The Sinking of the Empress of Ireland – A Tragic Story and a Helping Hand

The greatest maritime disaster in Canadian history occurred when the Empress of Ireland sank offshore from Ste-Luce on May 29, 1914. She collided with the Storstad, a Norwegian freighter that became enveloped in fog shortly after passing the Metis lighthouse on its way upstream. The Empress was fatally wounded and went down in just fourteen minutes.  

 The cold waters of the St. Lawrence are unforgiving. Many drowned; most succumbed to hypothermia. When the body of one of the victims washed up in Metis, local school children quickly mobilized. Their story gave rise to a heart-wrenching article “Children of Little Metis Lay Flowers in Victim’s Coffin” that appeared in the Montreal Herald:  

A little girl found at Little Metis was brought to the morgue last night – a ruddy faced beautiful child of five or six years of age. Packed in a box of ice the young victim arrived here. In the box lay a pathetic little wreath of wood flowers and mosses made by the little children of Little Metis who found the little castaway. The wreath broke everybody’s heart here, with all this death there are no calloused hearts in Quebec. On a card with the flowers child hands had written “As a token of respect for those who found her,” and in her dead hands they had placed another bouquet of wood flowers. An envelope attached said, “Put on by Eileen Tuggy, Little Metis, Quebec,” while on the back of the envelope was written, “if identified I would like to know.

The young girl was later identified as Edith Hart, a four-year old travelling with her parents and infant brother to meet her grandparents in Scotland. The entire family perished. Hers was the only body found.