Who Was Ernest Shackleton?

Author/Guide: James Buckley

Why a Booktrail?

1914: The story of Ernest – a boy who became one of the most famous explorers of all time

ISBN: 978-0448479316
Genre: Adventure, Childrens

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What you need to know before your trail

As a boy he preferred reading sea stories to doing homework and, at age 16, became an apprentice seaman. Subsequently, Ernest Shackleton’s incredible journeys to the South Pole in the early 1900s made him one of the most famous explorers of modern times. His courage in the face of dangerous conditions and unforeseeable tragedies reveal the great leader that he was. His historic 1914 journey aboard the Endurance has all the drama of an action movie.

Locations

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Falkland Islands
A: South Georgia Island

Travel Guide

Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic

Ernest Shackleton was born in Kilkea, Ireland on February 15th, 1874. He lived in a large house on an Irish farm until he was six. On his wooden “ship” or in the nearby woods, Shackleton and his pals spent hours as pirates or ship captains or explorers. He moved with his family to Dublin when he was six.

Ernest’s sense of adventure was evident from an early age. One he dug a huge hole in the back garden and declared he was going to dig to Australia.
His aim was to go to the South Pole and in 1914, Shackleton made his third trip to the Antarctic with the ship ‘Endurance’, planning to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. They hoped to be the first ones to do so but a Norwegian team had beat them to it.

Early in 1915, ‘Endurance’ became trapped in the ice, and ten months later sank. The men had to leave the ship and set up camp on the ice fields. They did go for help and Shackleton even spent 16 days crossing 1,300 km of ocean to reach South Georgia where he summoned help. The remaining men from the ‘Endurance’ were rescued in August 1916. Not one member of the expedition died. ‘

On 5 January 1922, Shackleton died of a heart attack off South Georgia. He was buried on the island.