PDF Summary:Endurance, by Alfred Lansing

A ship sets out from London in 1914 carrying 28 men hoping to reach Antarctica and make the first trek across the continent by foot. But they never make it to Antarctica. The unforgiving ice pack destroys their ship, and they must make their way back to civilization through ice and open seas on sleds and three lifeboats. The men owe their incredible survival in the world’s most inhospitable conditions to the expedition’s leader: Ernest Shackleton. This is the true story of the Endurance crew, written in 1959 by journalist Alfred Lansing, using primary sources such as the crew members’ diaries and interviews with survivors.

This guide recounts their journey home against impossible odds, adds context on the Antarctic environment and history, and provides further diary excerpts that help complete the picture of the journey as the men experienced it. We also examine Shackleton’s successes and failures and what modern-day leaders can learn from him.

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They were now in the Weddell Sea, halfway between the South Pole and the nearest populated town 1,200 miles away. Shackleton planned to get to Paulet Island, which was 346 miles away—in 1903, the crew of another ship crushed by ice had awaited rescue there, and they had left stores of food on the island in case anyone else found themselves stranded in the region.

(Shortform note: In his diary, Shackleton recorded the events of the day they abandoned the ship. He remarked that it was the end of a long period of wondering and anxiety, punctuated by moments of optimism. However, the ship was now irretrievable and they had to begin the task of reaching land with all the members of the crew. Finally, he wrote, “It is hard to write what I feel.”)

Leaving the Ship Area

After getting some rest after several days of fighting the ice, they left the ship on October 30 and headed on foot in the direction of Paulet Island, pulling their lifeboats and supplies. Lansing says that, before leaving, they tied the Union Jack to a still visible part of the ship so that it would go down with its colors flying.

Shackleton urged the men to take only the nearest necessities so they wouldn’t be unnecessarily burdened. The only non-essential items they took were their diaries and a banjo. Also to avoid burdens, Shackleton ordered them to kill some of the animals they had on board: the three youngest dogs, an older dog that wasn’t harness-trained, and the cat.

(Shortform note: Although the Endurance went down, 107 years later, in March 2022, a team of scientists rediscovered it. Despite having been more than 3,000 meters (1.8 miles) underwater for over a century, the ship is well preserved and its name on the stern is intact. One reason the ship is so well preserved is that wood-eating marine life doesn’t live in the coldest sea on the globe. The geographers and archeologists who discovered the Endurance had to battle the same weather conditions as the ship’s last crew—unbearable cold, moving ice packs, and blizzards—but they had the advantage of technology to make their mission a successful one.)

Living on the Ice Floes

After leaving the ship, Shackleton and his crew set up several different camps on ice floes while they waited for better weather conditions to continue their journey. They had to move camps often because their floe cracked or melted, and they eventually abandoned the floes and got on their boats when the ocean drift took them away from the islands they were aiming for. Lansing narrates their moves in detail, as well as the mood changes among the crew during this time.

(Shortform note: The term “ice floe” refers to any piece of ice that is held together. The smallest ice floes are called small ice cakes, and they’re about two meters (6.5 feet) wide. The largest ice floes are called floe giants, and they can be over 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) wide.)

Ocean Camp

Their first ice floe camp was Ocean Camp. Advancing by foot and dragging sledges and boats, they managed to walk only two miles in two days from the place the Endurance had sunk. When the ice became impossible to get through with the sledges and boats, they decided to camp on a massive floe and let the drift take them away from the ice pack surrounding Antarctica.

While they lived at Ocean Camp, they went back to the Endurance several times to retrieve the third lifeboat, food stores, and personal items. Even though the ship was filled with water, some items were still salvageable. But Lansing explains that they stopped the trips back to the ship when a blizzard carried the entire floe north, away from Antarctica.

They made good progress thanks to the drift. The blizzard took them 16 miles in two days, and then the wind changed as summer drew closer and it became stronger. They were confident that they could reach Paulet Island, but they also made several alternate plans in case the wind took them in a different direction.

On November 21, they saw the Endurance disappear entirely below the ice and water—their last connection to civilization and the only thing other than ice as far as the eye could see.

Lessons on Leadership in Times of Crisis

Leadership experts who have studied Shackleton’s story highlight some lessons for leadership in times of crisis that can be learned from the Ocean Camp period:

1. Share vulnerabilities carefully. During this time of uncertainty in which the plan to get to Paulet Island was the first choice, but unlikely to be successful, Shackleton took care to confide his doubts only to his second-in-command and in his diary.

2. Embody confidence. The rest of the crew saw Shackleton walk and talk confidently. When the Endurance sank and the option of going back to the ship to retrieve food was gone, he calmly gathered his crew and simply announced that, now that the ship and food stores were gone, they would have to go home. His optimism and confidence kept the men confident as well.

Managing the Crew

While they lived on the ice floes, Shackleton’s main worry was losing control of the men and therefore the situation. He felt it was his duty to bring them to safety, and he tried to anticipate anything that might interfere with the harmonious cooperation that goal required.

He managed the personalities of the crew members to avoid friction and demoralization. For example, he knew which man needed to feel important, so he consulted him on key decisions. He knew which ones had annoying personalities, so he distributed them between his own tent and the tent of his second-in-command, so they could keep them under control.

Shackleton tried to balance the pressure he felt to keep the men safe with the need to get close to them and show them he wasn’t above sharing the daily chores and suffering the same discomfort. He tried to bond with them, but he was also strict with his orders, especially when they pertained to avoiding unnecessary risks, such as venturing far from camp to go hunting.

(Shortform note: Leadership experts note that Shackleton’s prioritization of team morale and rapport was key to their survival. He created multiple opportunities for bonding, including pulling interesting conversation topics from an encyclopedia he had retrieved from the ship and asking the crew to play the banjo, which he called “mental medicine.” He also made sure that everyone knew they were all equals, and he created chore calendars where anyone, whether they were officers, scientists, or low-ranking sailors, shared the same responsibilities for keeping their living quarters clean and keeping a lookout for changes in the ice and water.)

Leaving Ocean Camp

As they drifted along, camped on top of their ice floe, a powerful wind began blowing them east, away from Paulet Island. The men became demoralized, which was Shackleton’s biggest fear, so he came up with a new plan to keep making progress toward Paulet Island: They would leave Ocean Camp by foot on December 23, after celebrating an early Christmas and eating as much of their food as they could so they’d have less weight to carry.

They trekked for several days but it was painfully slow. They were always wet with snow, boots filled with water, and pulling impossibly heavy loads. At this point, some of the exhausted men became irritable. One of them even refused to continue, arguing that now that they were off the ship he was under no obligation to follow orders. Eventually, he relented and rejoined his mates.

They set up a new camp nine miles from Ocean Camp when the ice became too thin.

(Shortform note: Shackleton’s fear of declining morale led him to lean on his optimism to inspire his crew when they were not making progress and to resort to clever tactics to keep the men’s psychological needs met. For example, celebrating Christmas early and allowing everyone to eat as much as they wanted served the practical purpose of not carrying too much weight, but it also gave the men a chance to focus on a positive event and to feel taken care of.)

Getting Restless

Throughout their stay in the subsequent camps, the men were restless and irritable, and they quietly questioned some of Shackleton’s decisions. For example, they wanted to continue hunting and storing meat in case they were still stranded by the time winter began. However, Shackleton ordered them not to store any more meat. Continuing to store meat would have been an admission that they would have to winter there, which he refused to accept. He was optimistic and believed his men should be as optimistic as he was; he took pessimism as a sign of distrust. Days later, Shackleton ordered most of the dogs killed so they wouldn’t have to use their own food rations to feed them. Many of the men felt the loss deeply and blamed Shackleton’s lack of food planning for the tragedy.

Killing the dogs didn’t resolve the problem of a diminishing food supply, and hunger increased as their rations declined each day. Some men began to make jokes about cannibalism. They held off on eating the remaining dogs in case they needed them to make a sledge trip back to Ocean Camp to retrieve food stores they had left there. Hunger also made the cold more biting because they had fewer daily calories to warm their bodies. To make matters worse, most meals were cold so as to save the remaining blubber (used as cooking fuel) for emergencies.

In addition, health issues plagued them. One of the men collapsed from hunger after a hunting trip. They all suffered from constipation because they mostly ate seal meat, and from chafing because they didn’t have toilet paper and had to make do with snow. They also began developing sores on their faces from the wind and ice.

(Shortform note: Shackleton resented the men who openly questioned him or refused to follow his orders. When the entire crew made it back to Great Britain safely, the government offered Shackleton Polar Medals for himself and the 27 men who accompanied him. However, he refused to award medals to four of the men, and research indicates that it was due to his frustration with the lack of loyalty he perceived from their questioning of his decisions.)

The Floes Become Unsafe

The drift and ocean swell (a series of surface waves) made reaching Paulet Island impossible. The drift drove their floe straight north, but the island was northwest. Then, the ocean swell caused their floe to crack several times, requiring them to move their camp to an ever-shrinking chunk of the floe. Nevertheless, their floe was the largest piece of ice anywhere near them.

Since a trip to Ocean Camp for food was impossible after the breakup of their floe, they killed and butchered all the dogs and puppies for meat. Some of the men were upset but knew it was necessary. They enjoyed the dog meat for a change after months of eating seals and penguins.

The wind kept changing and moving them too far east, away from the islands and any known land. They also had no guarantee that their floe wouldn’t crack and drown them, so on April 9, 1916, Shackleton ordered everyone into the boats, and they left their last floe to row toward land.

Strategic Decision-Making Is a Key Leadership Skill

One of Shackleton’s greatest leadership strengths was the ability to pivot to new plans and tactics quickly and often to keep making progress toward his goal: bringing all of his men back home alive. Whether it was leaving the ship, trekking through the ice, setting up camp, or getting on the boats, his actions were all aimed at achieving the ultimate goal. His men knew this, too, which allowed him to make decisions with the confidence that they would trust him and follow his lead.

Leadership experts argue that his flexibility in terms of plans and tactics reflects an understanding of “strategy as strategic decision-making,” which sees the ability to make strategic decisions as the key capacity of successful organizations. In the business world, it refers to companies making the right decisions quickly to adapt and survive in high-velocity markets which, much like the Antarctic environment, are unpredictable and change daily.

Rowing Through the Ice and Open Ocean

On April 9, over five months after abandoning the ship, they boarded their lifeboats and began rowing toward land. They rowed away from the pack and into the open ocean, battling the floes crashing into them along the way. They rowed all day and when it got dark, the three boats huddled, and they looked for a floe to camp on for the night. The first night, the floe they slept on cracked, and Lansing says one of the men fell into the water, trapped inside his sleeping bag, but Shackleton managed to pull him up. They decided camping on floes was no longer safe.

(Shortform note: Their boats had oars and sails, and they chose which to use depending on the weather conditions. Since the wind was often not in their favor, they couldn’t rely on their sails and had to row through most of the journey. However, rowing was no guarantee of progress. The current overpowered them often, especially since they were cold, thirsty, and had little to eat, and rowing with all their force just barely made progress in the direction of land. To make matters worse, their oars were covered with thin layers of ice, making them even harder to grip.)

Camping on an Iceberg

After some time, the open ocean became too dangerous for their small boats, so Shackleton decided to camp on an iceberg, the only body large enough to hold all of them. They climbed up and pulled the boats up vertically. Lansing recounts how, in the process of pulling up the boats, one of the men fell into the water, and others who were still below rescued him.

The next morning, they realized a gale had packed the floes surrounding the iceberg tightly. Their boats wouldn’t make it through the ice without being crushed and the iceberg was falling apart with each crash of the neighboring floes. Shackleton spent his time stationed on the highest point, looking to the horizon and calculating when it would be safe to board the boats.

Thankfully, after they had spent a day on top of the crumbling iceberg, a freak current developed, moving in the opposite direction from the wind, clearing the ice on one side of the iceberg, and opening a way to the open sea. They scrambled to the boats and sailed as the current took them. To take advantage of the current, Shackleton decided to aim for King George Island.

On the morning of April 12, they realized the wind had moved them farther from land than they had been when they left their last camp on the floes. Shackleton changed their target from King George Island to Hope Bay.

(Shortform note: The difference between icebergs and ice floes, at first sight, is that floes are flat and bergs are tall and jagged. However, the key difference is not immediately obvious: Ice floes are flat because they’re the result of seawater freezing, whereas icebergs are the result of enormous piles of snow that froze before the wind could disperse it.)

Fighting the Water, Wind, Ice, and Snow

The three boats huddled together trying to sail toward land, but they faced the brutality of the ocean and the weather in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea. They couldn’t sail through the night because the smaller boats would get lost, and they had to stop whenever the wind and ice became too treacherous for the boats. Lansing describes how they arranged the boats in a line formation, fastened to each other but kept apart by oars stretched out from the center boat. This way, the stronger boat could help the smaller boats along and they wouldn’t become separated.

They finally made it through the ice pack and into the open ocean, but that was the beginning of some of their worst days. They sailed continuously while the weather allowed them to, but made little progress because the wind was often not in their favor. Every time the wind changed, Shackleton had to change the island they were aiming for.

The wind brought water in continuously and it froze as soon as it reached them. They had to break the ice that formed at the bow of the smaller boat every 30 minutes so it wouldn’t go under. Some of their oars froze and broke, making rowing even more difficult. They had to keep every part of their bodies moving so they wouldn’t freeze. They suffered from diarrhea, seasickness, and hunger. They were so thirsty that they chewed raw seal meat to wet their throats with blood. It began snowing and the men were freezing and unable to sleep. One of the men lost his toes to frostbite.

On the third day at sea, a change in the wind direction made Shackleton change their target once again. Now, they were aiming for Elephant Island.

(Shortform: The hardships Shackleton and his crew faced were characteristic of the Weddell Sea. Although modern-day boats and ships are better prepared to cross the sea today, the harsh weather and ice conditions still make oceanographic exploration difficult. Much of what scientists know about the sea is thanks to modern technology that allows exploration without on-site human supervision. The effects of sailing and rowing under such difficult conditions were significant, and a member of the crew later wrote that during those days “at least half the party were insane.”)

Arriving at Elephant Island

On April 15, 497 days after they were last on firm land and eight days rowing through the ice, they finally reached land: Elephant Island. As they landed, several men collapsed in exhaustion and pain. One had a heart attack, and three were unable to walk. Despite those difficulties, Lansing explains that they were elated to be on land. There was plenty of wildlife on the island, so they could finally hunt and eat fresh food. There was also a glacier where they could collect ice to melt for drinking water.

(Shortform note: The crew could reach Elephant Island thanks to the island’s mountain peaks, which they could spot even in severe weather. The island also looks like an elephant’s head. The island’s name might come from that characteristic shape, or its elephant seal population. Some even claim it comes from the Endurance crew nicknaming it “Hell-of-an-island.”)

Making a Plan for Rescue

After taking time to rest, Shackleton announced on April 20 that he would take five men and the largest boat and sail 800 miles to South Georgia Island to find rescue.

Before leaving, Lansing recounts that Shackleton had long conversations with his second-in-command, who would stay on the island, so the man would know exactly what to do in any situation. Shackleton left a letter in his diary, passing responsibility to him for the camp, the men, and the boats. Shackleton also left a letter in the photographer’s diary, bequeathing him all rights for the photographs taken during their expedition, if Shackleton didn’t survive. (Shortform note: The photographer was the Australian Frank Hurley and his photographs are striking records of their incredible adventure.)

As soon as the weather became milder, they got the biggest boat ready. On April 24, Shackleton and his smaller crew sailed away as the rest gave them three cheers from the shore.

(Shortform note: Shackleton’s second-in-command was Frank Wild, an experienced polar explorer who had joined him in a previous expedition. In Wild’s diary, he wrote that after sending Shackleton off with three cheers, he saw some of the men with tears in their eyes, so he immediately put them all to work. To keep the men busy and entertained, he organized daily hunting expeditions and nightly sing-alongs.)

Waiting for Rescue

The men who stayed on Elephant Island worked hard under Wild’s leadership to make their living situation more comfortable. They built a hut using the boats and set up lights for reading, a place for indoor cooking, and finally a flagstaff on the highest accessible point of the island. They settled into a new routine on the island peppered by daily bickering but no real arguments.

The men spent much time discussing what they would eat if they could choose, and one of them even conducted a poll on the issue, which made it clear there was a general hankering for sweets. (Shortform note: Lansing took care to list the answers each man gave to the poll, including various types of pudding and cream.)

Meanwhile, the two surgeons on the crew took care of the sick men and even performed two surgeries, including amputating the toes of the man who had suffered from severe frostbite.

Every day, they climbed to the highest point of the island to observe the horizon, hoping to see their rescue ship coming. However, Wild convinced them not to expect rescue before August 15.

With that date in mind, they prepared to spend winter on the island. Temperatures began dropping and the sun was now only visible for about six hours a day. As the weather deteriorated, the glacier on the island cracked often, dropping enormous chunks of ice into the water and causing the beach and their hut to flood. They started referring to their hut as a sty because it was always wet, and food remnants as well as penguin guano pooled on the floor; it was impossible to clean up.

August 15 came and went, and there was still no rescue.

(Shortform note: This was not the only time that Frank Wild took over a leadership role from Shackleton. On Shackleton’s last expedition in 1921, Wild was once again second-in-command. When Shackleton tragically died halfway to Antarctica, Wild became the leader of the expedition and completed it. On their way back to Europe, he took the ship near Elephant Island to see the familiar shore where he had led 21 stranded men for four months. Another former member of the Endurance crew was with him, and he later wrote “Once more I see the old faces and hear the old voices—old friends scattered everywhere. But to express all I feel is impossible.”)

Sailing for Rescue

Meanwhile, Shackleton and his crew sailed toward South Georgia Island. On the first night out, Shackleton sent everyone but the boat’s captain to sleep. He stayed up with him, going over his reasons for separating the group and attempting to carry out this unlikely bid for rescue. Lansing believes Shackleton needed reassurance, and the captain offered as much as he could.

(Shortform note: Shackleton knew they were the only chance the 22 men left on Elephant Island had of survival. But he also knew that the odds of making it safely to South Georgia on their little boat were slim. Contemplating the possibility that he might not survive, he said he would “feel like a murderer” if something happened to him and he couldn’t rescue the men he left behind.)

Surviving the Drake Passage

Shackleton and his crew soon found themselves at the Drake Passage (between Cape Horn and Antarctica), the stormiest sea in the world. At the passage, the wind often reaches hurricane intensity, creating waves 90 feet tall.

Sailing through the passage was punishing. Lansing describes how the men were soaked through and cold all the time. Their navigational books, which they relied on to know which way to go, were soaked, too, and the pages began sticking together, making reading them difficult.

A third of the way to South Georgia Island, they faced a gale of 60 miles per hour. Their boat wasn’t capable of withstanding the wind and the waves, so they let down a sea anchor to wait for the wind to pass. Overnight, the boat froze in place. They chopped at the ice with axes to try and free the boat. Meanwhile, icicles had formed inside the cockpit, and the anchor’s chain was frozen stiff. They lit the stove to melt the ice on board the boat and bailed the water out. Finally, after two days, the boat set sail once more.

After several similar encounters with gale-force winds, they realized that the freshwater they were carrying had been contaminated by seawater and was no longer drinkable. But by this time, they were near South Georgia island.

However, between them and the shore were massive waves breaking into the island that would have destroyed their boat before they reached land. Instead of nearing the island, they circled it, trying not to get sucked into the open ocean or dragged against the waves on the shore. Meanwhile, it began to hail, and their boat found itself in cross-currents, slammed by waves and wind in every direction. It was impossible to stand up without getting blown over, and they were barely holding on as they were unbearably thirsty.

Finally, on May 10, after two weeks in the most treacherous sea on the globe, they reached the island through reefs that buffered the wind and the waves. They drank fresh water at last.

(Shortform note: The captain of the Endurance, of the group of three boats, and later of the boat that took Shackleton to South Georgia was New Zealander Frank Worsley. Although Shackleton led the expedition, Worsley had the seafaring and navigational skills needed to captain the ship. In fact, his navigational skills were sorely tested as they sailed to South Georgia, because the mist only allowed him four sightings of the sun’s position in the 16 days of their journey. He relied on those four sightings and his instinct to make their way to the island.)

Arriving at South Georgia Island

They set up camp and got ready for Shackleton and two other men to cross the island to find Stromness Whaling Station where they expected to get help. Lansing explains that they prepared for their trek by removing screws from the boat and placing them in the soles of their shoes to make them ice-worthy.

Before leaving the other three men, Shackleton selected the crew’s carpenter, Harry McNeish, to take charge and wrote a letter in his diary designating him as the leader. Shackleton also left McNeish with written instructions for what to do if he didn’t return.

(Shortform note: Of the four men Shackleton refused to give a medal of honor to once they got back to London, the one who gets the most attention is Harry McNeish. It seems that their strife began when Shackleton ordered McNeish’s cat killed, and it worsened when McNeish openly criticized Shackleton’s plan to drag the lifeboats across the ice instead of using them right away. Despite their differences of opinion, McNeish was vital to their survival since he was responsible for making the boats seaworthy, he accompanied Shackleton on his final journey for rescue, and he even prepared their boots to trek across the ice using screws from the boat.)

Crossing South Georgia on Foot

On May 19, Shackleton and his two companions started their trek. They went up and down cliffs and glaciers, retracing their steps several times when they encountered the ocean or a cliff too steep to descend. Lansing says they stopped a few times to eat and rest, but Shackleton didn’t let them sleep for more than five minutes since sleeping was a precursor to freezing.

On May 20, 36 hours after beginning their journey on the other side of the island, they arrived at the whaling station and found the factory manager so they could request rescue of the rest of the crew. Every man on the station stared at the three men as they walked to the manager’s office. When Shackleton identified himself, the manager turned around and cried. On May 21, a whaling ship rescued the three men Shackleton had left on the other side of the island.

(Shortform note: South Georgia Island is inhospitable and no one lives there permanently. The whaling station closed in 1965, and the only inhabitants today are scientists and government officials, all of whom stay only for a few seasons at a time. Besides its distance from civilization, the island isn’t welcoming to permanent settlers because it’s covered by ice almost year-round, and the ground below is rocky and not suited for growing crops.)

Accomplishing the Final Rescue

Lansing tells us that while at Stromness, Shackleton made several attempts to rescue the rest of his crew on Elephant Island. They tried to rescue them with three different ships, but none was strong enough to get through the ice pack, and each time they had to turn back.

After three failed attempts, Shackleton finally rescued the 22 men on August 30, 1916. Shackleton had convinced the Chilean government to lend him a steel ship and on August 25 he left Stromness and returned five days later with every last man alive.

(Shortform note: As Shackleton approached Elephant island, the 22 men ran out to the beach. From the ship, Shackleton counted them through his binoculars to be sure they were all there. Frank Worsley, who was with him during the rescue, later wrote in his diary that Shackleton cried as he reported that all were accounted for.)

After the Expedition

Lansing writes that it was more than four decades until someone else attempted to cross the Antarctic continent on foot. In 1955, Vivian E. Fuchs led the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition that crossed the continent by foot with more resources and better technology than had been available to the Endurance crew. Also in 1955, a group of well-equipped, expert climbers crossed South Georgia Island on foot.

(Shortform note: In 1921, Shackleton embarked on his fourth journey to the South Pole with the goal to navigate around Antarctica. However, when the ship was at South Georgia, he died of a heart attack. At the request of his wife, he was buried on South Georgia Island. His death marked the end of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.)