Irish explorer's last ship, Quest, found in the depths off Labrador

Ernest Shackleton had died on the ship in 1922 at age 47

- SARAH SMELLIE

The Quest sinks off the coast of Labrador in 1962. A Royal Canadian Geographical Society crew has found the long-sought wreck that belonged to famed Irish explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.

ST. JOHN’S , N .L . The wreck of the last ship belonging to Sir Ernest Shackleton, the famed Irish explorer of Antarctica, has been found off the coast of Labrador by an international team led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

The Quest was found using sonar scans on Sunday evening, sitting on its keel under 390 metres of churning, frigid water. Its towering mast is lying broken beside it, likely cracked off as the vessel was sucked into the depths after it struck ice on May 5, 1962.

A side-scan sonar image shows the wreck of the Quest.

Shackleton’s death aboard the ship in 1922 marked the end of what historians consider the “heroic age” of Antarctic exploration. The explorer led three British expeditions to the Antarctic, and he was in the early stages of a fourth when he died. He was 47.