Lost and found, then almost lost: 100-year-old photos linked to Quebec shipwreck make it home
CBC
David Saint-Pierre was reading in his living room when he received a message that would lead him to make a "once in a lifetime" discovery.
His friend, Sébastien Hudon, alerted him to two photos for sale on eBay. He said they seemed to be related to maritime history, Saint-Pierre's specialty.
"[He] just happened to stumble upon two photos that were for sale on an online auction site," said Saint-Pierre.
"He said, 'well David, I think this is probably in your turf.'"
He was right.
The background of the photos depicted Pointe-au-Père's lighthouse, in Rimouski, Que. with British sailors transporting heavy equipment on a wharf.
Saint-Pierre says he immediately connected the dots.
The only time British sailors were in Rimouski in that period was to prepare diving operations to search for the Empress of Ireland in 1914.
"So I knew exactly right there and then what it was," said Saint-Pierre.
As a maritime historian, Saint-Pierre has studied the history of the Empress of Ireland for about 30 years.
The ship sank off the coast of Pointe-au-Père on May 29, 1914 after a collision with a Norwegian cargo ship, killing 1,012 people on board.
WATCH | A survivor of the Empress shipwreck remembers:
In the 1990s, Saint-Pierre worked at the Site historique maritime de Pointe-au-Père, dedicated to the shipwreck's history in Rimouski, Que. Little did he know he would be the one to find precious historical material about the little-known salvage efforts to recover the deceased.
Saint-Pierre immediately reached out to the seller of the photos and began what was to become a year-long project to acquire the album, study the images and contact the relatives of the original owner.
