With the news of the discovery of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s last expedition ship, Quest, off the Canadian coast, we look back at one of the famed Antarctic explorer’s earlier expeditions. This letter was written as the 1901 British National Antarctic Expedition, known as the Discovery Expedition after the vessel used in the enterprise, headed south via Lyttleton Harbour in New Zealand. Shackleton, Discovery’s Third Officer, wrote to Lyttleton harbour pilot Alfred Thorpe, expressing his thanks for