Shackletons Hut Antartica

In 2006, conservation workers excavating around the base of a wooden hut on Cape Royds, Ross Island, found five crates of whisky and brandy, intact and full, buried in the Antarctic ice since 1909. The whisky was eventually identified as Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt. Two bottles were carefully removed for analysis, a replica blend was produced by Whyte and Mackay, and the remaining bottles were reburied exactly where they were found. That hut is Shackleton’s Nimrod base, the most remote historically significant building most travellers will ever visit.

What the hut is and where it actually stands

The hut is not on Elephant Island (which has no comparable structure). It sits on Cape Royds, on the western edge of Ross Island, in the Ross Sea, at approximately 77 degrees south. This matters because reaching it requires a Ross Sea voyage, one of the more challenging and expensive expedition cruise routes in Antarctica, departing from Hobart in Australia or from Lyttelton or Bluff in New Zealand.

Ernest Shackleton and his 14-man party erected the prefabricated hut in ten days in early 1908. The structure was designed and built by Humphreys Limited of Knightsbridge, London, dimensioned at 33 feet by 19 feet, with each component numbered for reassembly on site. The party used it as their base during the Nimrod Expedition (1907 to 1909), during which they made the first ascent of Mount Erebus, the world’s southernmost active volcano, and came within 97 nautical miles of the Geographic South Pole before Shackleton made the call to turn back and save the lives of his team. He later described the decision in a letter to his wife: “I thought you’d rather have a live donkey than a dead lion.”

What is inside

The hut has been conserved by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust through decades of careful restoration, and the contents are extraordinary for their completeness. Original supplies remain on shelves: tinned goods, wholemeal biscuits marked “British Antarctic Expedition 1907,” and a medicine cabinet on the south wall with carbolic acid still labelled “poison.” Socks hang from lines strung between the bunks. Tattered gloves lie on cots. Newspapers sit where they were left. The cold and dry Antarctic conditions have preserved everything to a degree that no conventional museum storage could replicate. Walking through the door is as close as travel gets to stepping into a moment frozen in real time.

In the 2025 to 2026 conservation season, the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust conducted structural investigations using a small camera probe to examine inside the walls, helping conservators plan future roof and wall interventions. The Trust’s ongoing programme is the reason the hut remains accessible and stable.

How to get there

There is no independent access to Cape Royds. You reach it aboard an expedition cruise ship, typically a purpose-built polar vessel carrying between 100 and 200 passengers under IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators) regulations. IAATO-registered vessels carrying more than 500 passengers are not permitted to land any passengers in Antarctica. Smaller vessels that can land are the only practical option.

Ross Sea itineraries are typically 20 to 30 days long and cost significantly more than the more common Antarctic Peninsula cruises departing from Ushuaia in Argentina. Expect to pay USD 15,000 to 30,000 per person for a Ross Sea voyage including the hut visit. Access on any given day depends on weather and sea ice conditions; operators cannot guarantee visits to specific sites.

The hut is adjacent to the world’s southernmost Adelie penguin colony, which adds wildlife observation to an already unusual day.

Pre-expedition bases

Most Ross Sea cruises board in Hobart, Lyttelton, or Bluff. If you are staging through Christchurch, New Zealand, the city is the logistics hub for the majority of Antarctic national programmes and has a good Antarctic Museum (the International Antarctic Centre near the airport, which is worth an afternoon) that provides useful context before you go south.

Antarctica tourism context

More than 100,000 tourists visited Antarctica in the 2024 to 2025 season, a record, with scientists increasingly calling for formal visitor caps that the Antarctic Treaty system has not yet implemented. IAATO sets voluntary site-specific visitor limits (typically no more than 100 people ashore at any one time at a given site) and operator guidelines, but total visitor numbers are uncapped. The combination of record numbers and an extraordinary, fragile destination makes choosing a rigorous, conservation-minded operator more than a marketing consideration. Ask any operator you consider whether they are IAATO members, what their waste management protocol is, and whether they have a biosecurity programme to prevent the transfer of pathogens between sites.

What to pack

The Antarctic exterior environment at Cape Royds (summer temperatures between -5C and +2C, wind chill considerably lower, UV exposure extreme at polar latitudes) requires layering: a waterproof and windproof outer shell, insulated mid-layer, thermal base layer, and waterproof boots rated to at least -20C. Good sunglasses or goggles are essential; polar UV reflected off snow and ice will damage your eyes within hours. Your operator will provide a detailed kit list, and reputable ones conduct a gear check before embarkation.

The most useful thing you can do before the voyage is read Shackleton’s own account of the Nimrod Expedition, published as “The Heart of the Antarctic” in 1909. The hut makes considerably more sense when you know what was planned and executed from within it.