The Shackleton Expedition 

In August 1914 Ernest Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven sailors and scientists left Britain for the Antarctic on the Endurance. The plan was to cross the Antarctic on foot. Only 80 miles from Endurance’s destination, the ship was caught in thick pack ice that splintered and sank it. The men set up camp on ice floes that drifted on a frigid sea 2,000 fathoms deep. Eventually they managed to sail lifeboats to Elephant Island, perhaps the most uninhabitable island on all of earth’s surface. Because the men were faced with sure death, Shackleton and a handful of his strongest men took the lifeboat James Caird  800 miles to South Georgia Island. The seventeen-day trip was unimaginably grueling. The men kept the boat afloat despite 60-foot waves—thousands of them each day—and sub-zero temperatures. When they reached their destination, they had to scale immense glaciers to get to help on the other side of the island. It took another three months to rescue his men. The entire ordeal lasted nearly two years.  

This song was written in 1998 by my great friend of 40+ years, David Kleiman (1954-2014) using some quotes from the Endurance logbooks, to a tune by another friend, Sarah Morgan (1948-2013)- I have unlimited perpetual permission to use/sing the song as I wish, so no copyright infringement.  The song was debuted by my then group, Water Sign (David Kleiman, Joy Bennett, Steve Mayer & Ellen Weiss), in 1999 at the opening of the Shackleton Expedition Exhibition, under the Blue Whale in the Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.  By the way, the entire Endurance crew miraculously survived.  The “companions” who perished and noted in the song, were sadly, the dogs.  

Joy Bennett