Losing the «Empress»: A Personal Journey

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

On May 29, 1914, following a collision with the Norwegian freighter
Storstad, the Canadian Pacific ship Empress of Ireland plunged to the
bottom of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 14 minutes, taking more than 1000
people to their deaths. Among the passengers were 170 members of the
Salvation Army, bound for an international congress in London; among the
few of the Salvationists to survive were the author’s grandparents,
David and Bertha Creighton.

Losing the Empress is not a detailed account of the sinking or the
subsequent inquiry. Rather, it is a chronicle of the author’s quest to
learn more about his roots and what effect the loss had on later
generations of his family. Creighton is a skilful writer, weaving past
and present almost seamlessly into his story. He travels to the Maritime
provinces to learn more about his family’s Salvation Army affiliation.
He visits the United States to talk to authorities on the sinking of the
Titanic. He takes part in an American television documentary on the
sinking of the Empress. He travels to European battlefields of the First
World War, to a shipyard in Scotland, to the site of the Salvation Army
congress in London—all with the purpose of seeing where, and how, the
tragedy of the sinking cast a broad net that included the Creighton
family.

Not all of the many illustrations are well reproduced. What holds the
book together is Creighton’s compelling text.