Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Grytviken is a hamlet on South Georgia in the South Atlantic and formerly a whaling station and the largest settlement on the island. It is located at the head of King Edward Cove within the larger Cumberland East Bay, considered the best harbour on the island. The location's name, meaning "pot bay", was coined in 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition and documented by the surveyor Johan Gunnar Andersson, after the expedition found old English try pots used to render seal oil at the site. Settlement was re-established on 16 November 1904 by Norwegian Antarctic explorer Carl Anton Larsen on the long-used site of former whaling settlements.
Elephant Island is an ice-covered, mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean. The island is situated 245 kilometres north-northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 1,253 kilometres west-southwest of South Georgia, 935 kilometres south of the Falkland Islands, and 885 kilometres southeast of Cape Horn. It is within the Antarctic claims of Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom.
The voyage of the James Caird was a journey of 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands through the Southern Ocean to South Georgia, undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions to obtain rescue for the main body of the stranded Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. Many historians regard the voyage of the crew in a 22.5-foot (6.9 m) ship's boat through the "Furious Fifties" as the greatest small-boat journey ever completed.
Fortuna Glacier is a tidewater glacier at the mouth of Cumberland Bay on the island of South Georgia. It flows in a northeast direction to its terminus just west of Cape Best, with an eastern distributary almost reaching the west side of Fortuna Bay, on the north coast of South Georgia. It was named in about 1912, presumably after the whale catcher Fortuna, and is notable for two major events in the 20th century.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.
Frank Arthur Worsley was a New Zealand sailor and explorer who served on Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1916, as captain of Endurance. He also served in the Royal Navy Reserve during the First World War.
Jason was a Norwegian whaling vessel laid down in 1881 by Rødsverven in Sandefjord, Norway, the same shipyard which later built Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance. The ship, financed by Christen Christensen, an entrepreneur from Sandefjord, was noted for his participation in an 1892–1893 Antarctic expedition led by Carl Anton Larsen.
John Robert Francis Wild was an English sailor and explorer. He participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being Ernest Joyce.
The history of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is relatively recent. When European explorers discovered the islands, they were uninhabited, and their hostile climate, mountainous terrain, and remoteness made subsequent settlement difficult. Due to these conditions, human activity in the islands has largely consisted of sealing, whaling, and scientific surveys and research, interrupted by World War II and the Falklands War.
Leith Harbour, also known as Port Leith, was a whaling station on the northeast coast of South Georgia, established and operated by Christian Salvesen Ltd, Edinburgh. The station was in operation from 1909 until 1965. It was the largest of seven whaling stations, situated near the mouth of Stromness Bay.
Husvik is a former whaling station on the north-central coast of South Georgia Island. It was one of three such stations in Stromness Bay, the other two being Stromness and Leith Harbour. Husvik initially began as a floating, offshore factory site in 1907. In 1910, a land station was constructed and remained operational until 1930; business resumed again between 1945 and 1960. Husvik Harbour was also the site of the third introduction of reindeer to South Georgia in 1925.
Henry McNish, often referred to as Harry McNish or by the nickname Chippy, was the carpenter on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. He was responsible for much of the work that ensured the crew's survival after their ship, the Endurance, was destroyed when it became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea. He modified the small boat, James Caird, that allowed Shackleton and five men to make a voyage of hundreds of miles to fetch help for the rest of the crew.
Luis Alberto Pardo Villalón was a Chilean Navy officer who, in August 1916, commanded the steam tug Yelcho to rescue the 22 stranded crewmen of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, Endurance, part of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The crewmen were stranded on Elephant Island, an ice-covered mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean.
John William Vincent was an English seaman and member of Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. He was one of the five men who accompanied Shackleton on his epic crossing from Elephant Island to South Georgia and was one of only four of the crew of Endurance not to receive the Polar Medal.
Stromness Bay is a bay 3 miles (4.8 km) wide, entered between Cape Saunders and Busen Point on the north coast of South Georgia. Stromness Bay, like Leith Harbour takes its name from a location in Scotland, Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland. This is partially because both places called Stromness were whaling centres. The headland forming the southeast side of the entrance to Stromness Bay is named Busen Point. Bucentaur Rock lies close northeast of Busen Point.
Prince Olav Harbour is a small harbour in the south west portion of Cook Bay, entered between Point Abrahamsen and Sheep Point, along the north coast of South Georgia.
Mount Worsley is a mountain, 1,105 m, on the west side of Briggs Glacier in South Georgia. It was surveyed by the South Georgia Survey in the period 1951–57, and named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) for Frank Arthur Worsley (1872–1943), skipper of the Endurance on 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Worsley accompanied Ernest Shackleton in the James Caird from Elephant Island to King Haakon Bay, South Georgia, and made the overland crossing with him to Stromness whaling station.
Shackleton Valley is a broad valley running west-northwest from Stromness Harbor, Stromness Bay, in South Georgia. It was named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) after Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, British Antarctic explorer, whose epic traverse of South Georgia with two of his men, in May 1916, following their boat journey from Elephant Island, ended in this valley. They made contact with Mr. Sorlle, the manager at Stromness whaling station, and then set about organizing the rescue of three of their party from King Haakon Bay, South Georgia, and a further group of men marooned on Elephant Island.
Shackleton: Death or Glory is a three-part documentary series following an attempt by adventurer Tim Jarvis to re-create the journey of Ernest Shackleton during his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1916. This two-part journey consisted of an open boat voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia, then a hike over the mountains of South Georgia to the whaling station at Stromness, where help could be sought.
