The Quest, the ship on which Sir Ernest Shackleton had attempted his last expedition to Antarctica, has been located by a research team off the coast of Labrador.
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society held a news conference at the Marine Institute this morning to outline the findings of an international research team tasked to find the historic wreck.
Shackleton died of a heart attack on board the Quest at South George Island while on his way to map the islands of Antarctica in January of 1922.
After his death, the ship was sold to a Norwegian company and was used in a number of expeditions in the 1930s, before being used by the Royal Canadian Navy in WWII for Arctic rescue.
She got caught in the sea ice in 1962 and sank to the bottom, but until recently, her exact whereabouts were unknown. CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and expedition lead John Geiger says the ship was found off the coast of southern Labrador east of Port Hope Simpson.
“It’s lying in 390 metres of water,” Geiger says “we were able to find it within the vicinity of where the ship was reported by its Norwegian owners at the time to have been lost.”
The ship, historically important because of it’s connections to Shackleton, also has a significant role in Canadian history.
(Photo via Royal Canadian Geographical Society)
Shackleton had purchased the Quest to lead a Canadian Arctic expedition, but then-Prime Minister Arthur Meighen pulled the plug on the project at the last minute.
“He had a ship, he had a crew, he had provisions, he had announced his intention to go on an expedition to the media, but he did not have a destination, so he headed south to Antarctica and it was there that he tragically died off the coast of South Georgia.”
