Book SummaryEndurance, by Alfred Lansing

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Endurance

Endurance tells the story of British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his 27 men who in 1914 set out to cross Antarctica on foot but ended up achieving a feat of survival even more impressive when their ship became trapped between massive ice floes. After nine months aboard a ship that couldn’t move, they abandoned it and their original mission and began an 11-month journey through ice and open ocean to South Georgia Island and rescue.

Alfred Lansing, a US journalist who had served in the Navy, wrote the definitive account of the nearly two-year journey 45 years later. To construct the narrative, he relied on the diaries most of the men aboard the Endurance kept, and he interviewed every member of the crew who was still alive at that time.

Lansing’s desire to write the book came from his own experience in the Navy and from a book he read during his time there about an American ship during World War I. Years later, he encountered a biography of Shackleton, and it fueled his interest—even obsession—with the...

Endurance Summary Background of the Expedition

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was Shackleton’s third journey to the South Pole. The expedition was intended to be the first to cross the entire Antarctic continent by foot, and it was an opportunity for the British Empire to leave a lasting legacy in the exploration of Antarctica.

(Shortform note: Before the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the most important British achievement in the exploration of the Antarctic was the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904, which didn’t reach the South Pole but got farther south than any exploration before it. Famed explorer Robert Scott led the expedition and Shackleton participated as the third lieutenant.)

The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration

The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration refers to the period between 1898 and 1922. Although Lansing doesn’t use the term, he cites events during that time that inspired Shackleton to pursue his expedition.

The British had conducted several expeditions to Antarctica but had few noteworthy accomplishments. In 1912, a Norwegian explorer was the first to reach the South Pole, beating British explorer...

Endurance Summary Kicking Off the Expedition

The Endurance set out from London on August 1, 1914. (Three days after the Endurance sailed from London, Great Britain declared war on Germany in what would become known as World War I.) The Endurance made the trip across the Atlantic without Shackleton because he had stayed behind to deal with financial matters. The entire crew met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and this is where their adventure began. (Shortform note: Lansing cites August 1, but other sources record the date of departure as August 8. However, they don’t mention that Shackleton had stayed behind in London while the Endurance crossed the Atlantic.)

Map of the routes of the ships Endurance and Aurora, the support team route, and the planned trans-Antarctic route of the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914–15.

Sailing From Buenos Aires to South Georgia Island

The...

Endurance Summary Dealing With the First Problems

On January 16, the Endurance became trapped between ice floes. For two days, they couldn’t move because of a powerful gale. However, the gale moved the ice and on January 18, they passed through the floes. But in the afternoon of the same day, they found themselves trapped again, this time by a soft, snow-like pack. They could see the open ocean on the other side, so they tried to get through but again ended up trapped between two ice floes.

Over the next six days, the gale packed ice all around the Endurance. A powerful wind from the north had moved the packs in the direction of the continent. The only way out for the Endurance was an equally powerful gale from the south.

Lansing makes clear that there was no possibility of rescue for the crew. They had no radio transmitters to ask for help, and even if they managed to contact someone, there was no means of transportation that could reach them and get them to safety.

(Shortform note: The weather and ice make sailing on the poles more challenging than sailing anywhere else on the globe. First, the clash of temperatures results in extreme weather with...

Endurance Summary Surviving the Ice Pack’s Pressure

On July 16, they saw that the ice pack had fragmented. The individual floes on the pack moved with the wind, creating pressure on the floe surrounding the Endurance and on the ship itself. Around them, ice floes crashed into each other continuously, lifting into the air. Throughout August of 1915, the Endurance withstood the ice, and Lansing believes this gave the men confidence that the Endurance could survive anything.

(Shortform note: The polar ice packs consist of pieces of ice that freeze together at different points in time, called ice cakes (less than 66 feet in diameter) or ice floes (larger than 66 feet). The pieces of ice drift together or separate, driven by the current and wind (often in Antarctica the wind and current don’t go in the same direction). The ice pack’s pressure refers to the force each individual piece exerts on neighboring pieces, creating pressure ridges (small mountain ranges of ice) or fragments, depending on the conditions of the ice.)

Abandoning the Endurance

Despite the men’s optimism, the ice pack struck the ship with increasing intensity several times, tearing its sides....

Endurance Summary 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...

Endurance Summary 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...

Endurance Summary 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...

Endurance Summary 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,...

Endurance Summary 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....

Endurance Summary 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...

Endurance Summary 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...

Endurance Summary 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...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Shackleton’s Leadership

Ernest Shackleton won respect for his leadership under extreme circumstances. How can you incorporate some of his traits into your own leadership style?

Shackleton appealed to the ambition of the British Empire to get the government to support his expedition. How can you leverage the desires and goals of stakeholders you work with to achieve your goals?