Fortuna Glacier

Fortuna Glacier, on the island of South Georgia, is a tidewater glacier at the mouth of Cumberland Sound. It is the largest glacier on the island, and is notable for two major events in the 20th century.

1916

In mid-April 1915, explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship (The ENDURANCE) with 27 members of his Antarctic expedition became locked in the polar ice in the Weddell Sea just off the Antarctica. In the spring of 1916, as the ice warmed and drifted north, the ship was crushed. The party used the lifeboats to get to Elephant Island, a desolate, uninhabited atoll at the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula. There they were stranded. Shackleton and five others crammed into a lifeboat (named the JAMES CAIRD), sailed across the frigid Scotia Sea for 800 miles, miraculously reaching South Georgia two weeks later. With great difficulty, they landed on the island's uninhabited west side at King Haaken Bay . Frostbitten and exhausted, with their clothing torn and crusted with sea salt, it was not feasible to set sail again in the wind, currents and huge seas to one of the whaling stations on the island's east side, which was the only human habitation on South Georgia. To get to there they had to cross unknown mountains and crevasse-riddled glaciers without equipment (at that time, the interior of the island was all but unknown). Unstoppable, Shackleton beached his boat and with two others made his daring traverse of the island, crossing the Fortuna Glacier in the process. Thirty-six hours later, without sleep or rest, they reached Stromness whaling station.

1982

When Argentina militarilly occupied the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, The British Armed Forces put into operation a plan called 'Operation Paraquet', which was to remove the Argentinian military presence on South Georgia and restore the island to British Soveriegnty. However, the first stage of the operation nearly came to disaster when two helicoptors carrying SBS Forces crashed on Fortuna Glacier. A third helicoptor succeeded in extracting the stranded troops and helicopter crewmen. No lives were lost.