Shipwreck Treasures: Disaster and Discovery on Canada's East Coast

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Ships have been plying the eastern coast of Canada for more than 1000
years. It is hardly surprising, then, that innumerable shipwrecks dot
those waters, many of them long forgotten until rediscovered by amateur
divers or a chance encounter with a fishing net. Roger Marsters has
spent most of his adult life studying and teaching maritime history. In
this beautiful book, he has selected 20 significant shipwrecks that
occurred between the 16th and 21st centuries, ranging in location from
the southern shores of Nova Scotia to the distant islands of the Arctic
Circle. Some of the wrecks are well known, such as the Mary Celeste
(1872), the HMS Erebus and Terror (from Franklin’s 1845 expedition to
find the Northwest Passage), and the Empress of Ireland (1914). Others
covered in the volume include the French ships Charmeau, Célиbre,
Auguste, and Tribune; the British Royal ship Frances; the guano-laden
mutiny ship Saladin; White Star’s first ill-fated liner Atlantic; the
World War II armed merchant ship Jervis Bay; the circus ship Fleurus;
the Ocean Ranger oil rig; the tanker Arrow; and a Basque whaling boat
long forgotten since the mid-1540s.

Whatever the wreck, Marsters gives the reader a thorough account of who
built the boat, what it did, and how it came to be wrecked in Canadian
waters. Using both ancient shipping logs and the latest archeological
investigative techniques, Marsters builds a portrait of what life was
like aboard each vessel just before it met its untimely end. He explores
the unexplained.

Period illustrations, newspaper headlines, archeologists’ sketches,
and color photographs appear on nearly every page. Many artifacts found
on the wrecks, such as the well-preserved shoe of a Boston militiaman
and a Victorian gold bracelet, bring home the human tragedy. The book is
well researched and elegantly written, and is highly recommended to
anyone interested in Canadian or maritime history.