Endurance

I recently finished reading the book Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage about the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition that took place almost 100 years ago. I'd heard of Ernest Shackleton before, but I had no idea how incredible his and his crew's survival was on this epic journey. They left England in 1914 with the goal of crossing the continent of Antarctica on foot and emerging on the other side. They entered the Weddell Sea, but their ship became stuck in the ice, forcing the men to spend the long polar winter there. After months of drifting with the ice, the pressure became too much and crushed the ship. The men were on their own on the treacherous ice floes, carrying food, supplies, and lifeboats with them. They finally made it to open water and were able to navigate to desolate Elephant Island, where they used glacial ice for drinking water and killed seals for food. Shackleton realized that nobody would ever find them there and decided to go for help. He and a few other men sailed 850 miles in a 22-foot open boat across the stormiest seas on earth to the island of South Georgia. He then had to hike almost 30 miles across mountains and glaciers to the whaling station on the opposite side of the island. A rescue ship eventually made it back to Elephant Island, where amazingly all of the crew had survived. The book is both harrowing and fascinating, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good adventure story.