For almost five months, Shackleton and his men waited out the Antarctic weather, hoping their ice mass would drift toward Paulet Island, where supplies had been left by Swedish explorers in 1903. However, they drifted too far in the opposite direction and were forced to use the lifeboats they had carried since the sinking of the Endurance. Despite their five-day expedition to Elephant Island, they still had no hope of discovery by rescuers. Therefore, Shackleton and five other men set out to sea again. Fifteen days later, they reached the small island of South Georgia, but they landed on the southern, uninhabited, shore.

Now, with a new dilemma before him, Shackleton had to decide whether to chance a trek across the island to the northern shore where there was a whaling station or to sail around the island in the lifeboat. He chose the foot crossing. What’s actually quite remarkable is that that the thirty-six-hour trek that Shackleton and his men achieved was nearly impossible, or more likely, improbable. There is almost irony in the fact that Shackleton set out to march across the Antarctic continent to set a record, but he and his fellow crew set a record for climbing across the island of South Georgia instead. Regardless, they successfully crossed the island and came to the whaling station on the northern shore. Fortunately, from there the story only gets better. Immediately, a boat was sent to rescue the three men on the other side of South Georgia and, about three months later, the Yelcho was able to rescue the men stranded on Elephant Island.