page_title: Ernest Shackleton
section_title: Nimrod expedition, 1907–1909
hierarchical_section_title: Ernest Shackleton / Nimrod expedition, 1907–1909
caption_attribution_description: English: Nimrod Expedition South Pole Party (left to right): Wild, Shackleton, Marshall and Adams. The four members of the party that set out to attempt to become the first to reach the South pole, they were defeated by the weather, but also a lack of supplies and suitable equipment just 97 miles from the South Pole, a point they reached on January the 9th 1909. Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) British Imperial Antarctic Expedition "Nimrod - Expedition", 1907 -1909 Türkçe: Nimrod keşif seferi ekibi, (soldan sağa): Wild, Shackleton, Marshall ve Adams
context_page_description: Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton CVO OBE FRGS FRSGS was an 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.
  Shackleton's first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery expedition of 1901–1904, from which he was sent home early on health grounds, after he and his companions Scott and Edward Adrian Wilson set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S. During the Nimrod expedition of 1907–1909, he and three companions established a new record Farthest South latitude at 88°S, only 97 geographical miles from the South Pole, the largest advance to the pole in exploration history. Also, members of his team climbed Mount Erebus, the most active Antarctic volcano. For these achievements, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.
  After the race to the South Pole ended in December 1911, with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to the crossing of Antarctica from sea to sea, via the pole.
context_section_description: On 1 January 1908, the Nimrod set off on the British Antarctic Expedition from Lyttelton Harbour, New Zealand. Shackleton's original plans had envisaged using the old Discovery base in McMurdo Sound to launch his attempts on the South Pole and South Magnetic Pole. Before leaving England, he had been pressured to give an undertaking to Scott that he would not base himself in the McMurdo area, which Scott was claiming as his own field of work. Shackleton reluctantly agreed to look for winter quarters at either the Barrier Inlet—which Discovery had briefly visited in 1902 – or King Edward VII Land.
  To conserve coal, the ship was towed 1,650 miles (2,655 km) by the steamer Koonya to the Antarctic ice, after Shackleton had persuaded the New Zealand government and the Union Steamship Company to share the cost. In accordance with Shackleton's promise to Scott, the ship headed for the eastern sector of the Great Ice Barrier, arriving there on 21 January 1908. They found that the Barrier Inlet had expanded to form a large bay, in which were hundreds of whales, which led to the immediate christening of the area as the Bay of Whales.
  It was noted that ice conditions were unstable, precluding the establishment of a safe base there. An extended search for an anchorage at King Edward VII Land proved equally fruitless, so Shackleton was forced to break his undertaking to Scott and set sail for McMurdo Sound, a decision which, according to second officer Arthur Harbord, was "dictated by common sense" in view of the difficulties of ice pressure, coal shortage and the lack of any nearer known base. Nimrod arrived at McMurdo Sound on 29 January, but was stopped by ice 16 miles (26 km) north of Discovery's old base at Hut Point. After considerable weather delays, Shackleton's base was eventually established at Cape Royds, about 24 miles (39 km) north of Hut Point. The party was in high spirits, despite the difficult conditions; Shackleton's ability to communicate with each man kept the party happy and focused.
  The "Great Southern Journey", as Frank Wild called it, began on 29 October 1908. On 9 January 1909, Shackleton and three companions—Wild, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams—reached a new Farthest South latitude of 88° 23' S, a point only 112 miles (180 km) from the Pole. En route the South Pole party discovered the Beardmore Glacier—named after Shackleton's patron—and became the first persons to see and travel on the South Polar Plateau. Their return journey to McMurdo Sound was a race against starvation, on half-rations for much of the way. At one point, Shackleton gave his one biscuit allotted for the day to the ailing Frank Wild, who wrote in his diary: "All the money that was ever minted would not have bought that biscuit and the remembrance of that sacrifice will never leave me". They arrived at Hut Point just in time to catch the ship.
  The expedition's other main accomplishments included the first ascent of Mount Erebus, and the discovery of the approximate location of the South Magnetic Pole, reached on 16 January 1909, by Edgeworth David, Douglas Mawson, and Alistair Mackay. Shackleton returned to the United Kingdom as a hero, and soon afterwards published his expedition account, Heart of the Antarctic. Emily Shackleton later recorded: "The only comment he made to me about not reaching the Pole was 'a live donkey is better than a dead lion, isn't it?' and I said 'Yes darling, as far as I am concerned'".
  In 1910, Shackleton made a series of three recordings describing the expedition using an Edison phonograph. Several mostly intact cases of whisky and brandy left behind in 1909 were recovered in 2010, for analysis by a distilling company. A revival of the vintage—and since lost—formula for the particular brands found has been offered for sale with a portion of the proceeds to benefit the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust which discovered the lost spirits.
caption: South Pole party: Frank Wild, Shackleton, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "1350", "Image YResolution": "1350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:01:09 17:34:16", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6542", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1386", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1029"}