«Titanic» Remembered

Sarah Robertson is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

This well-designed and generously illustrated volume relates the Titanic
story from a Halifax perspective. The author, a marine geologist with a
longtime interest in the disaster, adopts a chronological approach. His
first chapter describes Titanic’s origins and Halifax’s role as
“The Empire Port.” Successive chapters cover the ill-fated
transatlantic crossing, the grim search and recovery undertaken by four
Canadian vessels, the painstaking efforts of the City of Halifax to
ensure “the proper disposition of the bodies,” and the stories of
selected passengers (including the Halifax entrepreneur and
philanthropist George Wright, who perished in the disaster, and the
“unsinkable” Molly Brown, who, of course, did not). A final chapter
deals with the 1987 discovery of the wreck of Titanic (and the ensuing
battle over its treatment), geological studies of the wreck, and
Halifax’s Titanic sites. Undoubtedly the most arresting anecdote
included in Ruffman’s workmanlike text is that concerning Frank
Newell, an embalmer from Yarmouth, who “unexpectedly found [among
Titanic’s recovered dead] the body of a relative, ... [and] collapsed
from the shock.”

The book’s superbly reproduced visuals are drawn from the permanent
Titanic exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax,
“which holds the world’s finest collection of Titanic’s wooden
artefacts found floating after the sinking in 1912.” Especially
haunting are the photographs depicting undertakers at work aboard the
search-and-recovery vessels.

Titanic enthusiasts—and especially those with an interest in the
Canadian angle—will welcome this recent addition to the
ever-burgeoning Titanic literature.