sea,
Te Ūaka The Lyttelton Museum
highlights their collection of this
item – a portrait of Sir Ernest
Shackleton, presented by the
explorer himself to the Lyttelton
Branch of the British and
Foreign Sailors Society, possibly
in 1907.
THe museum would like to
hear from anyone who has
information that can confirm
when Shackleton donated his
portrait.
The team of Endurance22, led
by the Falklands Maritime Heritage
Trust, is responsible for the
incredible achievement of finding
and filming the vessel. The
ship is in a remarkably well-preserved
condition due to the lack
of wood-eating organisms in the
freezing temperatures. Largely
intact, she lies just 6.5km from
the coordinates originally taken
by sextant by New Zealander
Frank Worsley.
Shackleton took part in the
voyage of the Discovery in
1901-1903 led by Robert Falcon
Scott, during which he, Scott and
Wilson all suffered significant
ill health due to snow blindness,
Portrait of Sir Ernest Shackleton, presented by him to the
Lyttelton Branch of the British and Foreign Sailors Society,
circa 1907.
frostbite and scurvy in a march
towards the South Pole.
Once back at the ship, Shackleton
was sent by Scott on an
early return to New Zealand
to convalesce. The expedition
highlighted the differences in
the two men’s personalities and
leadership styles – Shackleton
was popular among the men,
strong under pressure, and Scott
possibly resented that.
That journey clearly fuelled
Shackleton’s determination to
return to Antarctica; after a few
years spent in journalism and
politics, he achieved this ambition
with the 1907-1909 Nimrod
expedition.
Together with Wild, Marshall
and Adams, Shackleton attained
a new southern latitude just
112km shy of the pole and found
the Beardmore Glacier and the
south polar plateau.
Other members of the expedition
– Edgeworth David,
Douglas Mawson, and Alistair
Mackay, thought they identified
the South Magnetic Pole and
made the first successful ascent
of Mt Erebus.
On his return to England,
Shackleton was hailed a hero,
gave lectures and made many
social appearances; activities
which he also undertook in New
Zealand.
His fame enabled him to fundraise,
mainly from private donations,
for his next expedition;
the grandly named Imperial
Trans-Antarctic Expedition,
1914–1917.
The goal was to cross Antarctica
from the Weddell to the
Ross Sea, via the South Pole.
Two ships were involved, the
Endurance captained by Frank
Worsley, and the Aurora, led by
Lieutenant J Stenhouse.
Disaster struck in January 1915
when the Endurance became
stuck in severe conditions in the
ice floe of the Weddell Sea.
The hope was that the ship
would be released from the ice’s
frozen grip in spring, but in
October it became obvious that
she was being crushed by the extreme
pressure and in November
she sank beneath the surface.
Photographer Frank Hurley
documented the ship’s demise
and the men’s plight camping
on the constantly moving and
shrinking floes in many haunting
images.
The incredible story of the
men’s perilous lifeboat journey
to Elephant Island, survival there
and subsequent 1300km journey
across the open sea to South
Georgia and ultimate rescue, is
one for another day.
The hardships of those experiences
did not diminish Shackleton’s
passion for the south and in
1921, in spite of health problems
exacerbated by drinking, he
embarked from England on the
Quest.
Tragically, he died suddenly of
a heart attack on board that ship
in South Georgia on January 5,
1922, at the age of 47 and was
buried there at Grytviken.
How fitting that his ship
should be found 100 years after
his death.
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