In 1907, Jean-Baptiste Charcot launched a new Antarctic expedition and began work on a new ship, Pourquoi-Pas (IV), a three-masted barque designed for polar exploration, equipped with a motor and containing three laboratories and a library.

From 1925 onwards, limited by age, Charcot lost command of the ship (though he remained on board as head of the expedition) for her many voyages around the Arctic glaciers.

In 1926, Charcot and Pourquoi-Pas explored the eastern coast of Greenland and brought back many fossils and samples of insects and flora.

In 1934, Charcot and Pourquoi-Pas set up an ethnographic mission in Greenland headed by Paul-Émile Victor, who spent a year in Angmagssalik living amid the Eskimo population.

On 16 September that year, the ship managed to reach a small port to escape a cyclone which ravaged the coasts of Iceland.