Robert Grenier, the Canadian underwater archaeologist best known for leading the discovery of the 16th-century Basque whaling ship San Juan at Red Bay, Labrador, in 1978, has died aged 88.
Grenier died on 3 January in Gatineau, Quebec, following a career of more than four decades with Parks Canada, where he played a central role in establishing underwater archaeology as a scientific discipline in Canada.
The discovery of San Juan, which sank in 1565 after being blown onto rocks during a storm, provided direct archaeological evidence of early transatlantic whaling and the maritime industry in North America.
Grenier, head of Parks Canada’s underwater archaeology service at the time, directed the search for San Juan after research by Basque historian Selma Huxley identified the wreck’s probable location.
Grenier and his team of divers located the remains of the 24-metre-long, three-masted vessel largely intact and buried beneath centuries of silt at a depth of 9-10 metres.
An 8m-long rowing boat known as a chalupa, which would have been used for actively hunting the whales, was found beneath it.
‘I felt with my hands like a magician, just opening up a picture of the 16th century in Red Bay,’ Grenier said about his discovery. ‘To the Basques, this is the Holy Grail.’
The excavation became one of the largest underwater archaeological projects of its time and the first major excavation conducted in Arctic waters. Study of the vessel continued for more than 30 years, culminating in an extensive report published in 2007.
At least seven Basque ships, including San Juan, together with a number of chalupas and other equipment, have been found in Red Bay, indicating it was an industrial whaling port rather than a single wreck site. The area was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.
Born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, in 1937, Grenier held a master’s degree in classics and worked on excavations across Europe, the Americas and the Arctic.
As well as his work in Red Bay, between 1983 and 2008, he directed expeditions searching for Sir John Franklin’s lost ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, which were eventually found in 2014 and 2016 respectively.
He served as chair of UNESCO and ICOMOS’s International Scientific Committee on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2004.
Grenier retired from Parks Canada in 2011 and, in 2014, transferred the documentation from his San Juan research to the Basque maritime heritage organisation Albaola, based in Pasaia in Northern Spain.
Albaola is building a full-scale replica of San Juan in Pasaia, which was launched in November 2025 and is expected to sail to Red Bay in 2027. Grenier is survived by his wife, Caroline Marchand.
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