Anglo-Irish Explorer Shackleton’s Ship The Quest Found Off Canada’s Coast

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - The wreck of the Quest, the last ship belonging to the renowned Irish-born British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, has been discovered off the coast of Labrador, Canada, after being missing for 62 years.

An international team led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society located the wreck using sonar scans on Sunday evening. The vessel was found resting on its keel at 390 meters (1,280 feet) in the turbulent, icy waters. The towering mast lies broken beside the wreck, likely snapped off as the ship was pulled into the depths after striking ice on May 5, 1962. This discovery sheds light on the fate of Shackleton's final expedition vessel and marks a significant historical find for maritime exploration.

In a significant discovery, a sonar image provided by the Canadian Geographic Society reveals the missing Quest ship, which belonged to the renowned Irish-born British explorer of Antarctica, Sir Ernest Shackleton. The wreck is seen resting on its keel underwater off the coast of Labrador, Canada, on Sunday, June 9, 2024. After 62 years of being missing, the Quest's final resting place has been located by an international team led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. This remarkable find sheds light on the legacy of Shackleton's expeditions and contributes to our understanding of maritime history. Credit: Royal Canadian Geographical Society

"I heard that some Americans were interested in finding Quest, and I just had this picture in my mind of a few billionaires on yachts, up in the Labrador Sea," John Geiger, leader of the Shackleton Quest Expedition and the chief executive of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, told an audience at the Memorial University's Marine Institute in St. John's, Newfoundland, on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

"We've done it the right way. It's not about anyone's ego, it's about telling great stories and celebrating some of the finest human attributes," Geiger said.

Geiger points out that the Quest holds significant historical importance as it was the ship on which the renowned explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton passed away in 1922. This event marked the end of what historians call the "heroic age" of Antarctic exploration. Shackleton led three British expeditions to the Antarctic and was in the early stages of his fourth expedition when he suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 47.

The Norwegian-built Quest was a schooner-rigged steamship Shackleton specifically acquired for a voyage to Canada's High Arctic. However, after the Canadian government canceled those plans, Shackleton embarked on another Antarctic expedition with the Quest.

Tragically, Shackleton died when the Quest was just off South Georgia, east of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. After his death, the ship was utilized for Arctic research before returning to its original purpose as a sealing vessel. The Quest sank in 1962 after sustaining damage from ice in the Labrador Sea during a whaling trip.

The recently discovered Quest wreckage appears to be in "incredible condition," despite the damage sustained when it slammed into the seabed.

As stated by Greiger, the ship in question will not be brought to the surface due to the prohibitive costs involved. Instead, a crew is expected to embark on an expedition before the end of summer to thoroughly document and study the vessel using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to capture footage.

In 2022, researchers made a remarkable discovery when they located another of Shackleton's ships, the Endurance, at approximately 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) beneath the icy waters of the Antarctic, a century after it was swallowed by the ice.

This photo provided by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society shows the Quest ship sinking off of Labrador, Canada, on May 5, 1962. Credit: Royal Canadian Geographical Society

A team of marine archaeologists, engineers, and other scientists aboard an icebreaker ship utilized underwater drones to locate the wreck at the bottom of the Weddell Sea near the Antarctic Peninsula. The expedition, dubbed Endurance22, set sail from Cape Town, South Africa, in early February aboard a vessel capable of breaking through ice up to 1 meter (3 feet) thick.

The team, comprising more than 100 researchers and crew members, deployed underwater drones that scoured the seafloor for two weeks in the area where the ship was recorded to have sunk in 1915.

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Despite his ambition to become the first person to cross Antarctica via the South Pole, Shackleton never achieved this feat during the failed Endurance expedition. Although he had visited Antarctica during earlier expeditions, he never set foot on the continent during that voyage.

Written by Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com Staff Writer