A New Expedition Will Create 3D Digital Twins of Polar Shipwrecks Tied to Voyages of Rival Explorers Who Raced to the South Pole

Robert Falcon Scott led an expedition aboard the ship ‘Terra Nova’ and Ernest Shackleton led one from the ship ‘Quest’—but neither explorer got to plant the first flag in the heart of Antarctica

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

July 6, 2026 1:44 p.m.

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An international team of researchers launched an expedition this month to document the sunken remains of two of history’s most famous polar ships.

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the U.S.-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have embarked on what they call a “once-in-a-generation” journey to survey Quest and Terra Nova, two of the most important vessels during the fanatical era of Antarctic exploration that peaked around the turn of the 20th century.

The ships are best remembered today as the vessels related to the expeditions and eventual deaths of prolific oceanic explorers Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott.

“The bravery and leadership demonstrated by these two polar heroes have inspired generations of explorers over the years, and our hope is that by documenting their last ships with the latest technology, we too can inspire the next generation of explorers worldwide,” David Mearns, co-chief scientist of the expedition, says in a statement.

For years, the ships have sat at the bottom of the Labrador Sea: Terra Nova off the coast of Greenland, and Quest off the coast of Canada. During this summer’s 21-day trip, researchers will travel to both locations and use underwater imaging technology to create three-dimensional renderings of the wrecks rather than attempt to recover them in full.

“It’s a series of images that are then effectively stitched together,” Brenden St. John, the head of ocean science for Voyis, the company that developed the technology, tells CBC News’ Colin Butler. “And that’s all going to be available in real time, which is actually quite exciting. Who knows what we’re going to see down there?”

The so-called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, which spanned roughly from 1898 to 1922, saw more than a dozen expeditions from Europe officially chart their courses for the largely unmapped, unexplored South Pole.

Few figures were as central to this frenzy as Shackleton and Scott. The two men started as colleagues, sailing together from 1901 to 1904 on Scott’s Discovery expedition and coming within 460 miles of the Antarctic pole. Shackleton fell ill to scurvy and Scott made the decision to turn the crew around, “a humiliation Shackleton never forgave,” according to the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

The former mates became heated rivals in the quest to become the first explorers to reach the South Pole. In the end, neither achieved that goal. The honor was ultimately credited to Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who planted his flag by the end of 1911.

Scott came the closest, reaching the pole just a few weeks later.

“Imagine the blow that would be,” expedition leader and Royal Canadian Geographical Society CEO John Geiger says in a statement. “You might think that being number two would not be a great indignity for a feat of that kind. But their morale would have been completely destroyed.”

Scott never made it home, dying from hunger and exhaustion on his way back to Terra Nova. In 1922, Shackleton suffered a fatal heart attack while on board Quest while docked near the island of South Georgia.

Both ships were sold and repurposed following their captains’ deaths. Terra Nova was used primarily to hunt seals in Newfoundland before being repurposed during World War II to transport supplies between Canada and U.S. naval bases on Greenland. It was sunk in 1943 following a boiler-room mishap that rendered it unnavigable, and was rediscovered in 2012.

Quest also was used as a sealing ship in harsh Arctic landscapes. Its fate was sealed in 1962, when it became wedged in between two ice floes as water flowed onboard. Crew members evacuated, and its wreckage was discovered in 2024.

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.