A hushed buzz filled a mood-lit lecture hall inside Memorial University’s Marine Institute on Wednesday morning as anticipation grew among a crowd of naval enthusiasts ahead of a historic announcement.
Then it came: the last vessel helmed by famed Anglo-Irish explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton — lost for more than 60 years — has been discovered on the ocean floor, less than half a kilometre off Labrador’s south coast, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society told the crowd.
Expedition leader John Geiger, the society’s CEO, said the wreck was found in the Labrador Sea, lying at a depth of 390 metres. He added it was in the vicinity of where the ship had been reported to have sunk, but took about 17 hours to pinpoint.
”This is a very important vessel. Historically it was the final expedition ship of Sir Ernest Shackleton,” he said. “As many of you know, he died on this ship on his final expedition of the Shackleton–Rowett expedition, which set out to initially explore Canada.”
The discovery was six years in the making for the RCGS crew. Using sonar operated by Marine Institute staff, the international team say they found the Quest off the coast near Battle Harbour on Sunday, five days into an expedition that left June 5 and was plagued by technological issues.
Shackleton died of a heart attack aboard the Quest in 1922, at the age of 47, near the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic during a voyage to Antarctica.
The Quest, a schooner-rigged steamship, remained in service for decades afterward, including as a minesweeper in World War Two and as a sealing vessel. In 1962 it struck ice and sank off Labrador’s coast.
Search director David Mearns said he’s certain the vessel the team found is the Quest.
David Mearns, a marine scientist who served as director in the search for explorer Ernest Shackleton’s last ship, says researchers plan to go back to the site this summer to better document the wreckage of the ship, which sank off the coast of Labrador.
“It’s largely intact. We’ll be very excited for the second phase of the expedition, which is to actually photograph and visually document the shipwreck and the artifacts,” said Mearns.
“This is now a part of Canadian cultural heritage, Newfoundland cultural heritage, but world cultural heritage. It’s a very, very significant shipwreck.”
Mearns hopes that trip will take place later this summer, but firm dates have yet to be nailed down.
The team searched in an area of about 24 square nautical miles.
“That search box was determined by our analysis of the uncertainty of the navigation position where the ship was lost. We only had a single position, just one position, for the sinking,” he said.
“Because when we go out searching for shipwrecks we don’t search for X’s. We don’t go to spots. We search for boxes. And those boxes have to give us the highest possible chance of finding the shipwreck.”
Shackleton Quest expedition leader John Geiger describes watching ‘clear signs of a shipwreck’ come in on a monitor after hours of searching for Quest, the wreck of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s last ship.
Passion project
The pursuit of the Quest was part passion project and part milestone moment.
This year marks 150 since Shackleton’s birth, and Geiger said everyone involved in the expedition is simply a fan of the famed explorer.
“When I discovered that his ship, Quest, the ship he died on, was lying off the coast of Labrador, north of Newfoundland, I was just astonished,” he said. “And that was the moment I thought, well, we’ve got to find it.”
But the expedition was also a reason to tell great stories about Shackleton’s life of Shackleton and how the Quest led different lives for years after its owner died.
The impetus to actually set sail came from rumours that another company was planning its own voyage to claim the discovery.
“Really what pushed me forward, this in the last year, was I heard that some some Americans were interested in finding Quest, and I just had this picture in my mind of, you know, a few billionaires on yachts, you know, up in the Labrador sea,” said Geiger. “I just thought it would be a terrible crime if Quest were found by those sorts of people.”
Shackelton’s granddaughter Alexandra Shackleton was a patron of the expedition to find the Quest.
“It is perhaps fitting that the ship should have ended its storied service in Canadian waters. I have long hoped for this day and am grateful to those who made this incredible discovery,” she said in the statement.
Traditional Chief Mi’sel Joe of the Miawpukek First Nation, another expedition patron, said he was happy the vessel had been found, noting it had sunk in waters off Mi’kmaw, Innu and Inuit territories.
“I was happy to share local knowledge with the captain and crew of the search vessel ahead of time to find Quest and honoured that Miawpukek Horizon Marine assisted in planning the expedition.”
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