Legendary explorer of Antarctica Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance It sank more than a century ago and its wreck remained undiscovered at the bottom of the Weddell Sea until March 2022.
Now, the team behind its discovery has joined forces with the Oscar-winning film crew to produce a new National Geographic documentary showcasing how the ship’s final resting place was located.
“Endurance” features thousands of 3D scans captured by a 4K camera spread out at a depth of about 10,000 feet. It premiered at the London Film Festival last weekend before being released in cinemas and then on Disney+.
The never-before-seen footage captures everything from a flare gun and a man’s shoe to the dining utensils used by the crew and recognizable parts of the ship.
Falkland Islands Maritime Heritage Trust/National Geographic
“We were absolutely blown away,” Munson Pound, exploration director for the 2022 discovery team, told AFP. “We didn’t expect to see the ship’s wheel – the most symbolic part of the ship – standing there, upright.”
History broadcaster Dan Snow, executive producer of “Endurance,” called finding it in such an “amazing condition” an “amazing accomplishment.”
“No one has ever found a wooden shipwreck at a depth of 3,000 meters in one of the most remote places on Earth under the ice,” he said.
“It is important because it is connected to the story of Shackleton and the 1914-16 expedition, which is one of the greatest stories ever told – a story of leadership and survival like no other.”
The BBC reported that Frank Hurley, the expedition’s photographer, fired the flare gun that was discovered as the ship was lost to ice.
“Hurley got this flare gun, and he fired the flare gun into the air with a huge detonator in honor of the ship,” said mission leader John Shears. “Then he talked in his memoirs about putting it on the deck. And here we are. We come back more than 100 years later, and we find that flare gun, and it’s unbelievable.”
The goal of Anglo-Irish explorer Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctica expedition was to make the first land crossing of the frozen continent.
But her three-masted wooden sloop Endurance fell victim to the treacherous Weddell Sea, becoming stuck in the ice in January 1915. She gradually broke up and sank 10 months later.
Shackleton, Who died in 1922He described the sinking site as “the worst part of the worst sea in the world.”
Falkland Islands Maritime Heritage Trust/National Geographic
He cemented his status as an exploration legend by leading an epic escape for himself and 27 companions, on foot over ice and then in boats to the British overseas territory of South Georgia, about 870 miles east of the Falkland Islands.
“I believe in all the great survival stories you’ve ever heard, and this one takes the cake because it involves so many people,” said Jimmy Chin, who directed and co-produced the new film with Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi.
The husband-and-wife team who directed the Oscar-winning film “Free Solo” saw the expedition organized by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Foundation as an opportunity to “take the story to a new generation.”
“The ultimate polar challenge”
The documentary alternates between accounts of the original mission and 2022 missions, in which modern-day explorers conduct dozens of fruitless deep-sea dives using a modern submarine as the deadline to depart before winter approaches.
A trailer for the film shows footage from the original 1914 expedition as well as video from more recent searches.
Pound recounted the various challenges faced by the final day’s team, including technology, research and climate, with one thing reminiscent of what Shackleton’s men faced.
“Ice, ice, ice,” he said, adding that the documentary clearly highlights the “brutality” of the conditions they faced.
“This is probably the most challenging project I’ve ever been involved in… and it’s not called Unreachable Endurance for nothing, is it?”
Shears also said that there was a “real parallel” between the two attempts, and that he, like Shackleton, was drawn to the “ultimate polar challenge”.
“More people have gone into space orbit than have ever walked on surface sea ice where the Endurance sank,” said Shears, who previously led a failed attempt to find the wreckage in 2019.
Chen and Vasarhelyi said bringing the two stories together was difficult but complementary.
“The two stories, even though they are 110 years apart, speak to each other,” Vasarhelyi said.
“They both chronicle that basic human condition of daring to dream big… They have the ambition, along with the diligence, determination, grit and ingenuity to make it happen.”
To tell the original story, they chose to use artificial intelligence to capture diaries of Shackleton and six crew members in their voices, based on other recordings.
The filmmakers also used restored, color photographs and footage from the film’s journey taken by Frank Hurley.
But viewers will have to wait until the closing stages of the documentary to see the new take on Endurance, a choice that Vazrhelyi admitted was “terrible” but necessary.
“This was a great story with a great payoff, but you have to deserve it, right?” She explained.
“The beauty of it is that the film plays into this premise…and it goes with this amazing moment.”