I’m writing this on Saturday April 26, which happens to be Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. It’s a great time to visit your local bookstore, hang out with authors, find things for the kids to do, and maybe win a gift card or a bundle of books.
It’s also a way to say thanks to the booksellers, who support us through launches, readings, and with their vast knowledge of and passion for books. Bookstores make our world a better place.
The Globe & Mail chose Beneath Dark Waters as was one of their TOP reads this spring
The Province named Beneath Dark Waters as one of five BC must reads
Beneath Dark Waters was one of Pat St. Germain 5 picks for Canadian books to read this spring. The syndicated column appeared in a dozen Postmedia newspapers including the Ottawa Citizen, National Post, Montreal Gazette and Windsor Star
CBC included Beneath Dark Waters in their list of Canadian non-fiction books to read this spring
To celebrate publishing 50 episodes of Cold Case Canada and in advance of the launch of my new book, Arsenal Pulp Press is giving away copies of Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck. See details to enter.
Upcoming Events:
Please join me to celebrate the book’s release at my Ladner, BC launch on May 7 or at my Vancouver launch at the Museum of Vancouver on Thursday May 22.
I’m delighted to be appearing at the Saskatchewan Writer’s Festival in July – my first trip to the province. I’ll be at the Abbotsford Community Library in September, at the North Vancouver District Library in October, and I’ll either be dropping by or zooming in to a few book club meetings. As more dates are firmed up, I’ll post them on my Events page.
Beneath Dark Waters is available online through all the usual sources, through Arsenal Pulp Press or online or in person through your favourite indie bookstore
In August 2019, I was sitting on a Zodiac in the middle of the St. Lawrence River piloted by a French Canadian marine biologist. The trip was arranged by Hugh Verrier, and we were right above the wreck of the Empress of Ireland, a CPR-liner that sunk in 14 minutes after being rammed by a Norwegian coal ship in 1914. It’s now an underwater graveyard for more than 800 souls.
Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck
Hugh is based in New York and heads up one of the world’s largest law firms, but he is originally from Montreal, and has a summer property near Rimouski, close to where the Empress of Ireland sank. Hugh swims in the St. Lawrence River most summers and has always known about the tragedy, but in recent years he has developed a fascination for the story of survivor Gordon Charles Davidson.
Eve Lazarus and Hugh Verrier on a Zodiac at the wreck site of the Empress of Ireland in 2019
Gordon Charles Davidson:
Davidson was a PhD candidate who lived in Vancouver when he wasn’t studying at UC Berkeley in San Francisco. He had reportedly survived the sinking of the Empress by swimming 6.5 kilometres (4 miles) to shore. When Hugh looked into this, experts told him this wasn’t possible—not at that time of year and not for that distance. But Hugh wanted to make sure. He wanted to verify the information that had been repeated in newspapers articles and regurgitated in books and even at Davidson’s own memorial service more than a hundred years ago. Whatever happened, Hugh wanted to set the record straight.
Hugh had hired me two years earlier to research the story of Gordon Davidson, one of the few survivors from Vancouver. In an email to me, he attached Davidson’s 1922 obituary, an article about his miraculous swim to shore, and a photo of him receiving medical treatment at the Château Frontenac following the shipwreck. “I have not found any record of him speaking or writing about swimming to shore,” Hugh wrote. “He did not have any children. So, this is not going to be easy to find out about.”
Gordon Davidson being treated by Dr. James Grant of Victoria, BC at the Chateau Frontenac following the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914. Courtesy Library of Congress
Staggering Loss of Canadian Life:
I was surprised that I’d never before heard of the Empress of Ireland, because the loss of Canadian life was truly staggering. More passengers died that night (836), then died on the Titanic (832) in 1912, or on the Lusitania (788) two years later.
I was eventually able to locate one of Davidson’s descendants and track down the real story of Gordon’s survival. He had written a letter to his parents immediately after his rescue.
Davidson did not swim to shore, the story came from the wild speculations of a Province newspaper reporter and later went around the world as fact.
This ripped newspaper was in the collection of a descendant of Gordon Davidson and given to me in 2018. It reprints the letter that Gordon wrote to his parents from the Chateau Frontenac immediately following the sinking.
Myth Busting:
I was curious how many other stories told about the Empress of Ireland were also myths, and it turns out there were quite a few. A large part of the book is righting those wrongs. Another focus of the book is telling the stories of the survivors as some went on to fight in the first world war, while others took up homesteading on the Prairies, and a few became successful entrepreneurs.
Thanks to a Canada Council grant, I was able to travel across the country to visit Rimouski, as well as various archives and museums and interview descendants of the survivors.
The Salvation Army band taken just before they sailed on the Empress of Ireland in 1914. Courtesy Salvation Army Canada and Bermuda Archives
The Western Canada Connection:
While researching Gordon’s story, I was surprised by how many connections there were to Western Canada—65 people booked through the Vancouver office alone, and only a few came back. Arthur Delamont, a 22-year-old from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan was part of a 161-member Salvation Army delegation travelling to an International Congress in London where he was playing in the staff band. Arthur lost his brother in the tragedy and later moved to Vancouver where he founded the Kitsilano Boys Band and taught Jimmy Pattison, Bing Thom and Dal Richards, among hundreds of others. Delamont Park in Kitsilano is named for him.
The Empress of Ireland carried more than 117,000 people between England and Canada from 1906 to 1914. A million or so Canadians can trace their roots back to an ancestor who came to Canada on this ship.
A postcard showing the Empress of Ireland in 1912. Courtesy Lindsay Ward
I’m writing this on Saturday April 26, which happens to be Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. It’s a great time to visit your local bookstore, hang out with authors, find things for the kids to do, and maybe win a gift card or a bundle of books.
