These were some of the twenty-eight. The rest of the crew — scientists, deckhands, surgeons, engineers, firemen — form a complete picture only when taken together. Their individual personalities, individual competencies, and individual failures of nerve and faith (there were some, and the accounts record them honestly) are all part of the story. They were not a team of heroes. They were a collection of human beings in an unprecedented situation, and the fact that they all got out is partly a result of what they were and partly a result of what the situation demanded of them.
—
## Into the Ice
The Endurance reached the pack ice of the Weddell Sea in December 1914. The ice was heavier than expected. Previous expeditions had found the Weddell Sea more navigable; this season, conditions were unusually severe. The ship pressed south anyway, finding leads — channels of open water — where it could, forcing through thin ice where it could not find open water, and making progress that was slower than Shackleton had planned but progress nonetheless.
On January 18, 1915, one day’s sail from the intended landing point on the Antarctic coast, the Endurance became beset. The pack ice closed around the hull and locked it in place. There was nowhere to go. The leads had closed. The ship could not move forward and could not back out. It was held.
The crew waited for a thaw that did not come. They converted the ship from a navigating vessel to a winter station. They built kennels on the ice for the sled dogs. They organized scientific work, meals, recreational activities. They played football on the frozen sea around the ship. Hurley photographed everything — the dogs, the ship caught in ice, the sky, the men — in images that were simultaneously scientific documentation and a record of something no camera had ever been pointed at before.