In 1916, Punta Arenas became the launching point for one of the most extraordinary rescue missions in Antarctic history.

And the ship sent to do it was not exactly built for the job.

More than a year earlier, British explorer Ernest Shackleton had set out on an ambitious expedition to cross Antarctica. Before he and his men could even reach the continent, their ship, the Endurance, became trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea.

For months, the crew drifted helplessly with the frozen ship.

Then the ice finally won.

In November 1915, the Endurance sank beneath the Antarctic ice, leaving Shackleton and his crew stranded with little more than lifeboats, supplies, and whatever they had managed to save from the ship.

Eventually, the men reached remote Elephant Island.

They were alive.

But there was one enormous problem.

Almost no one knew where they were.

Elephant Island was isolated, bitterly cold, and far outside normal shipping routes. Waiting there indefinitely was not an option.

So Shackleton made an almost unbelievable decision.

He and five men climbed into a small lifeboat called the James Caird and attempted an approximately 800-mile journey across the Southern Ocean to South Georgia Island.

They somehow made it.

But 22 men were still waiting on Elephant Island.

Shackleton immediately began trying to get back to them.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Each rescue attempt failed because heavy sea ice blocked the way.

By then, the men on Elephant Island had been stranded for months, living beneath overturned boats, rationing food, and watching the horizon for a ship that never seemed to come.

Then Chile offered help.

The Chilean government provided Shackleton with the Yelcho, a small steam-powered vessel commanded by Captain Luis Pardo Villalón of the Chilean Navy.

Calling the Yelcho an Antarctic rescue ship would have been generous.

It had no reinforced hull for breaking through ice.

No radio.

No electric lighting.

And it certainly had not been designed to navigate one of the most unforgiving environments on Earth.

But Captain Pardo agreed to go.

On August 25, 1916, the Yelcho sailed south from the Punta Arenas area with Shackleton aboard.

There was no guarantee they would reach Elephant Island.

There was no guarantee they would make it back.

But five days later, through rough seas, fog, and drifting ice, something appeared through the mist.

Elephant Island.

And on the shore were 22 men who had been waiting more than four months for that moment.

When the stranded crew realized a ship was approaching, they could hardly believe what they were seeing.

This time, it wasn’t another false hope on the horizon.

Shackleton had come back.

Within roughly an hour, every one of the 22 men had been taken aboard the Yelcho.

Not one was left behind.

The little Chilean ship that had never been designed for Antarctic waters had succeeded where three previous rescue attempts had failed.

When the Yelcho returned north, Captain Pardo and his crew were welcomed as heroes.

But Pardo reportedly resisted attempts to turn him into one.

He had simply done his duty.

More than a century later, his story is still woven into Punta Arenas.

A monument along the city’s waterfront honors Luis Pardo, looking south toward the waters that eventually lead to Antarctica.

And knowing the story behind it changes the way you see that coastline.

The Strait of Magellan is no longer just a beautiful stretch of water at the bottom of Chile.

It becomes the beginning of a journey.

A small ship sailed south from here toward one of the harshest places on Earth, searching for 22 men who had almost no reason left to believe anyone was coming.

And somehow, it found them.

At the end of the world, hope arrived aboard a little ship called the Yelcho.