Camp Gagnon - Ernest Shackleton's IMPOSSIBLE Antartica Survival Story

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Who was Ernest Shackleton, and was he the best expeditionist on Earth? Today, we take a closer look at the crazy stories of one of the most renowned travelers. We’ll talk about Ernest Shackleton's famous expedition, the race to Antarctica, Shackleton’s journey to Elephant Island, his 800-mile journey back to civilization, the legacy of Ernest Shackleton, and other interesting topics. Welcome to CAMP! 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsor: Relay and BlueChewJoin the Relay App community HERE: http://www.joinrelay.app/camp👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History Here: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.comTimestamps:0:00 Top Comment Gets FREE Merch1:57 Who Was Ernest Shackleton6:29 Ernest Shackleton's Famous Expedition11:58 The Race to Antarctica15:05 Shackleton's Trek to Antarctica + Stowaway Found on Ship20:53 Shackleton’s Journey to Elephant Island27:19 800 Mile Journey Back to Civilization33:35 Shackleton’s Attempt to Save His Crew38:38 The Legacy of Ernest Shackleton41:38 Discovery of ‘The Endurance’ Shipwreck42:48 Check Out The Book ‘The Endurance’#podcast #history #death

Your ship is crushed. Ice everywhere. 28 men and zero ways home. And then your captain, Ernest Shackleton, looks at his crew and he says, we're all gone back every single one of us. And somehow, against all odds, he does it. 634 days of hell. A 22-foot boat across the Drake Passage,

one of the most treacherous bodies of water in the world, and a mountain crossing with no. gear. Not one man was lost. This is the greatest leadership story you've never been forced to learn in school and why hope, routine, and maybe just a little bit of insanity can help beat the odds and do the impossible. This is the story of Ernest Shackleton, one of my favorite leaders of all time. This episode is one of my favorite topics. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up people and welcome back to Camp. My name is Mark Agdon and thank you for joining me in my beautiful tent

where every single week we'll be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world from all time. It's basically my real life obsession with Ripley's, believe it or not, as a kid, turned into one of my favorite podcasts ever. This one that we're on right now, welcome to it. As always, I'm joined by my dear friend Christos Takabakadok. What's up? What's going on?

So, guys, this is important, okay? Because two things. The top comment on this video and all the videos going forward, I think we need to put like a time limit after like a week or something, maybe like five days. Also, we can't guarantee your actual proper size. Also that. Okay.

The top comment on a video after a few days, you will get merch. That's right. Free merch, whatever the top comment is, we will hook y'all up. All right? So get those upboats going. And yeah, we'll send you an email or something. We'll get it to you. Don't worry.

And secondly, probably at this point, the world is in a weird place. There's all sorts of stuff going on the news and the media and people are just going at each other in the political divide. And I know people are like, when are we going to talk about it on Camp Gagnon? Never. I shouldn't say never, but at least not right now, okay? Because in this place, this little tent that I escape to, this is my cozy oasis where I get to block out the outside world and I get to dive into these stories and topics that make me the most excited. And I hope you guys are down for that and willing to come along the ride. You know, there's all sorts of people you can talk to if you want hot takes about politics.

or whatever. You can find those, all right, but this place is just a little sanctuary for us to escape the chaos of the world to get out of the news cycle and just dive into a little wormhole. Maybe learn about maybe one of the most brave men ever, Ernest Shackleton, a guy that I love. There's a book written about him called Endurance, which I read a few years ago, and I've just been just enraptured by this guy and his story. If you don't know what it is, you are in the right place, because today that is what we'll be talking about. So, picture this, right? Just put yourself in the shoes, okay? You're literally trapped in a frozen wasteland.

Every direction that you look is ice. It is just sheets of ice. The temperatures basically never get above freezing. And your ship, the literal thing that got you here, and the only way you're going to be getting off, is slowly being destroyed by these giant ice flows, these giant sheets of ice that are just crashing into it. And you have 27 men that are depending on you

to keep them alive. Oh, and you're literally in the bottom of the world where no one can rescue. You're in the middle of Antarctica. This isn't a movie plot. This actually happened to Ernest Shackleton in 1914 and somehow against every possible... I mean, it's just insane what he goes through.

I'll explain all the details. He brought every single person home alive. Now, I know what you're thinking, like, oh, this is like a little history lesson about an explorer, right? No, this is insane. And by the time I'm done telling you, you're going to understand

why people still talk about this guy over 100 years later. wanted to name my son Ernest because I was so impressed by this dude. I mean, he's just a beast. And all other men that were part of this mission are absolute studs. A great quote that I heard from an explorer that actually did one of, uh, did Ernest Shackleton's expedition, uh, like he recreated it years later. There's a podcast I did about it. I'll link it below. One of the things that he says that it was iron men in wooden boats. And it's just like a bar. You see, most people think that they know what survival looks like, you know, you've seen like a show or a guy's like eating bugs for a week. And

and people like, wow, how did he do it? But Shackleton, not only kept himself alive, he kept 28 men alive and above all kept their hope alive for 634 days, 600, over two years. That's over two years, right? 365, yeah, basically two years in conditions that would kill most people in like a few hours. And this is also 1914, right?

Like, they were using the most modern gear of the time, but this is gear from over 100 years ago in a place so hostile that like, like if you spit, your spit would freeze before it hits the ground. That's how freezing this place was. And here's the thing about Shackleton. The guy is obsessed with places that wanted to kill him. By 1914, he'd already been to Antarctica twice.

The first time in 2001, he nearly died of scurvy. The second time in 1909, he got within 97 miles of the South Pole before having to turn back because his team was literally starving to death. Any normal person would have just taken a hint and been like, all right, yeah, we'll just leave it, you know. but not Shackleton. While other explorers were racing to plant flags on the South Pole, Shackleton had an even crazier idea. He wanted to cross the entire Antarctic continent on foot, 1,800 miles of the most brutal landscape on Earth. No one had ever done it because nobody was

insane enough to try it. But here's what made Shackleton different from every other explorer of his time. He wasn't just like a rich guy looking for fame. He genuinely cared about the people who followed him into these death traps. He knew that he was brave. But he also acknowledged, that every man with him was also brave. And that matters because when everything went wrong, and everything went wrong, that's what kept everyone alive. The plan for what he called the Imperial, a trans-Antarctic expedition. It was actually pretty clever. Basically take two ships, drop one team on one side of Antarctica, take another team to the opposite side, they meet in the middle after crossing the continent, right? Simple. Shackleton's ship was called Endurance, and it was built

specifically for these polar conditions. It was triple hold, reinforced with steel. It was supposed to be unsinkable in ice, which, you know, famous last words calling anything unsinkable. In August of 1914, just as World War I was starting, Shackleton and his crew of 27 men sailed south towards Antarctica. These weren't just random adventurers. He handpicked scientists and photographers and carpenters, a guy that knew how to play the banjo, a meteorologist, and maybe a couple of runaways here and there. And he needed people that could basically handle the isolation, the cold, and the very real possibility that they might not ever go home. What's up, people?

Let's take a break really quick, because I'm going to talk to the fellas. Let me ask you something. Are you stuck? Do you feel like you're struggling with work or relationships, or maybe your marriage, or just feeling like you're not like the dude you want to be? You ever just, you know, thinking to yourself like, man, I should be farther along right now. I just get caught in these cycles where I just kind of lose self-control. Well, here's the thing that nobody likes to it.

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And the difference with Relay is that you're not doing it alone. With Relay, you basically join a small group of guys that are kind of on the same road. They're sharing accountability and encouragement and actual tools to help when triggers hit and you're feeling anxious or alone. Relay helps you feel a little more connected. And you can stay totally anonymous, but for the first time, you're not going to be in this battle alone. I mean, think of it like a gym membership, but with your brain and for your habits and for the future of your relationship, maybe, right? Thousands of men and their families are

already seeing some change because the men in their lives are a little bit less stuck. So if you're feeling stuck, check out Relay. Don't wait another month to be the man that you want to be today, and you can break the cycle with Relay. So go ahead and use the code Gagdon, Gagin, Gagin, N-O-N for a seven-day free trial if you feel like this thing has just got a grip on you. That you're not able to let go. That is join Relay, J-O-I-N, Relay-R-E-L-A-Y. Dot app, APPP-P-S-C-C-C-A-R-E-L-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-E-P-E-P-E-R-E-P-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-E-R-E-E-E- the ice that's like in your freezer. It is constantly moving and shifting and creating like these pressure ridges

and pieces of it are just breaking off. And these pressure ridges can actually be like 30 feet high. They're basically like these mountains. And ships get caught in them all the time. And when they do, they don't just get stuck. They get literally crushed. Like just imagine like two floating continents just rolling into each other.

And if your boats in the middle of it, Shackleton knew this. But he also knew that if he wanted to reach his landing spot, he had to push through. So when jubes in the middle of it, January 18th, 1915, the endurance pushes into the Weddle Sea, heading for Vassal Bay, where Shagleton planned to start his cross-continent trek. They're only 85 miles away from their destination when the ice closes in around them. And at first, nobody really panicked, right? Ships get stuck in the ice

all the time, so they would just wait for the spring when the ice would kind of break and they basically just like sail their way out, except the Antarctic ice doesn't follow normal rules. So for 10 months, 10 months, they watched the ice slowly squeezing their ship. They're sleeping on the boat still and the ice is just pushing it and pushing it. Like imagine like a car that's getting crushed by like a giant compactor crushing machine.

Except there's nowhere to go. Like you can get out and you can stand on the ice but now you're just on the ice. So the crew tried everything. They were trying to chop at the ice with pickaxes and use the ship's engine to ram through the barriers and even tried setting off explosives at one point, but nothing worked.

The ice is now in charge, right? But here's where Shackleton's leadership style really shows. While the ship is basically being destroyed and getting squished and crushed, he's keeping everyone busy. He's organizing daily routines, giving everyone specific jobs. Most importantly, he just never let anyone panic.

And keep in mind, there's not like a ton to do, right? They brought all these people for this expedition to, you know, take photographs and study the stars or, you know, do other science stuff. but they're stuck. They're in the same place for 10 months. So he just keeps them busy and says, all, we're all waking up at this time. We're doing this thing at this day, keeping everyone on a schedule. Then October 27th, 1915, after being trapped for almost a year, the pressure finally becomes too much. The endurance is whole actually cracks and it actually gets broken by the ice that it's stuck in.

And Shackleton gave the order that every sailor dreads. Abandoned ship. But here's the crazy part. They couldn't actually abandon the ship because where are they supposed to go? They're in the middle of the Weddell Sea, hundreds of miles from the nearest land, standing on these giant ice flows that could just break apart at any moment. Now again, to put this in perspective, it actually might be helpful to get an image here of one of these ice flows. You can see the photographs that they took. It's just a massive sheet of ice.

It's just a floating platform of ice. And they're just standing on it. And these platforms of ice, they drift and they shift around and they break off and they split in half. So they did the only thing that they could do. They set up camp on the ice and just slowly watch their ship, their only way home, get crushed and slowly descend. And they saw the mast slowly go down and fall beneath the ocean. And 28 men are now stranded on a floating block of ice in one of the most dangerous places on Earth. No radio, no way to signal for help, no one back home, even knowing that they're in trouble necessarily.

And this is where most stories would end. but for Shackleton and his crew, it is just the beginning. So we have these 28 men standing on ice, their ship is gone. And what happens is that now this expedition is about to become one of survival. So to understand how they ended up in this mess, you have to really understand Ernest Shagleton. This guy was basically addicted to Antarctica. And I mean, addicted in like the most literal sense. He's gone multiple times.

It was like the space race at the time. Many people from all different, you know, countries were trying to explore Antarctica. They wanted to know what was there. But, you know, for most people, the frostbite and, you know, the cost and the conditions made it really difficult. So countries were throwing money at anyone that was crazy enough to trek to the bottom of the world because going first would mean they would have national bragging rights and maybe access to the resources and whatever else they could find. And by 1907, everyone was obsessed with reaching the South Pole. You had Roald Amundsen from Norway, Robert Falcon Scott from Britain, and a bunch of other guys all racing to plant their flag at 90 degrees south. It was basically the space race, right?

But instead of spaceships, people are using, you know, these boats and sleds and dogs and basically trying to get there. And Shackleton, he looked at this race and said, you know what? That's not ambitious enough. Well, everyone else was focused on getting to a specific point. Shackleton had this insane idea. He wanted to just cross it on foot, 1,800 miles of the. this frozen land. It'd be like going from New York to Denver, except everything in between is just desolate, just ice as far as you can see. And if it's not ice, maybe there's some wild animals

trying to kill you. I mean, it's just the most hostile environment on earth. But Shackleton had already been to Antarctica twice, like I mentioned, 1901. He joined Scott's Discovery Expedition as a junior officer, and that trip was a huge disaster. They had no idea what they were doing. They brought ponies and horses instead of dogs. When Shackleton almost died of scurvy, his gums were bleeding, he could barely walk by the time it was all done, and Scott had to send him home early. And now most people, like I said, would basically just be like, you know what, scrap it. But then in 1909, he came back on his own expedition, the Nimrod.

And this time he was the boss, and he was determined to reach the South Pole before anyone else. And he got within 97 miles before he had to make the hardest decision of his life. The team is starving. They're eating at half rations. they're barely staying alive. And he could have pushed forward and maybe reached the pole, but he knew that they would all die on the way back.

So we turned around. Think about that, 97 miles away from making history, being one of the most important explorers of his time. But instead, he chose to keep his men alive. And that basically tells you what you need to know about Ernest Shackleton. He didn't put his ego above the care for the fellow people that were going on these expeditions. And here's the kicker.

Two years later, Amundsen beat everyone to the South Pole anyway. And a month after that, Scott reached the South Pole too, only to find Amundsen's flag already there, and Scott and his team basically just entirely died on the way back. So by 1911, the South Pole had been conquered. Game over. And this is where Shackleton's crazy ambitious streak really comes into play. He's looking at the map, and he saw something that people didn't really see or weren't discussing.

Sure, people got to the South Pole, but have they actually crossed it all the way? He was like, maybe I could be the first one to lead an expedition to cross it. So the plan was simple, right? You take two ships. One ship, the endurance, would drop him and half the crew at the Weddell Sea on that side of Antarctica. The second ship, the Aurora, would go to the Ross Sea on the opposite side and basically set up like a supply depot. And then Shackleton and his team would trek 800 miles across the continent, picking up supplies that the other team had left for them. And then they would meet the second team on the opposite side.

It was like a relay race, right? So he would go, the team would drop stuff off, they go, get to the middle, pick up the supplies, and then they make it all the way over. And he called it the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition. And he starts recruiting, and men are actually excited to join, right? You kind of have the war breaking out. Some men don't want to go to war. And the newspaper ad that he placed is legendary.

He says, men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return, doubtful, honor. and recognition in case of success. I'm not going to apply. I'm out. Guess what? 5,000 men applied. 5,000 that basically promised death.

Again, I think that the war component here is really important to underscore that you see in 1914, it's worth mentioning that most of these men were coming from Britain and Scotland, and they saw that this was, you know, they were about to go into full-on war in Western Europe. And so a lot of men were like, look, I'd rather go on a cool adventure

and maybe die than go to war and for sure die, you know. So Shackleton handpicked 27 men for the endurance crew, and he didn't just want tough guys. He wanted people that could handle the psychological pressure, and he interviewed everyone personally, and some of his criteria are pretty unusual. So take Pierce Blackborough, the ship steward. A guy was like 19 years old,

and Shackleton initially rejected him for being too young, but Blackbrook stowed away on the ship anyway. Like literally, as the ship is leaving, he snuck on and hid underneath the deck. And when they found him, Shackleton told him, if anyone has to be eaten, you're going to be first. And then gave him the job. The crew included Frank Warsley, a sea captain from New Zealand, who was supposedly one of the best navigators alive.

Frank Hurley, a photographer who would document everything. Leonard Hussie, who brought a banjo because Shackleton believed music was essential for morale. Even James McElroy and Alexander Macklin, two doctors, because Shackleton knew that people would likely get hurt. By August 1914, they were ready to go. World War I had just started, and Shackleton actually offered to cancel this whole expedition so the men would go fight for Britain instead, and Churchill himself told him to proceed with the journey.

So they sailed south with enough supplies for two years, state-of-the-art equipment for that time in a ship that was supposed to handle everything that the ice could throw, you know? But as we already know, everything goes wrong, and that's what makes the story so incredible. So, as we know, the endurance, gets trapped in the ice, and they're there for days and then weeks and then months. And the crew had this routine that Ernest Shackleton basically required them to do,

maintaining the ship, taking scientific measurements. They even played soccer on the ice when the weather was decent. And Shackleton kept everyone busy with these daily tasks in this evening entertainment. Frank Hurley, the photographer, was documenting everything, taking some of the most incredible polar expedition photos ever captured. But Shackleton could see what the others couldn't. The ice isn't just holding them. it's moving and it's carrying the ship away from their intended destination and make it even

harder for any type of rescue mission to actually find them. And instead of drifting toward land, they were being pushed further into the Weddell Sea. And by March, as the Antarctic winter was actually setting in, it became clear that they weren't going to get out. The sun disappeared for four months. Temperatures dropped to 40 below zero Fahrenheit. I mean, think about that. 40 below zero. And like, like, thinking about being in 40 below zero now with modern equipment, they had equipment from 1914 and the ice continues to shift them. So now we have Shagleton. You know who he is, you know what's happened to him and his expedition. They're all standing on this ice sheet and he's promised all his men that they're going to go home and see their parents and their family

and their wives. And the plan now is way crazier than ever trying to cross Antarctica. It's now trying to get back home on an ice sheet that's floating through the Antarctic, who knows where. So Shagleton knew that the team had two choices. They could rather wait for someone to rescue them or rescue themselves. And since no one was even really aware that they were missing and there's a war, you know, ravaging Europe and England, the option of getting rescued was basically null. And so the ice was drifting them more north, which was a good sign because that meant that they were actually getting closer to the edge of this pack ice and maybe even finding land. The bad news is that they were heading towards the Drake Passage.

And this is where the southern ocean meets the Atlantic. And it's literally the most dangerous stretch of water on the planet. I mean, in the modern day, even like, you know, giant shipping boats have a hard time traversing this stretch of water. I mean, these are waves the size of buildings, freezing cold water, winds that never stop. And literally, you could just freeze to death, just sitting there like your blood could just stop moving and you would die from basically just getting just consumed by the cold. So by April 1916, Shagleton had to make the call. This ice flow that they were on was getting smaller and smaller. They would wake up and see a giant chunk of the ice just floating away.

And what they were on originally was like a few miles long. By the end, it was just a couple hundred feet. And they could see it was just breaking and breaking. Some of the men were even waking up and their tent just had a giant crack underneath it. They had to wake up and move their tent and push it onto the side where everyone else was. Any day now, they were just going to basically get consumed. by the ocean. So Shagleton made the call and his plan is absolutely insane. He was going to load everyone into three small lifeboats, tiny lifeboats and try to reach land. And these aren't proper boats. They're

basically oversized rowboats that had been stored on the endurance and they were used in emergency situations like this one. These three boats, the James Care, the Dudley Docker and the Stancombe wills were just basically big rowboats. None of them were designed for open ocean sailing definitely not through Drake's passage. So on April 9th, 1916, 28 men pushed these three tiny boats into the southern ocean, and they started to row. And they're rowing towards the closest piece of land that they know is around them. It's called Elephant Island. It is a desolate chunk of rock, basically. It's about 100 miles away. Now, imagine this. They've been living on ice for 497 days. 497 days. They've just been on this ice camp, some of which was on the boat, much of

which was just on these giant sheets of ice. And most of them have never been in a small boat on rough seas. I mean, basically no one had at that point. And the ocean tries to kill them immediately, waves crashing over the boats constantly, soaking everyone with freezing water. The men had to bail water out of their boats while they were rowing. And if you stopped bailing water for more than a few minutes, your boat would completely sink.

One of the quotes from the book that I read, The Endurance, it described that the water was actually warmer than the air. and that some of the men, they would be happy that their feet were in the water because taking it out would actually make them colder. They couldn't sleep because the boats had to keep moving and they couldn't eat much because most of their food was just frozen solid. Frank Worsley was navigating using a sextant, basically just like an older piece of navigation equipment that can tell you where you are based off the stars and basically trying to figure out where they were and making sure that they didn't die in this ocean. The fact that he got them anywhere is a miracle. After six days of this hell, they spotted land. I mean, each one of these boats had, you know, 10-ish, 8 to 10 men each, all rowing around the clock for six days.

And finally, they see it, Elephant Island, a 25-mile-long rock covered in ice and just nothing else. No trees, no shelter, no vegetation, just literally just a giant rock. cliffs and glaciers and beaches covered in elephant seals, which is why they called it Elephant Island. It was covered in these seals. But it was solid ground. And after living on, you know, floating ice for over a year and then, you know, basically going through this treacherous passage through, you know, this Drake Sea, it's like a paradise. You know, they're stoked. So they hauled the boats onto the beach and they set up camp, which even that part is treacherous. Like, you're basically trying to hit this island. And if you go past it, it's going to be hard to turn around because the

current's going to pull you. So they're trying to like just get it perfectly. And on top of that, they're trying to get it perfectly in the right spot because the entire island is just these giant cliff walls and these giant glaciers. If you go into the wrong side of it, you're just going to get crushed up against this cliff. So not only are you trying to hit this island after rowing for six days straight, no one's sleeping in the freezing cold. You're also trying to hit the part of the beach where your boat's not going to get just absolutely crushed the second you get there. And finally, they do it. The crew is exhausted, starved. Some of them are starting to show signs. of hypothermia and frostbite, but somehow they're alive.

And there's just one problem. No one's going to find them on Elephant Island. Like, you're on this island now. That's great. But now what? The island is completely off of normal shipping routes. They might as well just been on Mars, right? Like people, if they were going to look for them, would be like,

all right, maybe they're out by the, you know, the ice flow that they were trying to get to. Maybe they're on the, you know, the South Pole somewhere. But now they're on just like a random rock that no one's even going to look at. There's no civilization. now they're even more loss. So Shackleton looked at the situation and came to a conclusion that most people consider suicidal.

Someone basically had to sail to South Georgia Island and get help. Now South Georgia Island is 800 miles away across this terrible, treacherous ocean. It had whaling stations with ships and some radio equipment. It was the closest civilization to them on Elephant Island, and it's their only chance. I mean, it's just a suicide. mission. You have to think, like, we're going to take one of these boats. We've just gone 100 miles. Now we have to go 800 to South Georgia. It's unbelievable. So the boat that he chooses for the suicide mission is the James Caird, a 22-foot-long built for coastal sailing, definitely not for 800 miles of the southern

ocean in the winter. So Shackleton picked five men to come with him. Frank Warsley because he needed the navigation skills. Harry McNish, a carpenter, because they would need someone to, you know, help him if the boat started to fall apart. McCarthy, Tom Crean, and Vincent, all experienced sailors who could handle a boat in rough seas. So before they left, McNish made some modification to this boat. He built up the sides. He added a canvas deck to keep the waves off and reinforced everything that he could. And it was still basically a dinghy trying to cross an ocean, but at least it was like a well-built dinghy, right? So April 24th, 1916, six men push off from Elephant Island in this 22-foot boat heading in

the Drake passage. The 22 men left behind, watched them disappear into the waves, basically just like, all right, we're never going to see them again. We're just going to live the rest of our lives on this little rock. And what followed was 17 days of nightmare. The Southern Ocean just crushed them, 60 foot waves, hurricane force winds, temperatures below freezing, the boat is constantly taking on water, so they had to bail continuously once again. They couldn't cook because the fire would just be extinguished immediately. They ate cold seal meat and they drank melted ice. They couldn't sleep because someone always had to be steering and bailing out water.

And when they did, they had to lie at the bottom of the boat and soaking wet clothes, getting hypothermia while the waves were crashing over them. Worsley tried to navigate using the sexton in conditions that most of the time were just impossible to see. You can't even see the horizon. You can barely see the stars because it's overcast. He got maybe like a dozen good readings in 17 days, and it's important to note that the margin of error is zero. The South Georgia Island is a small, tiny little whaling port, and if you've missed it on either side, you would just sail past it into the Open Atlantic and die. If you overshot it, you couldn't get your boat turned back around.

So now it's literally a space mission. You're trying to go and you have to try to get to the moon. And if you go past it, you're out in outer space. and so you gotta perfectly find it and get within zero margin of error. So May 10th, 1916, after 17 days, they spotted land, South Georgia Island. Worsley had somehow navigated them

across 800 miles of the worst ocean on the planet using this primitive instrument in a tiny boat. It should have been impossible. But here's where the story gets crazier, because they're on the wrong side of the island. I mean, think about this. The whaling stations are on the north coast because people are coming down from

South America and they're going to go to the first part of the island that they hit, which is on the north side. They're coming up from Antarctica. They're on the south side. The south coast is the most hostile part of the island.

It's just, again, more giant cliff faces if you take your boat into the cliff, you're going to get crushed. You and all your men are going to die getting crushed into this island that you're so desperately trying to get to. There's a tiny little beach clearing. They're trying to hit this tiny,

it's like 50 feet long. You can see photos of it. clearing they're trying to get. It's like impossible. So once they land on this island, they now have to cross 32 miles of mountain that no human had ever crossed before. Most people, right, they would think, like, oh, what if you sail around the island? The boat's not going to make it. And if you get too far, you can't get back around to get back into the island itself. So what does he do? They land their boat and now he has to walk across the island, across mountains that no one has ever crossed before

in the middle of winter with no mountain equipment at all. Most people would have given up. Right, I mean, think about it. A year on an ice flow, you're stuck. Days getting to Elephant Island. Now, your men are all on this chunk of rock.

The book goes into more detail of what actually happens to the men while they're on this island. To be honest with you, not much. They try to just not die. All the rest of the men are on Elephant Island. They basically overturned the boats and they're sleeping in these boats. They're starting to just eat anything they can.

They're finding seals. At this point, they've gone through basically all their rations. They had to kill the dogs that they were with and actually eat the dogs. It's just like the most brutal thing ever. And Shackleton is their only hope. And now he's on the opposite side of a massive mountain range trying to get to these whaling boats. But Shackleton had one more trick, one more strand of hope, despite everything he was facing. But first, let me tell you about these mountains, right?

South Georgia, you can see a map. It's basically a giant chunk of rock sticking out of the southern ocean, covered in glaciers and peaks that go up to 9,000 feet. It's not like regular mountaineering. This is still technical Arctic or Antarctic mountaineering. The weather is so bad that even today with modern equipment, crossing it is like an extreme mountaineering challenge. You have to be extremely, extremely skilled and experienced to do this today.

Shackleton had no mountaineering gear, no ropes. No boots with, you know, like spikes on them. No pickaxes to climb across. Just clothes on his back. You know, basically like some very simple carpentry tools and a glorified ice axe that McNish had brought along to work on the boat. So now it's May 19th. He's so close. Shackleton took Worsley and Crean, the two strongest guys left, and they started to walk inland.

They left McCarthy, McNish, and Vincent on the beach. too exhausted to make the journey. And for 36 hours straight, they climbed over glaciers, crevasses, up, mountain passes that had never been crossed before. They had no sleeping bags. So when they stopped to rest, they had to huddled together to stop themselves from just freezing to death. At one point, they got so tired that Shackleton let the other sleep while he stayed awake to make sure that they didn't freeze for five hours straight. It was a miracle. And somehow, some way, they make it.

on May 20th they cross into the Stromness whaling station and they basically like put their axes and they're able to see the smoke as they're climbing 36 hours across this mountain range freezing cold and they see smoke and they're like holy shit dude we're here what's crazy is that this island shackleton i believe had been to before and that the manager of these whaling boats actually knew Shackleton. And when he arrived, he was the one that ultimately went down into the station where all these whaling boats were. And they had like a little, you know, more substantial camp and an actual like little village that they set up. And when he walked in, the manager didn't recognize Shackleton. They thought it was just like a wild man. They were like, who the hell? Where did you come from?

He's got a huge beard. He's filthy. His clothes had been soaked in salt water for literal months, like years. and after reaching the whaling station Shackleton still didn't rest his first thought is getting back to Elephant Island to rescue the 22 men that he left behind and of course rescue the other men on the other side of the South Georgia Island

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Elephant Island are packed with ice and these giant ice flows and no ships can get through. So Shackleton tried everything. First, he borrowed a whaling ship and got within 20 miles of the island before the ice blocked his path. Then he tried again with a different ship from the Falkland Islands, but again was faced with the same result. The third attempt, the Chilean government lent him a shipped called the Yelko, and still no luck. They were blocked with ice. And now most people would have waited for the spring when the actual conditions were good, but Shackleton knew that he couldn't wait. Every single day that went by, those men were stranded there, and they were going to die any day now. So, the fourth attempt, August 30th, 1916, the ice conditions are perfect for exactly one day.

Shackleton took the Yelko through the pack ice, and finally, he reaches Elephant Island. And to his surprise, he finds all 22 men still alive on the beach. They had been stranded for four months and five days living underneath these overturned boats and basically eating whatever they could catch and just running out of hope. And then they saw the ship. And some of them couldn't believe that it was real.

Frank Wilde, who had been in charge while Shackleton was gone, had kept them and organized using the same techniques that he had learned from Shackleton, daily routines, shared responsibilities, and just radical optimism. Every morning he'd tell the crew to pack their gear because, quote, the boss might come today. August 30th, 1916, 634 days after they got trapped in the ice, every single member of the Endurance Expedition was finally saved.

And we think about that. This is in 1916. Polar explorations are basically a death sentence on the best of conditions. Scott had died trying to reach the South Pole. Dozens of other expeditions had lost men to starvation and scurvy, hypothermia, bad weather, bad luck. Shackleton's expedition was supposed to cross Antarctica make history. And instead, they spent two years just trying to not die.

And somehow, through the kind of leadership that refuses to accept failure as an option, every single person comes home alive. I mean, that's not just survival. That is just a masterclass on never giving up on the people who are counting on you. And when you step back and think about it, this is really what makes Shackleton so legendary, not necessarily just the mountain crossing or the boat journey, not the ability to survive, but his leadership during the worst possible survival scenario ever.

I mean, think about it. Almost two full years, 28 men, people that you promised to go on this expedition that you would lead are trapped in these conditions that would have driven them insane or killed them or they would have killed themselves. You can't even account for how brutal these years are. they watch their ship get destroyed. They live on floating ice, that that is now getting broken apart.

They're eating the same disgusting food every single day, seal meat, penguin, whatever they can catch. There's no privacy, no entertainment, no way to know if they'd ever see their families again, and no one dies. Not one person has a mental breakdown. And in an era when polar expeditions regularly lost half their crews to scurvy,

Shackleton brought everyone home. And how did you do it? Personally, I think there's a few reasons. One, he never put himself above the team. He was always the boss. He was always the captain, but he didn't make it seem that way. He didn't treat anyone like he was less than them. He didn't have an ego.

He constantly treated all of his men as equal or higher than him. He ate the same food as his boys when they had to do the worst jobs, like, you know, cleaning out the latrines or hunting seals and the freezing water. Shackleton was right there with him, doing it with them every single time. When they rationed the food, he took the same portion as the love. lowest ranking crew member. His famous rule was optimism is true moral courage. Every single day, even when things looked hopeless, he would tell his men that they're going to make it home. He would say things like, we're not lost, we're just on an adventure that's going to make a hell

of a story. And he kept them busy, right? They'd play soccer when the weather was good. He assigned daily jobs. You know, everyone had something to do. He had entertainment, whether it was lectures about their hometowns or, you know, singing songs. Frank Hurley would develop photographs in this like makeshift dark room. Leonard Hussey plays his banjo. And the genius of it all is that Shackleton understood something that in these extreme situations, you can go without food for a few days. You can go without water for a day or two. But you can't survive if you don't have hope. Right. You can survive anything else, basically. But if you lose hope, you'll die even with plenty of supplies. So there you have it. 634 days of hell. Every single person makes it home alive.

And here's why this story matters over 100 years later. Why it had such a big impact on me is because the values that Shackleton taught us, radical hope, optimism, the servant leader, these are all the things that I believe will help us today, right? Surviving the impossible. And sure, we're not on a boat in the middle of the Antarctic, you know. But it is attainable. Surviving whatever you're going through is attainable.

Whether it's your job sucks, someone in your family passed away, you're feeling depressed, you feel like the stay of the world is just terrible, it's hopeless. Failure isn't an option. And real leadership isn't about being the toughest guy or being so strong and macho and just unfazed. Shackleton wasn't the strongest guy on his team. He wasn't the strongest guy in his crew. He wasn't even the most experienced sailor or navigator, but he understood something that most people don't understand. And that's leadership is believing in your team, setting up all the people around you for success, taking responsibility when things go wrong, and keeping the crew going, when they want to quit. I mean, think about that, right? The food rationing. He could have pulled

rank. He could have been like, yo, I'm the captain. I get the better meals. I need it, right? You could easily justify it. Like, I need the strength in order to lead this team. I need more. And instead, he had the same disgusting meat as the lowest person on his team. And morale's low. He's not doing motivational speeches. He's just playing with everyone, keeping things fun, trying to find the little glimmers of hope. And that is leadership. It's not telling people what to do or what they should do or how they should feel it's showing them that they matter and that you're willing to suffer alongside them. And that's kind of what Shackleton shows me. The best plan is just to sometimes throw out the plan and adapt to the situation and refocus on what really matters, right? Keeping people

optimistic. And, you know, Shackleton's original goal is to cross Antarctica and make history, but in a way, what he did was actually more historic. You know, he didn't waste time mourning this lost opportunity or just being so down like, oh, why is this happening to me? Why does it never workout for me and he didn't try to salvage the original mission like oh well maybe if we do this we can still make it. Instead he adapted and he pivoted quickly to a new and a far more important mission which is keeping his people alive and getting them home. And it's a great lesson because he sticks with his new mission with the same intensity as his original mission, which is hard to do. If you're so dead set on this one vision you have trying to pivot, you're going to be like, all right, I guess I'll

do plan B. He had a plan A and then he had another plan A. And, you know, it's so important just to recognize, like, one person's attitude during a crisis has the potential to become everyone else's reality. Everyone else just believes that they would get rescued. They thought, like, yeah, we're going to get rescued because their captain was so confident that they were not going to give up on him, you know. By choosing hope over this crisis, this despair, even when the situation was objectively hopeless, I mean, they should all be dead. Shackleton was able to keep all of them together and all motivated, and he had them all believing that they could actually beat it.

And here is just what's absolutely wild, if you're a fan of this story, or if you've heard it before. In March, 2022, over a century after the endurance sank, researchers found the actual ship on the ocean floor, perfectly preserved, sitting 10,000 feet underwater in the Weddell Sea, looking like it had just sunk yesterday. And the cold Antarctic water had actually preceptive. prevented any decay. So you could still read the ship's name painted on the stern. You could see the

individual planks of wood and the ship's wheel and the boots and the dishes scattered on the deck. It was just like a time capsule that they discovered. And just like Shackleton's story, some things are just too incredible to stay buried forever. And that discovery brought the whole expedition back into the spotlight, reminding people why the story matters. When everything goes wrong, focus on what you can control. Shackleton can't control the ice, the weather, the ship, You know, but he can control his attitude and his decisions and how he treated his crew. And whatever is blocking you in your life right now, it's not permanent. But your decision to keep going to maintain hope and refusing to quit on the people that are counting on you,

that is what makes the difference between, you know, success and ultimately not making it. And that, to me, is the real lesson of Ernest Shackleton's impossible journey. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of the endurance. If this is fascinating to you, I really recommend reading the book. I mean, the book is called Endurance, and it just goes in a far more detail on really the psychology of all the men that are, you know, on this piece of ice and then on this island,

really counting on Ernest Shagleton. And just Shackleton's like just raw bravery and confidence throughout the entire experience, never, you know, never letting his men lose hope. Like, he would have moments of weakness that he would talk about. And he had his own personal journals that he kept detailed accounts of every single day and it was part of his routine.

And it wasn't that he didn't ever show weakness. He just never lost hope. And he never let his team lose hope. And to me, that's the thing I'd take away from Shagleton. I think about them all the time. Truly, one of my favorite books ever. I mean, fortunately, none of us, hopefully, some of us. Hopefully none of us will ever have to actually sail to Antarctic.

But in your own life, I'm sure you have people that depend on you. If you're a father, you have kids, you know, you have a wife, you have people in your family that count on you. If you're someone that has a job, I'm sure you have, you know, employees or people below you that look up to you. If you're starting a company, if you're on a football team or a soccer team and you have guys that look up to you, to me,

that is like the proxy that I take from Shackleton is that you can keep people motivated as long as you're able to keep yourself motivated in that confident headspace. And just recognizing that, you know, people have done worse. That's what I always think about. Anytime I'm like, oh, man, I just am so, I'm so down.

I try to remember Shackleton. It's hard to do. But if you can, it's a real superpower Because this dude went two years in the ice and the frozen wasteland and then was able to save his men and get out the other side. I mean, just a fascinating story. I've done an episode on a different survivalist. This guy is absolutely fascinating where basically he recreated Shackleton's entire journey and used all the same gear that Shackleton used. And he went down there and he went to basically the South Pole and he took the same type of boat to the elephant island.

Island, took that boat, crossed, you know, Drake's passage, went to the South Georgia Island, then actually climbed over the mountain range. And he just talks a lot about like the psychology of what it must have felt like for Shackleton. Fortunately, for my friend that I spoke with, he was able to get rescued if things didn't go well. But for Shackleton, it was do or die. And he talks about it in more detail. I'll link the episode below. But if you're interested, I would definitely check out of the book, Endurance. It is absolutely fascinating. And I just want to echo that's into it, whatever you're going through, it's not going to last forever, and you can get through it. You can battle through. And, you know, if you're not strong right now, try to lean on

the story of Ernest Shackleton. Read the book, and maybe it'll give you some strength. Anyway, thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. Crestos, anything you learned from this episode? What did you think? A cool little parallel is the Percy Fawcett episode we did, so I'd direct people to that. Yeah, absolutely. That's a good point. Around the same time, too. Yeah, that is a good point. It was early 1900s. Yeah, Percy Fawcett. that one out if you like survival stories. I mean, it's not exactly survival because him and his men, spoiler alert, they don't make it home. But who knows how long they went and Percy Fawcett is just another beast of a man that, you know, was relentless in his mission and, you know, I'm sure it was

equally inspirational to his people. But anyway, thank you guys so much for joining us for another episode of Camp. We do these episodes every single week, so go ahead and subscribe, drop a comment. I read all of them on YouTube and Spotify. And the top one on YouTube will get some merch. Maybe we do the top one on the Spotify, too. I don't know. Right now it's just YouTube, all right, but we'll figure that out. Anyway. Spotify too.

And Spotify too? Screw it, dude. Let's also throw Spotify on there. Who cares, right? We're just bleeding money. Nothing matters. Anyway, thank you guys so much. I appreciate y'all.

Always, and I'll see y'all very soon. What's up, guys? I'm on the road. I would love to see you guys there. Obviously, if you don't know, I'm a stand-up comedian, and stand-up comedy is my passion. It's the thing I love to do. And seeing you guys all come out to the shows truly makes my life. I hang out after the show.

and say what's up to everybody. So if you want to come through, check out the show, say what's up to me. It would mean the world. You can see me at all these dates and more on my website, mark agnonlive.com,

and I'll see you guys on the road.