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The End of the Heroic Era

The cairn and memorial cross stand on Hope Point overlooking King Edward Cove. Image courtesy of State Library of New South Wales.

The Shackleton-Rowett Antarctic Expedition is remembered for the untimely death of its leader. The proposed programme was ambitious and despite the limitations of an inadequate vessel and the loss of its leader, the expedition persevered and made some useful contributions to the knowledge of little-known places in the South Atlantic.

A hiatus followed the return of Quest, with no significant expeditions to the Antarctic for another seven years; so ended the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. South Georgia was a fitting location for the end of a heroic story. Shackleton’s sudden death in the quiet waters of Grytviken created a dramatic, if premature, finale. His grave in a simple cemetery on a remote and beautiful island, has become a place of pilgrimage where hundreds of visitors gather every year to toast ‘the Boss’.

Macklin recorded in his diary, “I think this is as the boss would have had it himself, standing lonely on an island far from civilisation, surrounded by a stormy tempestuous sea, and in the vicinity of one of his greatest exploits.”

The burial at Grytviken cemetery overlooking King Edward Cove. Image courtesy of Thomas Binnie.
Visitors come from far and wide to visit the grave and to toast the Boss. Image courtesy of Pat Lurcock.

In his own lifetime Sir Ernest Shackleton had won world-renown as an intrepid Antarctic explorer. One hundred years later, his reputation endures as a charismatic leader who was forever loyal to his men. As Apsley Cherry-Garrard, of Scott’s last expedition, wrote shortly after Shackleton’s death:

"If I am in a devil of a hole and want to get out of it give me Shackleton every time."

Kinemette Viewer. Digital Loan: from Jan Chojecki.
Into the Frozen South by Scout Marr (1927 edition, signed by K.Coleman), South Georgia Museum. D.1996.216
Shackleton’s Last Voyage by Frank Wild (1923 edition). South Georgia Museum. 2019.39
The Hope Cross plaque remains. Image Courtesy of Jayne Pierce.
Hope Cross today. Image courtesy of Jayne Pierce.