Moose Jaw Times-Herald: Sharing stories about the Empress of Ireland

Pascale Saint-Amand, project manager with the Site
historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Pere, stands in front of
the Empress of Ireland travelling exhibit at the Moose
Jaw Western Development Museum on Sunday.
Times-Herald photo by Lisa Goudy

By Lisa Goudy

After colliding with the Storstad coal boat, the Empress of Ireland only took 14 minutes to sink.

Leaving 465 survivors and killing 1,1012, the sinking of the Empress of Ireland on May 29, 1914 at 1:55 a.m. is the biggest maritime disaster in Canadian waters.

Pictures of the ship’s interior and rarely seen video images are among the items included in the travelling Empress of Ireland exhibit. From Friday until Tuesday the exhibit is at the Moose Jaw Western Development Museum (WDM). After that it will head to the Saskatoon WDM for a week.

“We wanted to show the Empress of Ireland in 1914. We wanted to show how it was inside it. You know, the services that were on board,” said Pascale Saint-Amand, project manager with the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Pere who is on hand to answer questions at the exhibit. 

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