Elephant Island

Elephant Island is celebrated in the history of polar exploration for having been the refuge of the 22 men of Ernest Shackleton's Endurance expedition, stranded here for more than four months in 1916 after their ship sank, trapped in the ice, while Shackleton and five companions sailed a small boat to South Georgia in search of help, in one of the most extraordinary feats of survival documented in the history of Antarctic exploration. Today it also holds one of the largest chinstrap penguin colonies in the world.