Historian obtains pics of Empress of Ireland salvage operation

The two photos that popped up for sale on eBay appeared at first glance to be nothing more than a piece of Quebec maritime nostalgia: men on a wharf in the early 20th century, with a caption reading simply “lighthouse, Gaspé 1910.”

But historian David Saint-Pierre, who was sent the link by a friend, immediately knew they were something more.

The lighthouse wasn’t in Gaspé, but was rather the Pointe-au-Père, or Father Point, lighthouse near Rimouski, Que. And the men on the wharf were British sailors brought to aid in the salvage operation after Canada’s deadliest maritime disaster: the sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland in 1914.

“As soon as I saw the two photos, I knew that that scene was related to salvage on the Empress of Ireland,” said Saint-Pierre, a maritime historian who has written a book about the shipwreck.

The 170-metre-long ocean liner provided passenger service from the United Kingdom to Canada until it collided with a Norwegian vessel in the St. Lawrence River on May 29, 1914. It took just 14 minutes to sink, resulting in the death of 1,012 of the 1,477 passengers.

Saint-Pierre, who grew up in Rimouski, said identifying the photos was easy because the Empress sinking was the only time British sailors are known to have visited the area. He said the large buoys shown in the photos, used to mark the site of the wreck, provided another clue.

However, Saint-Pierre’s detective work was only beginning. He noticed the image of the back of the photos had bits of paper attached, suggesting they had been pulled from an album.

He managed to track down the seller, who was in Tennessee, and agreed to purchase the entire album, which contains hundreds of old maritime photos. Of those, dozens contain images of the Empress of Ireland, including a rare photo of a body being removed from the water.

Saint-Pierre declined to say how much he paid for the album, although he said it was “expensive” for him as an individual. But he said the album’s historical significance justified the price.

The ocean liner provided passenger service from the United Kingdom to Canada until it collided with a Norwegian vessel in the St. Lawrence River on May 29, 1914