Jacinda Ardern and Ernest Shackleton's sled

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has a favourite item at Te Papa and in episode two, we discover that while it speaks to her of endurance, it's probably not what you might expected.

Not many politicians would choose as a hero a man as famous for finding trouble as he was for getting out of it. Yet when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gets up close and personal with one of the hand-made sleds from Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1907 Antarctic expedition she can hardly contain the excited child inside. "Incredible... Extraordinary," she gushes. It turns out Ardern has a little known obsession with the Irish-born explorer.

Watch a video from the episode here

Ardern confesses to having considered getting a tattoo of Shackleton. But where would she have put it?

"That became the problem," she laughs.

Shackleton may not be an easy hero and was a forgotten one for much of the 20th century. But he wasn't any old chancer; indeed, he's now regarded as a role model in team-building. He might have failed in his attempt to be the first to cross Antarctica in 1914, but the heroic leadership of his stranded crew over ice and sea, without a single loss of life, has become a story for the ages. And perhaps not bad inspiration for a leader of the modern Labour Party.

For episode two of Ours, as we discover 20 objects in Te Papa's collection that help tell the story of our country, Ardern went behind the scenes at Te Papa to see one of the bamboo, ash and hickory sleds Shackleton's crew hauled across the frozen continent on the earlier 1907 Nimrod expedition. It may be a story that takes place offshore, but the Nimrod set sail from Lyttleton and in 1914, Shackleton's ship the Endurance was captained by Cantabrian Frank Worsley.

New Zealand's connection and commitment to Antarctica runs deep, including Sir Edmund Hillary's 1957-8 journey to the South Pole (the first by motor vehicle) and the loss of 257 lives in the Mt Erebus air crash in 1979.

Ardern's passion for Shackleton stems from her father and the book, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. She lists it as her favourite read.

"It was Alfred Lansing’s version of the story that was published in the 1950s where he’d managed to get those eyewitness accounts - it was just such an extraordinary tale and I couldn’t imagine the human spirit let alone body that could have endured that and yet there it was," she says…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details