Anne Renaud - Into the mist: the story of the Empress of Ireland

THE STORY OF THE EMPRESS OF IRELAND

ANNE RENAUD

DUNDURN PRESS
TORONTO

Copyright Anne Renaud, 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Copy Editor: Cheryl Hawley

Design: Jesse Hooper

Printer: Webcom

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Renaud, Anne, 1957

Into the mist : The story of the Empress of Ireland / by Anne Renaud.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued also in an electronic format.

ISBN 978-1-55488-759-0

1. Empress of Ireland (Steamship)--Juvenile literature.
2. Shipwrecks--Qubec (Province)--Saint Lawrence River
Estuary--Juvenile literature. I. Title.

1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

The author acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

Printed and bound in Canada.

www.dundurn.com

In memory of those who once walked the decks of the Empress of Ireland

I extend heartfelt gratitude to my first readers, David St-Pierre, Derek Grout, David Zeni, and Jo-Anne Colby, who most graciously provided their time, expertise, and visual elements, which were instrumental in the realization of this book. I am also indebted to Marion Kelch, chair of the Empress of Ireland Artifacts Committee, as well as to my contributors whose ancestors sailed aboard the Empress, and who generously shared the rich pages of their family histories with me. Photographic contributions from the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Pre were substantial, and should also be noted.

From 1906 to 1914, the Empress of Ireland, one of the fastest and most elegant liners of the Edwardian era, graced the waters of the Atlantic. During her many crossings between Canada and England, she ferried royals and inventors, authors and scientists, actors and politicians. But most importantly, she carried more than 115,000 hopeful immigrants who had left Europe to build their lives on Canadian soil. This is the story of the Empress, of the many people who walked her decks, and how, in the early morning hours of May 29, 1914, she came to rest on the bottom of the St. Lawrence River.

Canadian Pacific Archives (NS 3293)

Immigrants arriving at Quebec City.

THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY

The Dominion of Canada was just 13 years old when the Canadian Pacific Railway was created in 1881.

A decade earlier, the province of British Columbia had joined Canada after Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald promised to build a transcontinental railway that would link the new western province to the provinces in the east within 10 years. The government hired a contractor named Andrew Onderdonk to begin construction of the railway from British Columbia, moving eastward. But because the Fraser Canyon was so treacherous, only a few kilometres of rail had been laid by 1881, and no work had begun on the railway from Ontario heading westward.

TIME CAPSULE

The Dominion of Canada was created on July 1, 1867, through the British North America Act. This act united the four provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. It would take another 132 years for the countrys six remaining provinces and three territories to be created. The last was the territory of Nunavut, in 1999.

Glenbow Archives NA-1375-1

Sir John A. Macdonald was Canadas first prime minister. He served from 1867 to 1873, and again from 1878 to 1891.

Canadian Pacific Archives (NS 13561-2)

Track construction in the lower Fraser Valley of British Columbia in 1883.

TIME CAPSULE

The Canadian Pacific Railway was created by a group of Canadian businessmen who invested their money and obtained funds and land from the government to build a railway linking Canada from coast to coast. The company was incorporated on February 16, 1881.

For British Columbia to remain a part of the country the prime minister had to keep his promise, and time was running out.

It was up to the newly founded Canadian Pacific Railway or CPR to bind Canada from coast to coast with a ribbon of steel.

The Canadian government gave the company $25 million and 25 million acres of land to build the railway. Over the next four years, across mountain ranges, lakes, rivers, and forests, the CPR oversaw Canadas largest railway-building project, under the watchful eye of William Cornelius Van Horne.

Once the country was linked from east to west, the Canadian government had to find settlers to fill the wide expanses of land that lay in between. The owners of the CPR also had to find passengers to fill the seats aboard the trains that were now panting their way across the country. Newcomers in search of affordable farmland would provide a common solution.