TheLittleTwentieth – Renowned Papers Edition, AI Infused

Local sources from United Kingdom: The Guardian, BBC.
UK coverage: The Guardian.

The wreck of the ship on which renowned Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton died has been found off the coast of Labrador, Canada, searchers have announced. Locating the Quest – a schooner-rigged steamship which sank on a 1962 seal hunting voyage – represents a last link to the “heroic age of Antarctic exploration”. Shackleton’s final voyage on the Quest marked the end of the Heroic Age of Exploration in the south. The ship’s discovery is of great historic significance due to its connection with the famous polar explorer. Shackleton, a British-Irish adventurer, is celebrated for his expeditions in Antarctica during a time when very few people had visited the frozen wilderness. The Quest’s final resting place was 7,500 miles away from where Shackleton died in 1922. The ship was found in 400 meters of water, 15 nautical miles from shore. The Quest’s discovery comes three years after the expeditions of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, who first reached the South Pole in 1914. Shackleton’s ill-fated expedition became one of the most grueling survival ordeals of all time. After his ship, the Endurance, became trapped in pack ice, Shackleton and his crew camped on unstable ice floes for months. The Endurance eventually sank, and Shackleton sailed with his crew in lifeboats to Elephant Island. Shackleton then embarked on an 800-mile journey in an open boat to reach the whaling station at Grytviken. Four months later, he succeeded in rescuing his crew from Elephant Island. Despite the Quest being smaller and less suited for polar expeditions than the Endurance, eight members of the Endurance crew joined Shackleton on the Quest for his next expedition. The Quest continued sailing for decades in various capacities, including serving as a minesweeper in the Caribbean during World War II. In May 1962, the ship struck ice and sank during a seal hunting voyage in the Labrador Sea. All crew members were rescued. The discovery of the Quest has been welcomed by Alexandra Shackleton, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s closest living relative. She noted that it is fitting for the ship to have ended its service in Canadian waters. The wreck of Shackleton’s previous ship, the Endurance, was discovered in 2022, preserved by the freezing waters of the Weddell Sea. The team of wreck hunters plans to return to the Quest’s wreck later this year to photograph it.