Negotiations stalled to obtain ship wreckage for museum exhibit

Nearly a century after Canada’s deadliest maritime disaster, negotiations between the country’s main history museum and a Quebec diver over artifacts from the sunken Empress of Ireland have reached an impasse.

Motivated by plans to mount an exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the huge ship’s 1914 sinking in the St. Lawrence River – and the deaths of more than 1,000 passengers and crew – the Canadian Museum of Civilization had begun talks with diver Philippe Beaudry about the possible purchase of more than 200 objects that he has recovered from the wreck, which was finally declared a national historic site last year.

But Chantal Schryer, the museum’s vice-president of public affairs, told Postmedia News on Monday that, for now, a disagreement over the value of the relics – including the ship’s bell, which Beaudry once claimed is worth $1 million by itself – has sunk any proposed deal.

"We made an offer and it was rejected," said Schryer, who would not disclose the amounts of money involved.

She noted that the exhibit – which hinged on acquiring the artifacts, including the bell, a port hole and a brass compass – is no longer being planned. But Schryer did not rule out a possible revival of talks with Beaudry in the coming months.

The enormous, Titanic-era cruise ship – once lamented as "the orphan of Canadian heritage" because its wreck site near Rimouski, Que., was plundered by divers for decades – is also famous for its role in transporting tens of thousands of immigrants to Canada during a pivotal period in the country’s growth.

Today, about one million Canadians are descendants of immigrants who arrived in this country aboard the 174-metre vessel, which crossed the Atlantic Ocean regularly for about a decade before colliding with a Norwegian coal freighter in dense fog on May 29, 1914, and sinking in 30 metres of water.

The wreck was discovered in 1964, about four kilometres from the shore of Pointe-au-Pere, Que., where a regional museum commemorates the sinking.

Pointe-au-Pere is located about 320 kilometres northeast of Quebec City.

Before restrictions were put in place in 1999, the wreck site was a mecca for scavenging divers who stripped the ship of hundreds of artifacts that still show up at auctions around the world.

Although overshadowed in history by the sinking of the "unsinkable" Titanic in 1912 and by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the loss of the Empress of Ireland remains Canada’s single greatest maritime disaster.

Interest in the vessel – which transported about 117,000 immigrants to Canada, but sent 1,012 people to their deaths when it sank – is expected to build steadily leading up to the 100th anniversary of the disaster in 2014.

Controversies have arisen in recent years over the proposed sale of some artifacts from the wreck.

In 2004, another Quebec diver named Dany St-Cyr – who had retrieved the 25 large, brass letters "EMPRESS OF IRELAND LIVERPOOL" that once adorned the ship’s hull – controversially announced he would sell them for $300,000.

In 2007, then-heritage minister Bev Oda lifted a federal order that had been blocking Beaudry from selling the Empress’s bell to a foreign buyer.

The lifting of the order – which had been imposed under a previous Liberal government – was denounced as "odious" by an Alberta-based heritage group dedicated to keeping Empress artifacts in Canada.