Part of the documentation over the last few days into the sinking of the Queen of the North has been the release of the transcripts of radio transmissions between the stricken ferry and the Coast Guard radio centre in Prince Rupert.
The Globe and Mail’s Mark Hume presented them in his story for yesterday’s Globe, presenting a sense of the horror of the moment and the steps that went into place to send assistance as soon as possible.
It provides the reader with a minute by minute account of the tragedy, the confusion of the moment and the eventual rescue effort that was launched off of Gil Island.
Transcript documents Mayday moment
MARK HUME
GLOBE AND MAIL
MARCH 27, 2007
VANCOUVER -- At 23 minutes and 40 seconds after midnight, from high on British Columbia's rugged central coast where deep fjords cut hazardous shipping lanes through the mountains, a radio message came crackling in from the darkness.
"Traffic, this is Queen of the North, Queen of the North, Queen of the North," came an unidentified voice from the bridge of a B.C. ferry that was in transit from Prince Rupert to the north end of Vancouver Island, with 101 people aboard, March 22, 2006.
"Traffic. Traffic. We have run aground south of Sainty Point, several miles south of Sainty Point. Standby for position," said the crew member, in a frantic call to Vessel Traffic Services, the marine communications centre run by the Canadian Coast Guard in Prince Rupert. Over the next few minutes, a flurry of exchanges, released yesterday in a transcript, tracked the drama of the final moments of the flagship of the BC Ferries fleet.
VTS: "Queen of the North. Prince Rupert Traffic. What is your position? Over."
Queen: "Our position is. This is the Queen of the North. 29 19 north, 131. What's the second part of that? 13 West."
VTS: "Queen of the North, Prince Rupert Traffic. Roger. And do you require assistance?"
Queen: "Roger, we require assistance."
VTS: "Roger. And confirm you are not taking on water? Over."
Queen: "We are taking on water."
VTS: "Roger. Stand by. . . . Say again your position. This position you gave me is not correct, it places you in Hecate Strait. What is your position? Latitude? Longitude?"
Queen: "South of Sainty Point. Stand by for Lat/Long. And we are aground, our list is increasing, we need assistance immediately. . . . We're aground near Juan Point, Juan Point. Over. . . . We have 101 persons onboard the ship."
VTS: "Roger. Are you at Muster Stations?"
Queen: "Say again?"
VTS: "Are they proceeding to life rafts? Over."
Queen, at 28:26: "Yes, Traffic, we are proceeding to lifeboats and life rafts."
At 31:02 after breaking away to talk to possible rescue vessels, VTS asks for an update.
Queen: "Traffic, we've developed a slight starboard list here, I'd say about 12 degrees from my indication. Boats are getting readied. That's all I know right now. I believe they're setting pumps in the engine room."
In several quick exchanges, VTS confirms the correct location of the sinking ferry. Then, at 34:45, VTS broadcasts this chilling message over the marine channel: "Mayday, relay. Mayday, relay. Mayday, relay. All stations, all stations. This is Prince Rupert Coast Guard Radio, Prince Rupert Coast Guard Radio. Channel one-one. The ferry Queen of the North is reported running around just south of Sainty Point. Bearing one-zero-one degrees from Port Cummings. Requesting immediate assistance, taking on water, 101 persons onboard. Any vessels in the area able to respond contact Prince Rupert Coast Guard Radio channel one-six or Prince Rupert Traffic, channel one-one. Over."
In Hartley Bay, fishermen launch several small boats, arriving just in time to take aboard survivors found drifting in life rafts. Then, the Queen of the North tips up and sinks beneath the waves.
Investigation into tragedy
British Columbia Ferry Service Inc. describes this sequence of events that led to the sinking of the Queen of the North. The report lacks key details because two crew members have refused to testify.
1. Departure: The Queen of the North leaves Prince Rupert at 8 p.m. on March 21, 2006, headed for Port Hardy. There are 101 passengers and crew members on board.
2. The voyage south: The report states that music was clearly audible during routine radio telephone conversations between the ferry and Prince Rupert traffic services.
"To this point, the voyage had been uneventful and routine."
3. Confusion in the wheelhouse: After passing Sainty Point, the report states, the Quarter Master of the ship remembers making "one or possibly two small course alterations," as directed by the fourth officer. The Quarter Master is then ordered to switch the autopilot off, but the Quarter Master "stated not knowing where the switch was located."
4. Grounding off Gil Island: The Queen of the North strikes rocks off Gil Island at a speed of about 17.5 knots. The ferry is about one nautical mile (or 1.85 kilometres) off course. The ship's master is awoken and all watertight doors are ordered closed. The general alarm is sounded in both crew and passenger areas, and PA announcements are made instructing everyone to get onto the outer decks. Crew search all cabins and public spaces to account for all passengers. With lifejackets on, passengers and crew abandon ship.
5. Queen goes down: The ferry sinks, stern first. "As the ship sank, trapped air caused numerous windows on the passenger deck to explode outward, and a cloud of dust was formed at the scene."
SOURCE: TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, B.C. FERRIES
Showing posts with label Queen of the North remembered. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Queen of the North remembered. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Missing passengers remembered at Gil Island
Relatives and friends gathered Saturday, on the isolated island that claimed the Queen of the North one year ago, as a memorial service was conducted to remember Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette.
The Canadian Press provided coverage of the ceremony, seen here from the CTV website.
Memorial held for B.C. ferry's missing passengers
Updated Sat. Mar. 24 2007 11:49 PM ET
Canadian Press
The Canadian Press provided coverage of the ceremony, seen here from the CTV website.
Memorial held for B.C. ferry's missing passengers
Updated Sat. Mar. 24 2007 11:49 PM ET
Canadian Press
HARTLEY BAY, B.C. -- A year after the sinking of B.C.'s Queen of the North ferry, about 100 people gathered Saturday for a memorial ceremony to remember two missing passengers.
Relatives and friends of Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette went by boat to where the vessel went down about 100 kilometres south of Prince Rupert, B.C.
The couple, from Prince George, B.C., were recalled in an afternoon ceremony that took place in the nearby Gitga'at First Nation village of Hartley Bay, whose residents sped to the rescue on March 22, 2006.
Ninety-nine passengers and crew were plucked from lifeboats and rafts that night, with Foisy and Rosette the only two never found.
Those attending the ceremony Saturday were picked up by two small chartered ferries in Prince Rupert and taken to the memorial site - a stretch of rocky shore on Gil Island where the ferry first hit.
Marven Robinson of the Gitga'at First Nation trailed along the vessels in a small fishing boat, with the intention of taking the passengers to the island where two iron crosses have been erected.
In the end, the waters were too choppy to take the risk.
"The waves were just too much," Robinson said in an interview.
"There might be another time. We left the invite that they can return to the village. . .when the weather is not so unpredictable."
Robinson said two younger men, who he believed were immediate family of the victims, managed to get off the ferry to lay a wreath around each cross.
He said prayers were read from the boat and many people were crying when they reached the site.
"I think this will add closure to the whole accident," he said. "But it's still not final. It would have been really nice to get those two people back. That would have finally added closure."
Once on shore, the visitors were welcomed into the village's community centre and given a special dinner and a performance by traditional dancers.
Mona Danes, who helped organize the welcoming ceremony and the meal, said she hugged every visitor who came through the doors.
"We'll always have a bond, knowing that their families are out here in our area," she said. "As they were leaving and I was hugging everyone, one of Gerald Foisy's brothers said he was glad they had a home here in Hartley Bay."
An internal probe of the sinking is expected to be released early next week.
B.C. Ferries president David Hahn said the report will examine the facts involved in the disaster without categorically establishing what happened.
A battery of investigations is trying to discover why the ship, which travelled B.C. North Coast's Inside Passage since 1980, missed a routine course change exiting Grenville Channel.
Rosette and Foisy are likely entombed on the Queen but the couple remain officially listed as missing until the RCMP finish their investigation.
In November, Rosette's sons filed a petition in B.C.'s Supreme Court asking the RCMP to give them their notes on the search for the couples' bodies.
In order to collect benefits, the family is required to present a death certificate to officially declare Rosette deceased.
Little known island, now forever linked to BC’s maritime history
The Vancouver Sun published a story on Saturday prior to the official remembrance at Gil Rock, the last resting place of two passengers from the ill fated Queen of the North.
The families of Shirley Rosette and Gerald Foisy were set to take part in a final farewell to their family members, with a private service to commemorate their deaths.
The Sun article looked back at a very sad and tragic year for the two families.
Memorial today for couple lost in ferry sinking
CanWest News Service
Saturday, March 24, 2007
GIL ISLAND - Little known before the sinking of BC Ferries' Queen of North last March, remote Gil Island on the central coast will be the site today of a memorial service for the two passengers believed to have died in the sinking.
The families of Shirley Rosette and Gerald Foisy were set to take part in a final farewell to their family members, with a private service to commemorate their deaths.
The Sun article looked back at a very sad and tragic year for the two families.
Memorial today for couple lost in ferry sinking
CanWest News Service
Saturday, March 24, 2007
GIL ISLAND - Little known before the sinking of BC Ferries' Queen of North last March, remote Gil Island on the central coast will be the site today of a memorial service for the two passengers believed to have died in the sinking.
Two white metal crosses in memory of Shirley Rosette and Gerald Foisy will be unveiled. Friends of the couple from 100 Mile House made the crosses, which were put in place by BC Ferries.
Albert Jack, Rosette's brother-in-law, and much of the extended family will be among those seeing for themselves the area where the ferry sank March 22 en route from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy.
Jack, who lives about 60 kilometres west of Williams Lake, said the main focus for the family in recent weeks has been preparing to travel to the weekend ceremony. Rosette's sons, Brandon, 21, and Brent, 16, will also be there.
The Foisy family in Penticton could not be reached for comment.
Jack said the past year has been hard on those close to the couple, so the special service promises to be meaningful.
"There's quite a few of the family members on both sides that will be going," Jack said. "The biggest thing behind it is that we're trying to get close to some closure on this, and it's a one-year memorial.
"We're really looking forward to getting this done, so it's one more phase that's over with for us. We probably won't have to be going back there for anything other than visiting with people we've gotten close to through this."
He said the family's native background -- Rosette was a member of the Shuswap Nation -- has helped in establishing a close connection with the Gitga'at of Hartley Bay, whose residents helped get ferry passengers to shore.
"They gave us all kinds of help."
One lingering issue for his family is the fact that neither Rosette nor Foisy has been officially declared dead. That means no survivor benefits as yet, and something of a financial bind for Brandon and Brent.
The situation prompted Jack to start a fund for his nephews, in particular to help defray the expense of getting to the Gil Island ceremony. The Rosette Family Fund is coordinated through the Williams Lake and District Credit Union.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Half mast flags and remembrance
The Daily News featured the remembrance of the sinking of the Queen of the North as part of its front page on Thursday. With details on a planned private memorial for the surviving families of the two persons who died on March 22, 2006.
ONE YEAR LATER, FERRY TRAGEDY IS STILL FRESH
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Pages one and three
Today, B. C. Ferries will lower company flags to half-mast fleet wide in remembrance of the sinking of the Queen of the North and the two individuals who lost their lives.
The crew of the Queen of Prince Rupert will also hold a moment of silence ceremony.
According to Deborah Marshall, B. C. Ferries spokesperson, the company is also working with the families of Shirley Rossette and George Foisey, the two passengers who lost their lives in the event, to recognize the tragic anniversary in a meaningful way.
“The company is helping to facilitate a private memorial ceremony for the families on Gil Island,” she said.
North Coast MLA Gary Coons said his thoughts are also with the rosette and Foisey families.
“I hope that closure will come to their hearts soon. I’m sure that their visit to Hartley Bay will signify that it will come sooner rather than later,” said Coons.
We must not forget the passengers – on board that night, bumped from their beds into the cold night and traumatized beyond imagination, and hope that they all have received any attention necessary to recover.”
He said it is also a time to be thankful to those involved in the rescue.
“We must again remember the quick actions of the crew, the Coast Guard and those heroes of Hartley Bay,” he said.
Locally, Coons noted people must continue to voice their concerns about the promises not kept by B. C. Ferries and the provincial government in regards to the sunken wreck that continues to leak oil near the community of Hartley Bay.
“The up-welling of the 200,000 litres is there as a reminder of what can happen when coastal traffic overlaps with tradition. The villagers are on the verge of seeding their shellfish pilot projects, but wondering if they should go ahead,” said Coons. “the matter is under federal jurisdiction now but both those responsible, B. C. Ferries and the province must take a proactive leadership role.”
In yesterday’s Daily News, community members from Hartley Bay expressed their concerns about what they see as a ticking time bomb.
“As we move forward from this tragedy and wait for the Transportation Safety Board final report, we see that there must be public accountability for one of the most important transportation links in our province, our integrated marine highway,’ said Coons.
“We must learn from this tragedy, remember those most impacted, the heroics and remind ourselves that only those in power can follow-up on concerns and recommendations for improvement.
“The public must ensure this is done.”
ONE YEAR LATER, FERRY TRAGEDY IS STILL FRESH
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Pages one and three
Today, B. C. Ferries will lower company flags to half-mast fleet wide in remembrance of the sinking of the Queen of the North and the two individuals who lost their lives.
The crew of the Queen of Prince Rupert will also hold a moment of silence ceremony.
According to Deborah Marshall, B. C. Ferries spokesperson, the company is also working with the families of Shirley Rossette and George Foisey, the two passengers who lost their lives in the event, to recognize the tragic anniversary in a meaningful way.
“The company is helping to facilitate a private memorial ceremony for the families on Gil Island,” she said.
North Coast MLA Gary Coons said his thoughts are also with the rosette and Foisey families.
“I hope that closure will come to their hearts soon. I’m sure that their visit to Hartley Bay will signify that it will come sooner rather than later,” said Coons.
We must not forget the passengers – on board that night, bumped from their beds into the cold night and traumatized beyond imagination, and hope that they all have received any attention necessary to recover.”
He said it is also a time to be thankful to those involved in the rescue.
“We must again remember the quick actions of the crew, the Coast Guard and those heroes of Hartley Bay,” he said.
Locally, Coons noted people must continue to voice their concerns about the promises not kept by B. C. Ferries and the provincial government in regards to the sunken wreck that continues to leak oil near the community of Hartley Bay.
“The up-welling of the 200,000 litres is there as a reminder of what can happen when coastal traffic overlaps with tradition. The villagers are on the verge of seeding their shellfish pilot projects, but wondering if they should go ahead,” said Coons. “the matter is under federal jurisdiction now but both those responsible, B. C. Ferries and the province must take a proactive leadership role.”
In yesterday’s Daily News, community members from Hartley Bay expressed their concerns about what they see as a ticking time bomb.
“As we move forward from this tragedy and wait for the Transportation Safety Board final report, we see that there must be public accountability for one of the most important transportation links in our province, our integrated marine highway,’ said Coons.
“We must learn from this tragedy, remember those most impacted, the heroics and remind ourselves that only those in power can follow-up on concerns and recommendations for improvement.
“The public must ensure this is done.”
Tuesday delivery date for BC Ferries internal report into Queen of the North sinking
The National Post has put out a Victoria Times-Colonist article which examines what is expected from the release Tuesday, of an internal report into the events that led up to the sinking of the Queen of the North on March 22. 2006.
Described as a ‘blunt’ document, it’s said to not pull any punches and will provide the groundwork for an upcoming fact-finding investigation that could lead to disciplinary action at the Ferry Corporation.
The internal report is but the start of the expected stream of paperwork to come over the infamous night, also on the way is a Transportation Safety Board investigation report as well as an RCMP investigation that has been going on in conjunction with the Transport Canada’s investigation.
BC Ferries boss says report on sinking will be 'straightforward'
Cindy E. Harnett
CanWestNews Service
Thursday, March 22, 2007
VICTORIA—BC Ferries' divisional inquiry - likely the most controversial and damning report to try to explain how the 8,800-tonne Queen of the North ferry slammed into an island a year ago today - is expected to be released Tuesday. Expect it to be blunt, says David Hahn, the corporation's president.
"I think there is a need for us to be very blunt, straightforward and giving, if you will, of all the information we have. That's the only way you can maintain confidence with the public," Mr. Hahn said.
The report is just one in a battery of investigations delving into the marine disaster that saw the ferry ram Gil Island March 22 and dump 101 passengers and crew into the tumultuous, rain-swept seas. About an hour later, the ferry plunged to the bottom of Wright Sound.
The bodies of Gerald Foisy and companion Shirley Rosette were never found and are part of the RCMP's missing person's investigation.
The Transportation Safety Board's report will make recommendations rather than lay blame. The initial draft is still in preparation with the final report's release months away.
But B.C. Ferries' divisional inquiry isn't expected to pull any punches. And it will provide the groundwork for a subsequent fact-finding investigation by the corporation, which could result in discipline, Mr. Hahn said.
"We'll be probably more critical of ourselves than the outside agencies like (the Transportation Safety Board)," Mr. Hahn said. "We're going to be very straightforward about the events and everything that was involved around the incident."
The ferry union, which will be officially shown the report just prior to its release, refused comment Wednesday on any investigations it has conducted or requested.
Transport Canada's investigation into the events leading to the sinking of the Queen of the North is in conjunction with the RCMP, said spokesman Rod Nelson.
Both federal agencies are awaiting the release of the report. Transport Canada could fine and suspend individuals under the Canada Shipping Act.
Victoria Times Colonist
Described as a ‘blunt’ document, it’s said to not pull any punches and will provide the groundwork for an upcoming fact-finding investigation that could lead to disciplinary action at the Ferry Corporation.
The internal report is but the start of the expected stream of paperwork to come over the infamous night, also on the way is a Transportation Safety Board investigation report as well as an RCMP investigation that has been going on in conjunction with the Transport Canada’s investigation.
BC Ferries boss says report on sinking will be 'straightforward'
Cindy E. Harnett
CanWestNews Service
Thursday, March 22, 2007
VICTORIA—BC Ferries' divisional inquiry - likely the most controversial and damning report to try to explain how the 8,800-tonne Queen of the North ferry slammed into an island a year ago today - is expected to be released Tuesday. Expect it to be blunt, says David Hahn, the corporation's president.
"I think there is a need for us to be very blunt, straightforward and giving, if you will, of all the information we have. That's the only way you can maintain confidence with the public," Mr. Hahn said.
The report is just one in a battery of investigations delving into the marine disaster that saw the ferry ram Gil Island March 22 and dump 101 passengers and crew into the tumultuous, rain-swept seas. About an hour later, the ferry plunged to the bottom of Wright Sound.
The bodies of Gerald Foisy and companion Shirley Rosette were never found and are part of the RCMP's missing person's investigation.
The Transportation Safety Board's report will make recommendations rather than lay blame. The initial draft is still in preparation with the final report's release months away.
But B.C. Ferries' divisional inquiry isn't expected to pull any punches. And it will provide the groundwork for a subsequent fact-finding investigation by the corporation, which could result in discipline, Mr. Hahn said.
"We'll be probably more critical of ourselves than the outside agencies like (the Transportation Safety Board)," Mr. Hahn said. "We're going to be very straightforward about the events and everything that was involved around the incident."
The ferry union, which will be officially shown the report just prior to its release, refused comment Wednesday on any investigations it has conducted or requested.
Transport Canada's investigation into the events leading to the sinking of the Queen of the North is in conjunction with the RCMP, said spokesman Rod Nelson.
Both federal agencies are awaiting the release of the report. Transport Canada could fine and suspend individuals under the Canada Shipping Act.
Victoria Times Colonist
And then there was complete silence
The CBC Website provides a remembrance of March 22, 2006, as well as a reminder that many questions still remain about the events off of Gil Island that night.
A year later, B.C. ferry sinking marked by unanswered questions
Last Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2007 4:45 AM PT
CBC News
A year after a B.C. ferry sank in the cold waters off the province's central coast, there are memories and memorials, but still not many answers.
The Queen of the North was ripped open after it hit Gil Island in the early hours of March 22, 2006. Two people are believed to have died in the sinking of the 125-metre ship and 99 were saved.
But there are still many questions about what happened that night and how the ferry came to be off course.
A report by the federal Transportation Safety Board is still several months away. The agency that runs the provincial service, BC Ferries, has completed an internal report that is expected to be released by next week.
"I think we know what happened," BC Ferries president David Hahn said Wednesday.
The two people believed to have died, Shirley Rosette and her husband Gerald Foisy of 100 Mile House, B.C., have not been declared legally dead because there is no evidence of their deaths. They were not among the people rescued and their bodies have not been found.
Their families have applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for a declaration of their deaths so Foisy's two teenaged daughters and Rosette's two teenaged sons can receive survivor benefits.
Foisy's sister, Diane Melnyk, said the family is planning to erect two crosses on Gil Island this weekend.
Fuel a concern
When the ship sank, people from the nearby First Nations community of Hartley Bay took to their fishing boats in the dark to pick up the survivors. The ship took an hour to sink, so the crew and passengers had time to get into the lifeboats.
A year later, some residents of the community want BC Ferries to pump out the 200,000 litres of fuel in the ship, which is sitting upright on the ocean floor in about 400 metres of water.
If the tanks rupture, it would be an environmental disaster, said Gitga'at Nation councillor Cam Hill. The technology exists to get the fuel out, he said.
But Hahn disagrees.
"The worst thing you can do is go down there and try and extract it and cause a bigger issue," he said.
Graeme Clark was on the ship the night it sank.
He woke up to a jarring thud. "My first impression was that we had broken a propeller shaft. But then when the second impact came, it was a long, tearing grinding sound, I knew that wasn't the case, I knew we had hit something."
As the Queen rolled on to its side, Clark realized it was going to sink. "I took my time, I felt it was going to be a long night."
Other passengers were indignant or bemused, but as they realized the extent of the danger, "they were suddenly very focused and paying attention to what the crew had to say," Clark said.
As the passengers floated in lifeboats, they heard the death throes of the ship. Tractor-trailers broke from their restraining chains and tumbled toward the stern as the bow lifted, creating great crashing sounds. The air rushing out of the ship caused more noise, Clark recalled.
"And then there was complete silence. Nobody was saying anything. There had been a great din, and now there was silence."
A year later, B.C. ferry sinking marked by unanswered questions
Last Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2007 4:45 AM PT
CBC News
A year after a B.C. ferry sank in the cold waters off the province's central coast, there are memories and memorials, but still not many answers.
The Queen of the North was ripped open after it hit Gil Island in the early hours of March 22, 2006. Two people are believed to have died in the sinking of the 125-metre ship and 99 were saved.
But there are still many questions about what happened that night and how the ferry came to be off course.
A report by the federal Transportation Safety Board is still several months away. The agency that runs the provincial service, BC Ferries, has completed an internal report that is expected to be released by next week.
"I think we know what happened," BC Ferries president David Hahn said Wednesday.
The two people believed to have died, Shirley Rosette and her husband Gerald Foisy of 100 Mile House, B.C., have not been declared legally dead because there is no evidence of their deaths. They were not among the people rescued and their bodies have not been found.
Their families have applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for a declaration of their deaths so Foisy's two teenaged daughters and Rosette's two teenaged sons can receive survivor benefits.
Foisy's sister, Diane Melnyk, said the family is planning to erect two crosses on Gil Island this weekend.
Fuel a concern
When the ship sank, people from the nearby First Nations community of Hartley Bay took to their fishing boats in the dark to pick up the survivors. The ship took an hour to sink, so the crew and passengers had time to get into the lifeboats.
A year later, some residents of the community want BC Ferries to pump out the 200,000 litres of fuel in the ship, which is sitting upright on the ocean floor in about 400 metres of water.
If the tanks rupture, it would be an environmental disaster, said Gitga'at Nation councillor Cam Hill. The technology exists to get the fuel out, he said.
But Hahn disagrees.
"The worst thing you can do is go down there and try and extract it and cause a bigger issue," he said.
Graeme Clark was on the ship the night it sank.
He woke up to a jarring thud. "My first impression was that we had broken a propeller shaft. But then when the second impact came, it was a long, tearing grinding sound, I knew that wasn't the case, I knew we had hit something."
As the Queen rolled on to its side, Clark realized it was going to sink. "I took my time, I felt it was going to be a long night."
Other passengers were indignant or bemused, but as they realized the extent of the danger, "they were suddenly very focused and paying attention to what the crew had to say," Clark said.
As the passengers floated in lifeboats, they heard the death throes of the ship. Tractor-trailers broke from their restraining chains and tumbled toward the stern as the bow lifted, creating great crashing sounds. The air rushing out of the ship caused more noise, Clark recalled.
"And then there was complete silence. Nobody was saying anything. There had been a great din, and now there was silence."
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Reviewing an infamous night and looking to the future
The Bill Good Show on CKNW used the first forty minutes of Thursday's program to take a look back at the events of the early morning of March 22, 2006 off of Gil Island.
Good interviewed reporter Stephen Smart who has been tasked with charting the story from the first reports of the sinking of the Queen of the North, through the various investigations that have taken place. They discussed the many emotions that were prominent in the days following the tragedy, the loss of life and the slow process of trying to find out what happened that night.
Good also had couple of Prince Rupert guests on the segment, Bruce Wishart of Tourism Prince Rupert and Roberta Bowman of the Chamber of Commerce, provided their impressions of the impact of the sinking and their thoughts on what the future holds for the tourism sector.
Both seemed very happy with the arrival of a new vessel to the North coast route, the Northern Adventure. A vessel they believe more than exceeds their expectations and which they feel will provide a great boost to local tourism.
You can listen in to the interviews by checking out the CKNW Audio vault, click on Thursday, March 22 and selecting the 8-9 hour, there is also a portion of the 9-10 hour used on the story, where Wishart looks to the future and what he expects will result from the replacement service to the coast.
Good interviewed reporter Stephen Smart who has been tasked with charting the story from the first reports of the sinking of the Queen of the North, through the various investigations that have taken place. They discussed the many emotions that were prominent in the days following the tragedy, the loss of life and the slow process of trying to find out what happened that night.
Good also had couple of Prince Rupert guests on the segment, Bruce Wishart of Tourism Prince Rupert and Roberta Bowman of the Chamber of Commerce, provided their impressions of the impact of the sinking and their thoughts on what the future holds for the tourism sector.
Both seemed very happy with the arrival of a new vessel to the North coast route, the Northern Adventure. A vessel they believe more than exceeds their expectations and which they feel will provide a great boost to local tourism.
You can listen in to the interviews by checking out the CKNW Audio vault, click on Thursday, March 22 and selecting the 8-9 hour, there is also a portion of the 9-10 hour used on the story, where Wishart looks to the future and what he expects will result from the replacement service to the coast.
Lessons from the Queen of the North tragedy
As British Columbians commemorate the sinking of the Queen of the North, there have been some lessons learned from that tragic night.
Lindsay Kines of the Victoria Time Colonist reviews some of the changes that have taken place in the Ferry Corporation in the wake of the tragedy.
Learning from the sinking
How loss of Queen of the North changed B.C. Ferries
Lindsay Kines
Times Colonist
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The president of the company thinks about it every day, some crew members are still off work, and key investigation reports have yet to be released to the public. But one year later, B.C. Ferries is looking to the future, while never forgetting what happened when the Queen of the North struck an island and sank last March, taking two passengers with her.
“I think it’s important we don’t lose sight of what occurred — ever,” president David Hahn said in an interview.
“I know I think about it every day; there’s not a day that goes by — there hasn’t been since one o’clock in the morning that day.”
Hahn looks at things harder now. “I question more things. Just to make sure. And maybe, you know, try to make sure you’re not missing something.”
Even before the release of the company’s own investigation or that of the Transportation Safety Board, B.C. Ferries has made a number of changes to improve safety. “Accidents are always going to happen,” Hahn said. “This type and this particular scenario should never happen. But I think it’s up to all of us here to just keep working hard to make sure we make it as safe as we can.”
Among the changes:
• People travelling on northern routes now have to provide identification so the crew can match passengers to the names on the ship’s manifest, much the way airlines do. Gone are the days of travelling under somebody else’s reservation.
• Crew members have to sign off on newly installed or modified bridge equipment to show they’re comfortable using it.
• A new voyage data-recorder program has been installed on some vessels, including the North’s replacement vessel, the Northern Adventure.
• The company is working with Transport Canada to get new flotation devices for the crew that will give them more mobility and allow them to do more.
• Training has been accelerated on such things as a new electronic charting system.
The B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union and Hahn agree that one of the most positive changes in the past year has been a better working relationship between the two sides.
Union vice-president Richard Goode says former auditor general George Morfitt’s review of safety practices at B.C. Ferries “empowered” both sides to set aside their differences and work together on safety issues.
NDP ferries critic Gary Coons, however, remains concerned about the lack of public accountability by B.C. Ferries, which is shielded from the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Coons said safety and maintenance reports should be readily available to the public.
He, like others, awaits the release of the company’s report on the accident, which is due in a few weeks. Hahn predicts it will be even tougher than that of the Transportation Safety Board, slated for release later this year.
Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon hesitated to say much about the sinking until after the reports.
But he, too, pointed to the thawing of union-management relations as the “defining positive” development in the past year.
“With over 180,000 sailings a year, we recognize at the end of the day that the people who operate the ferries are human and humans are prone to making mistakes and errors,” he said. “But having said that, I hope the ferry corporation and the union, by working together, will minimize the prospect of that happening in the future. If they can do that, that’s a win for everyone.”
Lindsay Kines of the Victoria Time Colonist reviews some of the changes that have taken place in the Ferry Corporation in the wake of the tragedy.
Learning from the sinking
How loss of Queen of the North changed B.C. Ferries
Lindsay Kines
Times Colonist
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The president of the company thinks about it every day, some crew members are still off work, and key investigation reports have yet to be released to the public. But one year later, B.C. Ferries is looking to the future, while never forgetting what happened when the Queen of the North struck an island and sank last March, taking two passengers with her.
“I think it’s important we don’t lose sight of what occurred — ever,” president David Hahn said in an interview.
“I know I think about it every day; there’s not a day that goes by — there hasn’t been since one o’clock in the morning that day.”
Hahn looks at things harder now. “I question more things. Just to make sure. And maybe, you know, try to make sure you’re not missing something.”
Even before the release of the company’s own investigation or that of the Transportation Safety Board, B.C. Ferries has made a number of changes to improve safety. “Accidents are always going to happen,” Hahn said. “This type and this particular scenario should never happen. But I think it’s up to all of us here to just keep working hard to make sure we make it as safe as we can.”
Among the changes:
• People travelling on northern routes now have to provide identification so the crew can match passengers to the names on the ship’s manifest, much the way airlines do. Gone are the days of travelling under somebody else’s reservation.
• Crew members have to sign off on newly installed or modified bridge equipment to show they’re comfortable using it.
• A new voyage data-recorder program has been installed on some vessels, including the North’s replacement vessel, the Northern Adventure.
• The company is working with Transport Canada to get new flotation devices for the crew that will give them more mobility and allow them to do more.
• Training has been accelerated on such things as a new electronic charting system.
The B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union and Hahn agree that one of the most positive changes in the past year has been a better working relationship between the two sides.
Union vice-president Richard Goode says former auditor general George Morfitt’s review of safety practices at B.C. Ferries “empowered” both sides to set aside their differences and work together on safety issues.
NDP ferries critic Gary Coons, however, remains concerned about the lack of public accountability by B.C. Ferries, which is shielded from the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Coons said safety and maintenance reports should be readily available to the public.
He, like others, awaits the release of the company’s report on the accident, which is due in a few weeks. Hahn predicts it will be even tougher than that of the Transportation Safety Board, slated for release later this year.
Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon hesitated to say much about the sinking until after the reports.
But he, too, pointed to the thawing of union-management relations as the “defining positive” development in the past year.
“With over 180,000 sailings a year, we recognize at the end of the day that the people who operate the ferries are human and humans are prone to making mistakes and errors,” he said. “But having said that, I hope the ferry corporation and the union, by working together, will minimize the prospect of that happening in the future. If they can do that, that’s a win for everyone.”
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Tourism industry begins road to recovery
As a companion piece to his report on the night that the Queen of the North sank, Jack Knox of the Victoria Times Colonist examined the impact the tragedy had on the tourist industry of the North.
Tourism industry resurfacing a year after the sinking
Plenty of troubles, but optimism is returning
Jack Knox
Times Colonist
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
PRINCE RUPERT — It’s a shades-of-grey Markgraf painting of a day, leaden sky sitting on cloud-shrouded slopes sliding into the gunmetal water of Tuck Inlet.
At the helm of the 12-passenger water taxi, peering through the slapping windshield wipers, Trent Davis is searching for a hint of blue on the horizon. So, for that matter, is everyone else in the tourism business up here.
When the Queen of the North sank to the bottom of Wright Sound last March 22, the ripples spread throughout B.C.’s hospitality industry. The loss of the ferry all but severed the circle route that carried travellers through the Interior of the province, out to the coast, down Vancouver Island and over to the Lower Mainland. Nowhere took the blow harder than Prince Rupert.
Among those feeling the pain was West Coast Launch, the company owned by Davis’s family. In winter they carry kids from Metlakatla to school in Prince Rupert, run coastal pilots out to the grain freighters anchored in the harbour, or, on this day, take an outpost nurse to a remote village. In summer they offer excursions for the tourists who pour off buses and cruise ships, anxious for a glimpse of the wolves, whales and other wilderness delights of the north coast.
Last summer was tough. “Our rubber-tire traffic was probably down by almost 30 per cent,” says Davis, his runt-of-the-litter Jack Russell terrier, Max, curled at his elbow. “We didn’t have the number of passengers that we did before.”
Others in Prince Rupert tell similar tales. The Museum of Northern B.C. saw its numbers fall 20 to 30 per cent, even with an increase of visitors from within the province; curator Susan Marsden says it was the loss of ferry passengers that hurt. Hotels suffered. So did restaurants. All this in a community that was counting on tourism to bridge the city’s transformation from beleaguered resource town to major container-shipping port.
It could have been worse, though. B.C. Ferries gets credit for squeezing as many sailings as it could out of its remaining northern vessel, the Queen of Prince Rupert, and for giving boarding priority to bus tours, even if some did end up having to depart at bizarre hours. “It’s pretty tough to make a guy smile at 3 a.m., but it did work out,” says Scott Farwell, operations manager at the Crest Hotel. “Overall, it turned out to be a better season than we anticipated.”
And now relief is on the horizon. B.C. Ferries’ new ship, the Northern Adventure, is scheduled to go into service at the end of this month. The new vessel’s arrival will mean the undersized, overworked Queen of Prince Rupert, hastily dragged out of refit after last spring’s sinking, will finally get a break.
In normal times, one vessel serves B.C. Ferries’ two main northern routes in winter and early spring, alternating between the Prince Rupert-Port Hardy and Prince Rupert-Queen Charlotte Islands runs. As of mid-May, each of those two routes gets its own ferry. The loss of the Queen of the North, with a capacity of 700 passengers and 115 vehicles, meant the 80-car Queen of Prince Rupert had to do double duty all summer.
B.C. Ferries tried to ease the pressure by barging commercial traffic to the Queen Charlottes and flying some foot passengers, but there was no ignoring the hole left by the Queen of the North. That was reflected in the numbers: From March to September, the passenger count fell to 25,534 on the Inside Passage route, just less than half the total seen in the same period in 2005.
The count dropped to 24,102 from 36,200 on the Queen Charlottes run.
What surprised many was how far-reaching the loss of the ferry was felt. “I don’t think any of us understood how far its influence spread,” says Bruce Wishart, executive director of Tourism Prince Rupert. Businesses in Terrace, Smithers and out to Prince George were hurt. Wishart heard of one hotel chain reporting sinking-related cancellations as far east as Saskatchewan. Tourism across northern B.C. fell by something like 14 per cent.
Northern tourism groups went into survival mode, targeted domestic travellers with the help of $450,000 in one-time marketing money from the province.
They promoted regional events and whipped up a six-week fishing derby — the Great Northern Salmon Classic — to attract visitors from northern B.C. and Alberta in August and September. The $100,000 top prize for the largest coho — an 181/2-pounder — went to a man from Houston, down the road to Prince George. The regional campaign helped some, but didn’t come close to making up for the lost ferry traffic.
“It allowed us to come out alive and come out with the lights on,” says Wishart, who learned of the ferry sinking just an hour after it happened, via a 2 a.m. phone call from a Los Angeles Times reporter who roused him from his sleep.
Other regions fared better. After suffering through a horrible May and poor June, northern Vancouver Island tourist operators were fortunate in that they still had cars rolling off the Queen of Chilliwack, serving the Bella Coola-Port Hardy route.
In fact, that run picked up some of the tourists who would normally have gone through Prince Rupert; the March-September passenger count rose to 11,600 from 9,800 the year before..
North Island tourism groups were also able, thanks to $350,000 from the provincial government, to launch an ad blitz aimed at luring visitors from the Lower Mainland and south Island. “July and August were actually up over the previous year,” said Dave Petryk, CEO of Tourism Vancouver Island. Hotel room revenue jumped 11 per cent in the first month, eight per cent the next.
But while someone from Victoria or Vancouver can hop in the car and be on northern Vancouver Island within a few hours, the same can’t be said of Prince Rupert.
A two-day drive from any big city, it didn’t have the option of enticing spur-of-the-moment travellers.
The real loss was in independent travellers — families in mini-vans, Europeans in rented RVs — who couldn’t find space on the ferry. Giving priority to group travel was important (“Once you lose a bus tour, it might be years before they look at you again,” says Wishart) but both northern B.C. and northern Vancouver Island will have to work hard to lure back rubber-tire travellers.
They’ll also have to get past what was more than just an economic loss. The sinking of the Queen of the North, a familiar constant of life on the coast, left many shaken. “It was psychologically horrible,” says Marsden.
Still, the sinking forced neighboursp to work more closely, to scrap for survival. “We lost a community asset, but we all came through it together,” says Roberta Bowman, managing director of the Prince Rupert and District Chamber of Commerce. Her husband was aboard the Queen of the North when it was holed. He was rescued.
Now, with B.C. Ferries’ new ship ready to arrive, and Prince Rupert looking at a more advantageous cruise ship schedule and the continuation of its container-port project, there may finally be a bit of blue on the horizon.
Tourism industry resurfacing a year after the sinking
Plenty of troubles, but optimism is returning
Jack Knox
Times Colonist
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
PRINCE RUPERT — It’s a shades-of-grey Markgraf painting of a day, leaden sky sitting on cloud-shrouded slopes sliding into the gunmetal water of Tuck Inlet.
At the helm of the 12-passenger water taxi, peering through the slapping windshield wipers, Trent Davis is searching for a hint of blue on the horizon. So, for that matter, is everyone else in the tourism business up here.
When the Queen of the North sank to the bottom of Wright Sound last March 22, the ripples spread throughout B.C.’s hospitality industry. The loss of the ferry all but severed the circle route that carried travellers through the Interior of the province, out to the coast, down Vancouver Island and over to the Lower Mainland. Nowhere took the blow harder than Prince Rupert.
Among those feeling the pain was West Coast Launch, the company owned by Davis’s family. In winter they carry kids from Metlakatla to school in Prince Rupert, run coastal pilots out to the grain freighters anchored in the harbour, or, on this day, take an outpost nurse to a remote village. In summer they offer excursions for the tourists who pour off buses and cruise ships, anxious for a glimpse of the wolves, whales and other wilderness delights of the north coast.
Last summer was tough. “Our rubber-tire traffic was probably down by almost 30 per cent,” says Davis, his runt-of-the-litter Jack Russell terrier, Max, curled at his elbow. “We didn’t have the number of passengers that we did before.”
Others in Prince Rupert tell similar tales. The Museum of Northern B.C. saw its numbers fall 20 to 30 per cent, even with an increase of visitors from within the province; curator Susan Marsden says it was the loss of ferry passengers that hurt. Hotels suffered. So did restaurants. All this in a community that was counting on tourism to bridge the city’s transformation from beleaguered resource town to major container-shipping port.
It could have been worse, though. B.C. Ferries gets credit for squeezing as many sailings as it could out of its remaining northern vessel, the Queen of Prince Rupert, and for giving boarding priority to bus tours, even if some did end up having to depart at bizarre hours. “It’s pretty tough to make a guy smile at 3 a.m., but it did work out,” says Scott Farwell, operations manager at the Crest Hotel. “Overall, it turned out to be a better season than we anticipated.”
And now relief is on the horizon. B.C. Ferries’ new ship, the Northern Adventure, is scheduled to go into service at the end of this month. The new vessel’s arrival will mean the undersized, overworked Queen of Prince Rupert, hastily dragged out of refit after last spring’s sinking, will finally get a break.
In normal times, one vessel serves B.C. Ferries’ two main northern routes in winter and early spring, alternating between the Prince Rupert-Port Hardy and Prince Rupert-Queen Charlotte Islands runs. As of mid-May, each of those two routes gets its own ferry. The loss of the Queen of the North, with a capacity of 700 passengers and 115 vehicles, meant the 80-car Queen of Prince Rupert had to do double duty all summer.
B.C. Ferries tried to ease the pressure by barging commercial traffic to the Queen Charlottes and flying some foot passengers, but there was no ignoring the hole left by the Queen of the North. That was reflected in the numbers: From March to September, the passenger count fell to 25,534 on the Inside Passage route, just less than half the total seen in the same period in 2005.
The count dropped to 24,102 from 36,200 on the Queen Charlottes run.
What surprised many was how far-reaching the loss of the ferry was felt. “I don’t think any of us understood how far its influence spread,” says Bruce Wishart, executive director of Tourism Prince Rupert. Businesses in Terrace, Smithers and out to Prince George were hurt. Wishart heard of one hotel chain reporting sinking-related cancellations as far east as Saskatchewan. Tourism across northern B.C. fell by something like 14 per cent.
Northern tourism groups went into survival mode, targeted domestic travellers with the help of $450,000 in one-time marketing money from the province.
They promoted regional events and whipped up a six-week fishing derby — the Great Northern Salmon Classic — to attract visitors from northern B.C. and Alberta in August and September. The $100,000 top prize for the largest coho — an 181/2-pounder — went to a man from Houston, down the road to Prince George. The regional campaign helped some, but didn’t come close to making up for the lost ferry traffic.
“It allowed us to come out alive and come out with the lights on,” says Wishart, who learned of the ferry sinking just an hour after it happened, via a 2 a.m. phone call from a Los Angeles Times reporter who roused him from his sleep.
Other regions fared better. After suffering through a horrible May and poor June, northern Vancouver Island tourist operators were fortunate in that they still had cars rolling off the Queen of Chilliwack, serving the Bella Coola-Port Hardy route.
In fact, that run picked up some of the tourists who would normally have gone through Prince Rupert; the March-September passenger count rose to 11,600 from 9,800 the year before..
North Island tourism groups were also able, thanks to $350,000 from the provincial government, to launch an ad blitz aimed at luring visitors from the Lower Mainland and south Island. “July and August were actually up over the previous year,” said Dave Petryk, CEO of Tourism Vancouver Island. Hotel room revenue jumped 11 per cent in the first month, eight per cent the next.
But while someone from Victoria or Vancouver can hop in the car and be on northern Vancouver Island within a few hours, the same can’t be said of Prince Rupert.
A two-day drive from any big city, it didn’t have the option of enticing spur-of-the-moment travellers.
The real loss was in independent travellers — families in mini-vans, Europeans in rented RVs — who couldn’t find space on the ferry. Giving priority to group travel was important (“Once you lose a bus tour, it might be years before they look at you again,” says Wishart) but both northern B.C. and northern Vancouver Island will have to work hard to lure back rubber-tire travellers.
They’ll also have to get past what was more than just an economic loss. The sinking of the Queen of the North, a familiar constant of life on the coast, left many shaken. “It was psychologically horrible,” says Marsden.
Still, the sinking forced neighboursp to work more closely, to scrap for survival. “We lost a community asset, but we all came through it together,” says Roberta Bowman, managing director of the Prince Rupert and District Chamber of Commerce. Her husband was aboard the Queen of the North when it was holed. He was rescued.
Now, with B.C. Ferries’ new ship ready to arrive, and Prince Rupert looking at a more advantageous cruise ship schedule and the continuation of its container-port project, there may finally be a bit of blue on the horizon.
One year after the Queen of the North tragedy Hartley Bay worries about the future
The media have returned to Hartley Bay, one year after the sinking of the Queen of the North.
Many stories have been written about the courage of the villagers that night, as they came to the aid of the survivors of the sinking.
Not quite as many have focused in on a rather unwelcome legacy of the tragedy, the leaking of fuel from the sunken ferry and the effect it may be having on the lives and food supply of the residents.
Jack Knox of the Victoria Times Colonist made the trip to Hartley Bay to investigate the Queen of the North situation, some ghosts of the past and worries about the future.
Leaking of sunken ferry's fuel is source of much worry
Hartley Bay worried that a leak will destroy their source of food and livelihood
Jack Knox
Times Colonist
Monday, March 19, 2007
HARTLEY BAY - What you need to understand is that for the Gitga'at, a fuel spill in Wright Sound would be akin to a bomb going off in every grocery store in Victoria.
Much, perhaps most, of the food eaten by the people of Hartley Bay comes from the ocean -- which is why they fear what might happen if diesel trapped inside the sunken Queen of the North escapes, and why they are bitter about how long it is taking to defuse what they see as a ticking time bomb.
A year after the March 22 disaster, B.C. Ferries and the coast guard still aren't sure how to deal with the ship's fuel tanks, 400 metres under water.
That's not good enough for Gitga'at chief councillor Bob Hill, who won't let B.C. Ferries forget an earlier promise to have the fuel removed by the end of 2006.
"I'm really fed up with it," says Hill. "We could have anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000 litres of fuel still on this vessel."
On the other hand, there could be very little left on board. That's the problem. Nobody is sure. "You don't know until you actually get down there," says coast guard spokesman Dan Bate. Only trace amounts of diesel are rising to the surface now.
The coast guard, B.C. Ferries and international salvage experts are still trying to figure out the best way to tackle the problem. Bate said they hope to have a plan by mid-April, and want to be sure of doing the right thing. "You would hate to go down and put a hole in the vessel that releases more fuel and causes more destruction."
After the ferry sank, the surface was thick with diesel. "The smell was atrocious," says Hill. Outflow winds pushed the spill up Grenville Channel and out past Banks Island. It missed the camp where the Gitga'at pick kelp and jig for halibut in May and June, but fouled the Fin Island beaches where they dig for clams.
Many of the people who depend on these waters for their diet -- salmon, seals, Dungeness crab, herring, cockles -- remain leery. "I have not gone out to harvest clams this year in a traditional area that my grandfather took me as a little boy," says Cam Hill, a teacher at the Hartley Bay school. "It's the first time I haven't done that. I haven't harvested the sea cucumbers. I haven't got answers to the questions I have as to whether it's safe or not."
The Gitga'at are much more worried about this than they are about B.C. Ferries' decision to call its new ferry Northern Adventure instead of Spirit of Hartley Bay, as had been popularly proposed. "We're not concerned about the name," says Hill. "We're concerned about the fuel." (Though he jokes that the village may change its name to Northern Adventure.) B.C. Ferries hasn't ignored Hartley Bay, whose residents rushed to the aid of the people who abandoned the stricken ferry. The corporation is building the community a new gangway and donating equipment for what will be a memorial playground. "We're very appreciative of that," says Hill. But it is the fuel that really matters.
Hill says there are no safeguards against a sudden upwelling of diesel. The Gitga'at are set to launch shellfish aquaculture projects at three nearby sites, but are reluctant to do so while the fuel threat remains.
The Queen of the North isn't all there is to worry about. At the bottom of Grenville Channel, 40 kilometres from Hartley Bay, rests the Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski, a U.S. army transport ship that sank in 1946. Divers patched some cracks after the wreck began to leak oil in 2003, but they abandoned the work after the hulk was found to be full of unexploded bombs. The Canadian and U.S. governments are still trying to sort out that one.
Many of the Gitga'at also worry about proposals to ship condensate -- a kerosene-like liquid -- and crude oil to and from pipelines that would stretch between northern Alberta and Kitimat on the B.C. coast. That would mean tankers travelling down Douglas Channel, right past Hartley Bay's front door.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
Many stories have been written about the courage of the villagers that night, as they came to the aid of the survivors of the sinking.
Not quite as many have focused in on a rather unwelcome legacy of the tragedy, the leaking of fuel from the sunken ferry and the effect it may be having on the lives and food supply of the residents.
Jack Knox of the Victoria Times Colonist made the trip to Hartley Bay to investigate the Queen of the North situation, some ghosts of the past and worries about the future.
Leaking of sunken ferry's fuel is source of much worry
Hartley Bay worried that a leak will destroy their source of food and livelihood
Jack Knox
Times Colonist
Monday, March 19, 2007
HARTLEY BAY - What you need to understand is that for the Gitga'at, a fuel spill in Wright Sound would be akin to a bomb going off in every grocery store in Victoria.
Much, perhaps most, of the food eaten by the people of Hartley Bay comes from the ocean -- which is why they fear what might happen if diesel trapped inside the sunken Queen of the North escapes, and why they are bitter about how long it is taking to defuse what they see as a ticking time bomb.
A year after the March 22 disaster, B.C. Ferries and the coast guard still aren't sure how to deal with the ship's fuel tanks, 400 metres under water.
That's not good enough for Gitga'at chief councillor Bob Hill, who won't let B.C. Ferries forget an earlier promise to have the fuel removed by the end of 2006.
"I'm really fed up with it," says Hill. "We could have anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000 litres of fuel still on this vessel."
On the other hand, there could be very little left on board. That's the problem. Nobody is sure. "You don't know until you actually get down there," says coast guard spokesman Dan Bate. Only trace amounts of diesel are rising to the surface now.
The coast guard, B.C. Ferries and international salvage experts are still trying to figure out the best way to tackle the problem. Bate said they hope to have a plan by mid-April, and want to be sure of doing the right thing. "You would hate to go down and put a hole in the vessel that releases more fuel and causes more destruction."
After the ferry sank, the surface was thick with diesel. "The smell was atrocious," says Hill. Outflow winds pushed the spill up Grenville Channel and out past Banks Island. It missed the camp where the Gitga'at pick kelp and jig for halibut in May and June, but fouled the Fin Island beaches where they dig for clams.
Many of the people who depend on these waters for their diet -- salmon, seals, Dungeness crab, herring, cockles -- remain leery. "I have not gone out to harvest clams this year in a traditional area that my grandfather took me as a little boy," says Cam Hill, a teacher at the Hartley Bay school. "It's the first time I haven't done that. I haven't harvested the sea cucumbers. I haven't got answers to the questions I have as to whether it's safe or not."
The Gitga'at are much more worried about this than they are about B.C. Ferries' decision to call its new ferry Northern Adventure instead of Spirit of Hartley Bay, as had been popularly proposed. "We're not concerned about the name," says Hill. "We're concerned about the fuel." (Though he jokes that the village may change its name to Northern Adventure.) B.C. Ferries hasn't ignored Hartley Bay, whose residents rushed to the aid of the people who abandoned the stricken ferry. The corporation is building the community a new gangway and donating equipment for what will be a memorial playground. "We're very appreciative of that," says Hill. But it is the fuel that really matters.
Hill says there are no safeguards against a sudden upwelling of diesel. The Gitga'at are set to launch shellfish aquaculture projects at three nearby sites, but are reluctant to do so while the fuel threat remains.
The Queen of the North isn't all there is to worry about. At the bottom of Grenville Channel, 40 kilometres from Hartley Bay, rests the Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski, a U.S. army transport ship that sank in 1946. Divers patched some cracks after the wreck began to leak oil in 2003, but they abandoned the work after the hulk was found to be full of unexploded bombs. The Canadian and U.S. governments are still trying to sort out that one.
Many of the Gitga'at also worry about proposals to ship condensate -- a kerosene-like liquid -- and crude oil to and from pipelines that would stretch between northern Alberta and Kitimat on the B.C. coast. That would mean tankers travelling down Douglas Channel, right past Hartley Bay's front door.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
One year later, still waiting for answers.
With the anniversary of the sinking of the Queen of the North arriving tomorrow, the Globe and Mail offered up a timely review of the events of that night and where the numerous invesgtigations into the sinking stand at the moment.
A year later, answers still lost at sea
All the facts have not yet surfaced since B.C. ferry Queen of the North sank
ROD MICKLEBURGH
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
All the facts have not yet surfaced since B.C. ferry Queen of the North sank
ROD MICKLEBURGH
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
VANCOUVER — One year ago on Thursday, Graham Clarke sat huddled in a bobbing lifeboat, watching through the driving, early-morning rain a surreal sight that no one who was there will ever forget.
The Queen of the North, the large, brightly lit passenger ferry he had boarded just hours before, was going down.
“As the bow went up, there was this huge grinding, crashing, banging din, as things began to tear loose,” Mr. Clarke recalled this week, still marvelling at the memory.
“The bulkheads, heavy machinery, truck trailers, everything was falling to the stern of the ship. Then, you were looking at the funnel disappearing, the windows were blowing out and there was a whoosh of air, as she went down,” Mr. Clarke said.
“You could hear her hitting rocks on the way, shuddering and twitching, like she was in her death throes. Then, complete silence. It was so quiet, you could hear the rain dropping.”
The 63-year-old shipping executive, not realizing at the time that two passengers had gone down with the ship, led the stunned, chilled survivors in as lusty a three-cheers as they could manage for the first vessel in the history of the publicly owned B.C. Ferries fleet to be lost at sea.
But there have been few, if any, cheers over the sinking since.
One year later, the cause of the mishap remains a mystery, union and company relations have been poisoned by the event, and families of the two victims are still searching for answers, denied even the minimal comfort of a death certificate.
The Queen of the North sank about one hour after running full tilt into rocky Gil Island, 150 kilometres south of Prince Rupert, where it had left for an overnight passage to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. The gruesome collision ripped open the ship's hull, forcing 99 crew and passengers to abandon ship in the middle of the night.
Even as those on board and their heroic rescuers from the nearby native community of Hartley Bay recall the harrowing events of a year ago, however, the central question remains publicly unanswered.
How could the Queen of the North have strayed so far off course without anyone in charge of navigating and steering the ship noticing?
A report from B.C. Ferries' own inquiry into the mishap is expected to solve large parts of the mystery when it is released Friday, or Monday at the latest.
But company investigators were hampered by the refusal of two key union crew members to answer questions.
On the bridge at the time were helmswoman Karen Bricker and navigator Karl Lilgert. Below deck, having a meal break, was Second Officer Keven Hilton.
Contrary to many media reports, Ms. Bricker has co-operated to some extent with the inquiry, and continues to be paid, although she remains off work.
But Mr. Lilgert and Mr. Hilton have remained silent, their lawyer citing concern over potential civil and criminal liability.
Both men have been suspended without pay.
Previous media reports have suggested the ship may have been on autopilot when it ran into Gil Island, without a crucial course correction having been made to swing the vessel safely into mid-channel.
An early finding by the Transportation Safety Board also revealed that the monitor on the ship's new electronic chart system had been turned off because crew members did not know how to reduce its glare.
The RCMP's major-crimes unit is continuing to investigate the sinking, with up to six officers assigned to determine whether criminal negligence was a factor.
As they prepare for an emotional anniversary memorial on the windswept, uninhabited island, relatives of the two missing passengers are renewing their pleas for tight-lipped crew members to tell what happened.
“We wish they would come forward and tell the truth. That's all we ask,” said Dwight Melnyk, brother-in-law of Gerald Foisy, who has not been seen since the sinking.
“We want to know what happened on the bridge that night and why. It would be closure for everybody, particularly Gerald's two young daughters.”
Exacerbating the families' anguish is the fact that Mr. Foisy, 46, and his 42-year-old fiancée Shirley Rosette, also missing, have yet to be declared dead, meaning their four children cannot collect survivor benefits.
Saturday's private memorial for the families is being organized by residents of Hartley Bay, the same folks who dashed out into the night on a rescue mission mere moments after the ferry's “mayday” crackled over the air.
Within 15 minutes, they were carting survivors back to the small, isolated, coastal village to be warmed and fed.
And when relatives of the missing couple showed up, villagers took them out to the site of the tragedy.
“I can't say enough about them. They have opened their arms to us and it means so much,” Mr. Melnyk said. “They are just beautiful people.”
Remembering the Queen of the North Archive
We'll archive the stories of remembrance that we discover, as the one year anniversary of the sinking of Queen of the North is commemorated on March 22, 2006.
March 24 Missing passengers remembered at Gil Island
March 23 Little known island, now forever linked to BC’s maritime history
March 22 Half mast flags and remembrance
March 22 Tuesday delivery date for BC Ferries internal report into Queen of the North sinking
March 22 And then there was complete silence
March 22 Reviewing an infamous night and looking to the future
March 21 Lessons learned from Queen of the North tragedy
March 21 Tourism industry resurfacing a year after the sinking
March 21 Leaking of sunken ferry's fuel is source of much worry
March 21 BC Ferries promises release of internal review findings within a week
March 21 One year later, still waiting for answers
March 20 Fatal B.C. ferry sinking still 'night to remember'
March 19 Ferry victims' families seek legal closure, survivors' benefits
March 24 Missing passengers remembered at Gil Island
March 23 Little known island, now forever linked to BC’s maritime history
March 22 Half mast flags and remembrance
March 22 Tuesday delivery date for BC Ferries internal report into Queen of the North sinking
March 22 And then there was complete silence
March 22 Reviewing an infamous night and looking to the future
March 21 Lessons learned from Queen of the North tragedy
March 21 Tourism industry resurfacing a year after the sinking
March 21 Leaking of sunken ferry's fuel is source of much worry
March 21 BC Ferries promises release of internal review findings within a week
March 21 One year later, still waiting for answers
March 20 Fatal B.C. ferry sinking still 'night to remember'
March 19 Ferry victims' families seek legal closure, survivors' benefits
Families of Queen of the North victims look for closure
The CBC website has details on the quest for legal closure on the sinking of the Queen of the North.
The families of Gerald Foisy and his wife, Shirley Rosette of 100 Mile House, B.C. want the couple declared legally dead, a process which is caught up in the bureacracy of a coroners investigation, that inquiry began last December but the coroner is not ready to make their findings public yet.
Surivor benefits for the families are held up with a legal declaration, the families are also anxious for the Transportation Safety Board report that will outline the cause of the sinking of the vessel on March 22, 2006.
Ferry victims' families seek legal closure, survivors' benefits
Last Updated: Monday, March 19, 2007 8:24 AM PT
CBC News
The families of the two people who are still missing a year after the sinking of the B.C. ferry, the Queen of the North, want them declared legally dead.
They believe Gerald Foisy and his wife, Shirley Rosette of 100 Mile House, B.C., had boarded the ferry in Prince Rupert on its last voyage. But they were not among those rescued, and their bodies were never found.
That's created difficulties for their families, who have applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for a declaration of their deaths so Foisy's two teenaged daughters and Rosette's two teenaged sons can receive survivor benefits.
A coroner's inquiry began last December, but the regional coroner for northern B.C. said he's not ready to make findings yet.
Shayne DeMeyer said the inquiry has eyewitness accounts and RCMP reports, but no forensic evidence.
"Do we have enough to say 'presumed dead?' We don't currently," he said. "There's more work to be done, but there are other avenues for the family to take."
The families of the missing couple are also waiting for the Transportation Safety Board report into the cause of the sinking of the Queen of the North after it hit Gil Island along B.C.'s Central Coast on March 22, 2006.
With no answers forthcoming, Foisy's sister Diane Melnyk said the family is planning a private ceremony next Saturday, when two crosses will be erected on Gil Island.
"That will be Gerald's resting place. We know that he's there, and this weekend's important for us … to just put closure to it."
New ferry ready to go
Meanwhile the Queen of the North's replacement vessel was unveiled in Vancouver over the weekend.
The vessel Northern Adventure was shown off to the public at the cruise ship terminal in Burrard Inlet.
There had been widespread support to have the new ferry named the The Spirit of Hartley Bay, to honour residents of the small First Nations village who went out in the middle of the night to rescue the Queen of the North's passengers and crew.
They also provided lodging for them in the days following the sinking.
Hartley Bay resident Daniel Danes, who was among the first people on the scene, told CBC Radio on Monday that not naming the new vessel after his community is not a problem for him.
"They can do whatever they want with it. We can't tell them what to do. It's their boat. We can't tell them what to name it. The way I feel, we did what we did," he said.
"It could have happened anywhere on the coast, [and] it would have had the same response, I think."
The Northern Adventure is scheduled to start regular service between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert next month.
The families of Gerald Foisy and his wife, Shirley Rosette of 100 Mile House, B.C. want the couple declared legally dead, a process which is caught up in the bureacracy of a coroners investigation, that inquiry began last December but the coroner is not ready to make their findings public yet.
Surivor benefits for the families are held up with a legal declaration, the families are also anxious for the Transportation Safety Board report that will outline the cause of the sinking of the vessel on March 22, 2006.
Ferry victims' families seek legal closure, survivors' benefits
Last Updated: Monday, March 19, 2007 8:24 AM PT
CBC News
The families of the two people who are still missing a year after the sinking of the B.C. ferry, the Queen of the North, want them declared legally dead.
They believe Gerald Foisy and his wife, Shirley Rosette of 100 Mile House, B.C., had boarded the ferry in Prince Rupert on its last voyage. But they were not among those rescued, and their bodies were never found.
That's created difficulties for their families, who have applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for a declaration of their deaths so Foisy's two teenaged daughters and Rosette's two teenaged sons can receive survivor benefits.
A coroner's inquiry began last December, but the regional coroner for northern B.C. said he's not ready to make findings yet.
Shayne DeMeyer said the inquiry has eyewitness accounts and RCMP reports, but no forensic evidence.
"Do we have enough to say 'presumed dead?' We don't currently," he said. "There's more work to be done, but there are other avenues for the family to take."
The families of the missing couple are also waiting for the Transportation Safety Board report into the cause of the sinking of the Queen of the North after it hit Gil Island along B.C.'s Central Coast on March 22, 2006.
With no answers forthcoming, Foisy's sister Diane Melnyk said the family is planning a private ceremony next Saturday, when two crosses will be erected on Gil Island.
"That will be Gerald's resting place. We know that he's there, and this weekend's important for us … to just put closure to it."
New ferry ready to go
Meanwhile the Queen of the North's replacement vessel was unveiled in Vancouver over the weekend.
The vessel Northern Adventure was shown off to the public at the cruise ship terminal in Burrard Inlet.
There had been widespread support to have the new ferry named the The Spirit of Hartley Bay, to honour residents of the small First Nations village who went out in the middle of the night to rescue the Queen of the North's passengers and crew.
They also provided lodging for them in the days following the sinking.
Hartley Bay resident Daniel Danes, who was among the first people on the scene, told CBC Radio on Monday that not naming the new vessel after his community is not a problem for him.
"They can do whatever they want with it. We can't tell them what to do. It's their boat. We can't tell them what to name it. The way I feel, we did what we did," he said.
"It could have happened anywhere on the coast, [and] it would have had the same response, I think."
The Northern Adventure is scheduled to start regular service between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert next month.
Queen of the North remembrances begin
With a rather sad occassion about to be commemorated on Thursday, the remembrances of the events of March 22, 2006 have begun to find their place in the news machine. We'll try over the next day to provide a link to those items that come across the Podunkian internet connection.
An archive of those remembrances of a night that not many on the North Coast will forget any time soon.
Steve Metly of Canadian Press has put together a look back at the events of that night off of Gil Island, it first appeared on the CTV News website.
Fatal B.C. ferry sinking still 'night to remember'
Steve Mertl, Canadian Press
Updated: Tue. Mar. 20 2007 1:44 PM ET
PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. — You can still see the marks where she struck, the kind of scrapes a sleepy driver's car leaves after caroming off a highway divider.
The Queen of the North was doing almost 19 knots -- close to 35 kilometres an hour -- when the 8,800-tonne ferry slammed into the steep, unyielding shore of Gil Island after midnight a year ago March 22.
The collision ripped a gash from stem to stern that sent her to the bottom of Wright Sound in just over an hour, leaving passengers and crew bobbing in lifeboats and rafts in choppy, rain-swept seas.
A battery of investigations is trying to discover why the ship, which travelled the ruggedly beautiful B.C. North Coast's Inside Passage since 1980, missed a routine course change exiting Grenville Channel.
A pair of steel crosses now overlook the wreck site, the presumed resting place of two passengers who apparently never made it off the ship.
On Saturday, relatives of Gerald Foisy and his companion Shirley Rosette of Prince George, B.C., gather to dedicate the memorial and join in a commemoration with the nearby Gitga'at First Nation village of Hartley Bay, whose residents sped to the rescue that night.
Crew members quietly held their own reunion in Prince Rupert, the Queen's home port, earlier this month.
The initial jubilation that all 101 passengers and crew had made it off the ship evaporated it became clear two never got to Hartley Bay or to the coast guard vessel Sir Wilfrid Laurier that arrived within two hours.
Rosette and Foisy are likely entombed on the Queen but the couple remain officially listed as missing until the RCMP finish their investigation.
"We can't do anything until we get that death certificate," says Glenn McDonald of Penticton, B.C., Foisy's grandfather and co-executor of his will, who has also launched a lawsuit on behalf of Foisy's two teenage children, one of several legal actions triggered by the sinking.
"They really want to find out just what happened to their dad."
The anniversary comes as the Queen's replacement gets ready to enter service. B.C. Ferries recently dedicated the Northern Adventure.
Despite often lurid speculation, the cause is still officially a mystery. It sparked an RCMP criminal probe soon to be the hands of Crown prosecutors, a B.C. Ferries' internal review likely ready this month and the federal Transportation Safety Board's definitive analysis that's three to six months away.
The coast guard is promising a recommendation soon on how to deal with tonnes of remaining diesel fuel and other pollutants.
Like almost everyone connected with the Queen's final journey, B.C. Ferries president David Hahn says his thoughts are of Rosette and Foisy.
"This'll probably come out wrong but I could care less about the ship," he says. "It's the people that lost their lives that is the most difficult thing to deal with."
The investigations could fill in some of the missing pieces of what survivor Graham Clarke wryly calls his "night to remember," a reference to the well-known account of the Titanic's sinking.
Few that night were in a better position than Clarke to understand what was happening.
The head of Vancouver-based Pacific Marine Group was aboard as a guest of B.C. Ferries. His small ferry company was offering to take over the 17-hour run between Prince Rupert and Port Hardy, on northern Vancouver Island.
Clarke had explored every part of the ship, including the bridge, and spoken to many of its crew. He was dozing in bed when he heard and felt the ship's first contact with Gil Island at around 12:20 a.m.
"I thought we'd broken a propeller shaft," he recalls. "But when the second impact occurred a second or two later, it was long, protracted and the ship was rolling considerably like she was being lifted bodily."
Clarke vividly remembers the noise, a long, metallic grinding "like something was giving way to an immovable object," followed by a long silence, then an alarm. And darkness.
As Clarke groped for his clothes he realized the sound of tearing that had passed beneath him was clearly below the waterline.
"As far as I was concerned the ship was no longer on a rock. It was going down," he says. "I was going to get dressed warmly because I thought that this was going to be a long night."
In Hartley Bay, where the 150-odd residents routinely monitor marine radio traffic in case of emergencies, matriarch Belle Eaton was first to hear the ferry's distress call and alert her neighbours.
Nicole Robinson, in charge of the village nursing station, got an instant message on her computer at home.
Edward Robinson spoke briefly to the ferry by radio and offered assistance, then heard her mayday call to the coast guard. He quickly summoned his neighbours.
"Not even two minutes after I made the call I was down on the float and everybody was already on boats," he remembers.
Ernie Westgarth set up a reception area for survivors at the village cultural centre. Eaton was one of the first to arrive and help, making sandwiches and coffee.
The Laurier was anchored for the night in Bernard Harbour about 27 kilometres south of Hartley Bay.
It would take 90 minutes to up anchor and steam at top speed to the wreck site so the crew launched its fast-rescue boat, an inflatable Zodiac capable of 40 knots, to race ahead.
Aboard the Queen, dazed passengers mustered on deck.
"There was one lady who was complaining that this was a fine time to have a lifeboat drill," says Clarke. "She was dressed in a nightgown, in her bare feet."
The ship's list made it hard to launch her lifeboats and rafts, says Clarke. He had a heart-stopping moment as his raft fell about three metres when its launch mechanism malfunctioned.
Ed Robinson and his fellow rescuers raced their small boats through a violent squall and arrived in time to see the ship, lit by her emergency lights, settling in the water.
The captain, still trying to account for everyone, asked Robinson to circle the sinking vessel and look for anyone still aboard.
"So I went around the ship and I flashed in every window. I went around slow and didn't see anything."
Robinson watched as the Queen took her final plunge at around 1:40 a.m.
As her bow lifted towards the sky, Clarke heard the sounds of cars, heavy trucks and machinery tearing loose and tumbling towards the stern.
"It was making a terrible din, amplified over the water and under the water," he says.
Windows blew out and air rushed through the hole in her bow.
"As she went down, the stern hit the rock face at the edge of the island and you could see her dance vertically sideways as she hit," says Clarke.
Mindful of naval tradition, Clarke says he led the survivors in a cheer for the Queen.
"She was a beautiful ship. I felt she was the handsomest ship in the fleet."
The crew of the arriving Laurier was met with an unnerving sight -- hundreds of floating lifejackets that had fallen out of deck containers as the ship sank. In the dark their untied straps looked like limp arms.
"We couldn't just go steaming through all that," says chief officer Steve Kennedy, the ship's second-in-command. "You don't know if there's people in any of them. We had to basically stop the ship."
With no idea how many people had been aboard -- the Queen could carry more than 500 passengers -- the Laurier's searchlights probed the mass of lifejackets as she crept through the debris.
"It was likely the most eerie feeling I've ever had. I'll never forget it."
The Laurier would take about 50 passengers and crew aboard, including Clarke, while the rest were taken to Hartley Bay.
As she waited for an unknown number of casualties, Nicole Robinson worried she might be in over her head.
The village's visiting nurses had left the previous day and Robinson would have to rely on her first aid training. She also knew her uncle and cousins from nearby Klemtu were travelling on the Queen.
"I just broke down and cried because I didn't know what I was going to do," she remembers.
Robinson would end up treating several people for minor injuries, getting advice over the phone throughout the night. Several people were later taken by helicopter to Prince Rupert.
Westgarth initially took things in stride, joking with men on the dock as they waited to receive survivors. That changed when the first boatload arrived.
"They just had these shocked looks on their faces, like is this really happening?" he says, remembering especially a bewildered barefoot little boy. "That's when it dawned on us how serious this was."
Survivors were counted at the reception centre but Westgarth says there were problems as the coast guard repeatedly questioned the tallies, which came up short.
The uncertainty was deepened by a false rumour that two passengers -- assumed to be Foisy and Rosette -- had hitched a ride on a fishing boat headed to Prince Rupert.
The rescuers trolled Wright Sound all day, picking up lifejackets, food trays and other debris in a spreading diesel slick whose fumes nauseated them and turned their boats black.
The survivors at Hartley Bay, after being taken into homes to eat and clean up, joined the others on the Laurier to return to Prince Rupert almost 24 hours after they departed there in the Queen.
The ferry now lies beneath 425 metres of water. Video shows her sitting upright looking largely undamaged -- her wound hidden by a deep bed of silt -- as if waiting to load passengers and cars for her next trip.
An almost benign sight, except for the realization the Queen is regularly burping up diesel from her 225,000-litre fuel tanks, and perhaps some of the 23,000 litres of lubricant she also carried.
Hartley Bay residents are frustrated that B.C. Ferries and government agencies have not kept their promise to address the potential environmental disaster quickly. Hahn says costs will be borne by the company's insurance.
B.C. Ferries has shown its gratitude to Hartley Bay by funding improvements to its dock and buying new playground equipment for the children, but rejected suggestions to name the Queen's replacement Spirit of Hartley Bay.
The village has been showered with accolades, including a Governor General's commendation. Westgarth says the incident has done a lot for residents' self-confidence.
"There was two lives lost there but I'm pretty proud about how Hartley Bay came together without questioning,' he says. "The guys that went on the boats, they put themselves in jeopardy."
Gitga'at Chief Bob Hill proposes a more tangible reward than renaming a ship: Build on coastal First Nations' seagoing skills with training and better equipment to bolster the emergency-response capabilities on these remote shores.
An archive of those remembrances of a night that not many on the North Coast will forget any time soon.
Steve Metly of Canadian Press has put together a look back at the events of that night off of Gil Island, it first appeared on the CTV News website.
Fatal B.C. ferry sinking still 'night to remember'
Steve Mertl, Canadian Press
Updated: Tue. Mar. 20 2007 1:44 PM ET
PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. — You can still see the marks where she struck, the kind of scrapes a sleepy driver's car leaves after caroming off a highway divider.
The Queen of the North was doing almost 19 knots -- close to 35 kilometres an hour -- when the 8,800-tonne ferry slammed into the steep, unyielding shore of Gil Island after midnight a year ago March 22.
The collision ripped a gash from stem to stern that sent her to the bottom of Wright Sound in just over an hour, leaving passengers and crew bobbing in lifeboats and rafts in choppy, rain-swept seas.
A battery of investigations is trying to discover why the ship, which travelled the ruggedly beautiful B.C. North Coast's Inside Passage since 1980, missed a routine course change exiting Grenville Channel.
A pair of steel crosses now overlook the wreck site, the presumed resting place of two passengers who apparently never made it off the ship.
On Saturday, relatives of Gerald Foisy and his companion Shirley Rosette of Prince George, B.C., gather to dedicate the memorial and join in a commemoration with the nearby Gitga'at First Nation village of Hartley Bay, whose residents sped to the rescue that night.
Crew members quietly held their own reunion in Prince Rupert, the Queen's home port, earlier this month.
The initial jubilation that all 101 passengers and crew had made it off the ship evaporated it became clear two never got to Hartley Bay or to the coast guard vessel Sir Wilfrid Laurier that arrived within two hours.
Rosette and Foisy are likely entombed on the Queen but the couple remain officially listed as missing until the RCMP finish their investigation.
"We can't do anything until we get that death certificate," says Glenn McDonald of Penticton, B.C., Foisy's grandfather and co-executor of his will, who has also launched a lawsuit on behalf of Foisy's two teenage children, one of several legal actions triggered by the sinking.
"They really want to find out just what happened to their dad."
The anniversary comes as the Queen's replacement gets ready to enter service. B.C. Ferries recently dedicated the Northern Adventure.
Despite often lurid speculation, the cause is still officially a mystery. It sparked an RCMP criminal probe soon to be the hands of Crown prosecutors, a B.C. Ferries' internal review likely ready this month and the federal Transportation Safety Board's definitive analysis that's three to six months away.
The coast guard is promising a recommendation soon on how to deal with tonnes of remaining diesel fuel and other pollutants.
Like almost everyone connected with the Queen's final journey, B.C. Ferries president David Hahn says his thoughts are of Rosette and Foisy.
"This'll probably come out wrong but I could care less about the ship," he says. "It's the people that lost their lives that is the most difficult thing to deal with."
The investigations could fill in some of the missing pieces of what survivor Graham Clarke wryly calls his "night to remember," a reference to the well-known account of the Titanic's sinking.
Few that night were in a better position than Clarke to understand what was happening.
The head of Vancouver-based Pacific Marine Group was aboard as a guest of B.C. Ferries. His small ferry company was offering to take over the 17-hour run between Prince Rupert and Port Hardy, on northern Vancouver Island.
Clarke had explored every part of the ship, including the bridge, and spoken to many of its crew. He was dozing in bed when he heard and felt the ship's first contact with Gil Island at around 12:20 a.m.
"I thought we'd broken a propeller shaft," he recalls. "But when the second impact occurred a second or two later, it was long, protracted and the ship was rolling considerably like she was being lifted bodily."
Clarke vividly remembers the noise, a long, metallic grinding "like something was giving way to an immovable object," followed by a long silence, then an alarm. And darkness.
As Clarke groped for his clothes he realized the sound of tearing that had passed beneath him was clearly below the waterline.
"As far as I was concerned the ship was no longer on a rock. It was going down," he says. "I was going to get dressed warmly because I thought that this was going to be a long night."
In Hartley Bay, where the 150-odd residents routinely monitor marine radio traffic in case of emergencies, matriarch Belle Eaton was first to hear the ferry's distress call and alert her neighbours.
Nicole Robinson, in charge of the village nursing station, got an instant message on her computer at home.
Edward Robinson spoke briefly to the ferry by radio and offered assistance, then heard her mayday call to the coast guard. He quickly summoned his neighbours.
"Not even two minutes after I made the call I was down on the float and everybody was already on boats," he remembers.
Ernie Westgarth set up a reception area for survivors at the village cultural centre. Eaton was one of the first to arrive and help, making sandwiches and coffee.
The Laurier was anchored for the night in Bernard Harbour about 27 kilometres south of Hartley Bay.
It would take 90 minutes to up anchor and steam at top speed to the wreck site so the crew launched its fast-rescue boat, an inflatable Zodiac capable of 40 knots, to race ahead.
Aboard the Queen, dazed passengers mustered on deck.
"There was one lady who was complaining that this was a fine time to have a lifeboat drill," says Clarke. "She was dressed in a nightgown, in her bare feet."
The ship's list made it hard to launch her lifeboats and rafts, says Clarke. He had a heart-stopping moment as his raft fell about three metres when its launch mechanism malfunctioned.
Ed Robinson and his fellow rescuers raced their small boats through a violent squall and arrived in time to see the ship, lit by her emergency lights, settling in the water.
The captain, still trying to account for everyone, asked Robinson to circle the sinking vessel and look for anyone still aboard.
"So I went around the ship and I flashed in every window. I went around slow and didn't see anything."
Robinson watched as the Queen took her final plunge at around 1:40 a.m.
As her bow lifted towards the sky, Clarke heard the sounds of cars, heavy trucks and machinery tearing loose and tumbling towards the stern.
"It was making a terrible din, amplified over the water and under the water," he says.
Windows blew out and air rushed through the hole in her bow.
"As she went down, the stern hit the rock face at the edge of the island and you could see her dance vertically sideways as she hit," says Clarke.
Mindful of naval tradition, Clarke says he led the survivors in a cheer for the Queen.
"She was a beautiful ship. I felt she was the handsomest ship in the fleet."
The crew of the arriving Laurier was met with an unnerving sight -- hundreds of floating lifejackets that had fallen out of deck containers as the ship sank. In the dark their untied straps looked like limp arms.
"We couldn't just go steaming through all that," says chief officer Steve Kennedy, the ship's second-in-command. "You don't know if there's people in any of them. We had to basically stop the ship."
With no idea how many people had been aboard -- the Queen could carry more than 500 passengers -- the Laurier's searchlights probed the mass of lifejackets as she crept through the debris.
"It was likely the most eerie feeling I've ever had. I'll never forget it."
The Laurier would take about 50 passengers and crew aboard, including Clarke, while the rest were taken to Hartley Bay.
As she waited for an unknown number of casualties, Nicole Robinson worried she might be in over her head.
The village's visiting nurses had left the previous day and Robinson would have to rely on her first aid training. She also knew her uncle and cousins from nearby Klemtu were travelling on the Queen.
"I just broke down and cried because I didn't know what I was going to do," she remembers.
Robinson would end up treating several people for minor injuries, getting advice over the phone throughout the night. Several people were later taken by helicopter to Prince Rupert.
Westgarth initially took things in stride, joking with men on the dock as they waited to receive survivors. That changed when the first boatload arrived.
"They just had these shocked looks on their faces, like is this really happening?" he says, remembering especially a bewildered barefoot little boy. "That's when it dawned on us how serious this was."
Survivors were counted at the reception centre but Westgarth says there were problems as the coast guard repeatedly questioned the tallies, which came up short.
The uncertainty was deepened by a false rumour that two passengers -- assumed to be Foisy and Rosette -- had hitched a ride on a fishing boat headed to Prince Rupert.
The rescuers trolled Wright Sound all day, picking up lifejackets, food trays and other debris in a spreading diesel slick whose fumes nauseated them and turned their boats black.
The survivors at Hartley Bay, after being taken into homes to eat and clean up, joined the others on the Laurier to return to Prince Rupert almost 24 hours after they departed there in the Queen.
The ferry now lies beneath 425 metres of water. Video shows her sitting upright looking largely undamaged -- her wound hidden by a deep bed of silt -- as if waiting to load passengers and cars for her next trip.
An almost benign sight, except for the realization the Queen is regularly burping up diesel from her 225,000-litre fuel tanks, and perhaps some of the 23,000 litres of lubricant she also carried.
Hartley Bay residents are frustrated that B.C. Ferries and government agencies have not kept their promise to address the potential environmental disaster quickly. Hahn says costs will be borne by the company's insurance.
B.C. Ferries has shown its gratitude to Hartley Bay by funding improvements to its dock and buying new playground equipment for the children, but rejected suggestions to name the Queen's replacement Spirit of Hartley Bay.
The village has been showered with accolades, including a Governor General's commendation. Westgarth says the incident has done a lot for residents' self-confidence.
"There was two lives lost there but I'm pretty proud about how Hartley Bay came together without questioning,' he says. "The guys that went on the boats, they put themselves in jeopardy."
Gitga'at Chief Bob Hill proposes a more tangible reward than renaming a ship: Build on coastal First Nations' seagoing skills with training and better equipment to bolster the emergency-response capabilities on these remote shores.
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