Sir Ernest Shackleton is quite a legendary, spectacular figure. He led three Antarctic expeditions, originally with the desire to be the first person to reach the South Pole, but was beaten to it by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. At which point, Shackleton decided on a new goal: to be the first person to cross Antarctica through the South Pole.
In all three of his expeditions, everybody remarkably survived except on the third expedition aboard the Endurance, when he and his crewmen became stranded in ice and were forced to make the toughest decision to survive. They had several sled dogs as well as the carpenter's cat on that expedition, but due to the conditions they found themselves in, some of those dogs and the cat had to be sacrificed.
Still, the incredible ending to the story is that all 28 of the crew returned safely to London after two years and several grueling experiences at sea and on the ice. After that, Shackleton went on his last trip to circumnavigate the South Pole. Unfortunately, it was on this fourth expedition that he died from a heart attack at sea. He was aboard the Quest, which was later used as an exploration vessel by Norwegian explorers before it sank in 1962.
Now, 40 years later, a group of divers, historians, and oceanographers from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, have finally found the wreckage of the Quest. By looking through historical data parsed with modern technology, they were able to locate the ship's possible coordinates based on currents, weather conditions, and other factors.
The surprising thing about the discovery of the Quest was that Shackleton's granddaughter, Hon. Alexandra Shackleton, was a co-patron of that expedition that discovered the Quest. Later this year, the explorers plan on making a second expedition to document the wreckage and the artifacts.
(Image credit: Royal Canadian Geographical Society/X)
Video credit: CBC News