Read History

2026 | Score: 7

I went into this one not expecting to enjoy it a ton since it is very outside my genre and older writing can be tedious, but it was so much better than expected. There were admittedly some very slow and dull sections, especially in the first third of the book, but the further we progressed along the journey the crew of the Endurance took the better it got. The last 100ish pages flew past and made it hard to believe this is not fiction. The story stands as a testament to the power of human spirit. It is awesome. I am very impressed by how Lansing was able to take his many interviews and diaries and turn it into a cohesive and enjoyable story. For anyone with an interest in adventure, exploration, and early 20th century history this is a must read. If the first half of the book wasn’t as slow this would be rated higher.

Format: Book

Days: 5

Date: 4/23/2026 -> 4/28/2026

Summary

Endurance
Alfred Lansing

Endurance Summary

Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. Ernest Shackleton had done a couple of antarctic explorations before, but after losing out being the first to reach the North and South Poles, he decided he wanted to be the first to cross the continent of Antarctica through the pole. He won a lot of funding from various backers, and bought the Endurance from a Norwegian shipyard. It was originally intended to be an arctic vessel, which is slightly different but they planned to make it work. Him and his crew left Europe right after the UK entered World War 1 with permission from Churchill.

After stopping in Buenos Aires they headed south to South Georgia. After a short stay they set out for Antarctica on December 5, 1914. The plan was to reach the mainland, drop off a small team of humans and dog sleds, and they would sledge across, meeting up with another boat. Before they could reach the drop off point, the Endurance became stuck in ice floes. The men lived on the boat through the pitch black antarctic winter, but eventually they could tell it would break and disembarked.

The group lived on several camps on the ice for a long time, with the hope of the wind pushing them towards land. They faced many issues with cold, food, and light. Shackleton ordered the dogs all killed to reduce food consumption. They lived mostly on killed seals and penguins which gave blubber for burning and meat. They had 3 small boats they had brought with them, and as the ice broke up more were forced to sail. After a harrowing boat journey where they changed destinations several times, they managed to reach Elephant Island. By this point it had been over a year of living as castaways. Almost all of them had some sort of problems and almost died several times.

Shackleton, his captain Worsely, and a few others took the best boat and planned to sail to South Georgia and retrieve help. The path there goes through the Drake Passage, considered to be some of the worst conditions anywhere in the world for sailing. The men left behind had to deal with cold, wind, water, and dwindling supplies. One man lost a foot to frostbite. Shackleton and his smaller crew barely reached the safety of South Georgia, but on the wrong side. After regaining some strength him, Worsley, and one other crossed the island overland, dealing with crazy mountains, slopes, and ice but managed to make it back to the port town where whalers lived and worked. It had been 544 days since they last took off. After several tries they found a good boat and got lucky with weather and rescued everyone on Elephant Island. No one was lost on the voyage. THE END.