A map of the Endurance mission, starting at South Georgia Island and ending at South Georgia Island.

To the left, Shackleton's men pushing the James Caird into the water to make the dangerous journey for rescue to South Georgia Island.

They created a temporary camp called Ocean Camp, sending small groups to retrieve whatever they could from the ship’s wreck. Shackleton, standing high up, watched the ship. "She's going, boys," he said. Everyone watched as the Endurance was slowly swallowed up by the ice on November 21st, 1915. Shortly after the Endurance truly sank, they moved on from Ocean Camp and found another floe, which, this time, they dubbed “Patience Camp.” They remained on Patience Camp for months until the floe cracked in the middle of the night. The crew worked to get the smaller lifeboats they had salvaged from the main ship into the water and sailed them to the first land they had touched in a year, Elephant Island. Shackleton knew they could not camp there forever, so on April 16, 1916, he took a few crew members and took them on one of the boats. This journey was to South Georgia, their only hope of getting rescued. However, South Georgia was far from their current location and a tiny target. They would miss and possibly never return if they were slightly off in their trajectory. When they landed on the island, they ended up on the wrong side, where no ships would ever pass. They had to climb over jagged mountains without any gear to get to the other side. Back on Elephant Island, the crew tried to keep their hopes up. Wild, who greatly looked up to Shackleton, would remind everyone to keep their things packed daily because ‘the boss might come tomorrow!’ People became sick of his assurance as hopeless days passed. Then, on August 30th, they saw a boat in the distance. Shackleton and his party were successful and came back to rescue them!