Salvage story told through a treasure trove of images

The sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914 remains the worst peacetime disaster in Canadian history. Of the 1,477 people onboard, 1,012 died as the ocean liner went down in just 14 minutes.

Montreal-based historian David Saint-Pierre has made it his life's work to ensure the tragedy is never forgotten. Saint-Pierre has already written about the Empress of Ireland in other books and collaborated on TV documentaries, but his latest work could well be of most interest to a maritime readership, as it focuses on the marine salvage work after the sinking.

Like its better-known contemporary RMS Titanic, RMS Empress of Ireland was a British-built ocean liner often used by European emigrants to North America. The Empress usually served Canadian rather than US ports, travelling along the St Lawrence River.

The ship was steaming along the river en route to Liverpool in the early hours of 29 May 1914 when it suffered a collision in thick fog with the Norwegian collier Storstad. There were ample lifeboats onboard, as lessons had been learnt from the Titanic disaster two years earlier, but the vessel foundered too quickly for the crew to launch them.

A rescue mission was immediately launched after the crew telegraphed an SOS, but sadly more bodies than survivors were brought to the nearby town of Rimouski. Saint-Pierre pays tribute to the victims in the opening chapters, but this book focuses more on the salvage operation carried out in later months.

That is because of a surprising discovery: an album of photos taken during this operation that came to Saint-Pierre's attention in 2021. A friend showed him two '1908' pictures of the St Lawrence River on an auction site, and he realised they must be mislabelled, because they showed participants in a salvage operation which could only be for the Empress of Ireland. Saint-Pierre chased down the photo seller and discovered that the pictures were from a whole album, which he swiftly purchased.

The author makes exemplary use of these photos – and many others – throughout In the Wake of the Empress of Ireland, looking at the maritime professionals involved in the salvage operation and the challenges they faced using the diving and lifting equipment of the time. He discovered that the photos were taken by one of the salvors, Ralph Stratton Blydenburgh, whose grandson has written a foreword for the book.

The fascinating images include a picture of mail retrieved from the wreck, which was taken to prove the salvors' skill in keeping the letters legible. Other documented finds include a selection of silver bars, but most interesting is simply seeing the international seafarers and dive teams at work.

In the Wake of the Empress of Ireland
By David Saint-Pierre
History Press, £22.99
ISBN: 978 18039 98213