Expedition leader John Geiger, chief mission specialist, Mark Pathy, and Bruce Strickrott, lead submersible pilot. Seeing the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s last ship, Quest, was a profound and 'remarkable experience,' Mr. Geiger says.Supplied
The first detailed images of the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s last ship, on which the famed explorer died, show the sunken vessel upright on the ocean’s floor, covered in sea life with fallen masts and surrounded by debris.
Shackleton, a renowned Anglo-Irish polar explorer, died of a heart attack during his final Antarctic voyage in 1922 while aboard Quest, a ship that was later used for sealing operations before sinking off the coast of Labrador in 1962.
After two years of planning, an international expedition led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, arrived Monday at the Quest wreck in the Labrador Sea, where a remote operated vehicle captured the first clear images of the sunken vessel.
And on Tuesday, a three-man team in the Alvin submersible dove down 390 metres to Quest, becoming the first to set eyes on the historic wreck. The Alvin was famously used to capture the first pictures of the sunken ocean liner Titanic in 1986.
John Geiger, chief executive officer of the society, was onboard the first sortie to the depths to view Quest. Speaking to The Globe and Mail shortly after resurfacing, he said when the ship’s outline loomed into view in the submersible’s lights it was a profound and “remarkable experience.”
“You’re crawling along just off the seabed, and suddenly, you realize that there’s a ghostly form of a ship, a bow of a ship revealing itself,” he said. “I mean it’s very striking. We were the first people to lay eyes on it since the ship sank in 1962.”
The expedition plans to scan and film the ship in detail over several days, producing a 3-D twin of the wreck, preserving its image for study by experts and viewing by the public. It is also planning a book of the expedition, replete with photographs.
Stray fishing nets wrap around the wreck of Quest, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s last ship.Supplied
Mr. Geiger said the wreck had suffered considerable damage after being crushed by ice and sinking while on a sealing expedition in the Labrador Sea. The entire crew had been rescued before it descended to the depths.
“It’s plunge point, the point where it hit the sea floor, is quite distant from where the wreck is now, so it had a catastrophic kind of impact, which caused damage, but it’s recognizably a ship, and hugely impressive.”
Mr. Geiger said from his porthole view it appeared that one of the masts was lying on the ship’s deck. Through a hole in its deck, he thought he spotted an enamel washstand.
He said the wreck was encrusted in sea creatures, such as anemones and pink coral and had become a haven for fish including cod and wolf fish.
The submersible was prevented from approaching parts of the wreckage that had become entangled in stray fishing nets, which could have proved hazardous.
He said he could not see the Quest’s original nameplate, but the team plans to look for it when surveying debris scattered about.
After its career as an exploration vessel ended, Quest was sold in 1923 and returned to its original vocation as a sealing ship. It sank off the coast of Labrador after suffering damage in 1962.
The wreck of Quest was discovered on an expedition led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2024. But it has taken two years of planning, in collaboration with the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to prepare for the voyage to film and survey the wreck on the research vessel Atlantis, which is operated by WHOI.
Mr. Geiger said the expedition was a huge endeavour, funded by millions of dollars in individual and corporate donations.
The bow of the vessel.Supplied
The expedition will spend several days at sea surveying Quest before embarking on the second leg of the venture. It plans to sail to waters off the coast of Greenland to survey Terra Nova, the last vessel of famed Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who perished with his entire team while returning from an expedition to the South Pole in 1912.
During the Second World War, Terra Nova was chartered to carry supplies to Greenland. The ship, built in Dundee, Scotland and launched in 1884, was damaged in 1943 while at sea and was deliberately sunk after the crew were rescued.
The expedition is using photogrammetric technology from Voyis Imaging, a company based in Waterloo, Ont., to capture detailed portraits of both ships.
Accompanying Mr. Geiger on the first dive to view Quest Tuesday was Mark Pathy, a Canadian businessman and philanthropist who previously travelled as a commercial astronaut to the international space station.
Mr. Pathy, the expedition’s chief mission specialist, was on the 2024 voyage that found Quest and said he hopes this expedition instills in young people the spirit of adventure.
“I hope it inspires people to explore the planet and to understand that there are undiscovered wonders to see and experience out there,” he said in a statement.
Quest, a Norwegian sealing vessel, with sails and auxiliary engine power, was purchased by Shackleton in 1921 for a planned expedition to the Beaufort Sea in the Canadian Arctic. But he was forced to cancel the expedition after the Canadian government unexpectedly pulled its funding.
The Anglo-Irish explorer, who had previously led three expeditions to Antarctic, instead embarked on a mapping voyage to the southernmost continent. While en route, he died suddenly of a heart attack. At the time of his death, in 1922, Quest was anchored off the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, where Shackleton’s grave still lies.
Mr. Geiger said Quest has historical significance, not just because of its ties to Canada, but because it was Shackleton’s last ship, and the place the renowned explorer tragically died.
“This is about as close as you can get to Shackleton. He died on that deck. This is where it all ended for him, at age 47 – a great tragedy.”