Relive the history, the dreams of a fateful day, with a Titanic exhibition in Victoria

The much fabled tale of the Titanic and its Prince Rupert connection will get another telling this summer at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria.

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition will open on April 14th, 95 years to the day of the maritime disaster that went down in history. The exhibit which is being brought to Western Canada for the first time has already been viewed by some 17 million people world wide.

The Daily News featured the details of the museum’s plans in its Tuesday edition.

EXHIBITION HELPS BRING TITANIC TO LIFE
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Pages one and two

One of the 20th Century’s greatest disasters, and the death of a dream for Prince Rupert, will be front and centre at Victoria’s Royal B. C. Museum this summer.

The internationally acclaimed Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition details the tragic sinking of the world’s greatest ocean liner, whose passengers included town founder Charles Melville Hays.

“He, his wife and his maid basically got a free ride on the Titanic courtesy of White Star Lines Managing Director Bruce Ismay,” said Diane Dakers, manager of media and public relations, Royal B. C. Museum.

(Ismay) was also a director o a railway in London so they had that connection as well. Hays had been in England… at a director’s meeting where he proposed to spend his way out of bankruptcy. He was trying to save the company, basically, and then sailed back on the Titanic.”

Charles Melville Hays was born in Illinois and moved to Canada to join the Grand Trunk Railway where he eventually became company president. A trading route between the ‘Orient’ and North America linked by ship and rail was his dream for Prince Rupert. Along with trying to get the funds to keep that dream alive, hays was also heading up an entourage that was going to officially open the Chateau Laurier on April 26. the impressive Ottawa landmark had been commissioned by Hays.

“Mr. Hays had quite a large party of people with him on the ship,” said Dakers. “His daughter and son-in-law, private secretary and French sculptor Paul Chevre, who had been commissioned to do a bust of Laurier for the hotel lobby, were all there.

“The rumour was that the bust had actually gone down with the ship, but Chevre has since said that wasn’t true. It wasn’t even on the ship.”

Along with never seeing his dream fulfilled for Prince Rupert, Hays would never see the magnificent hotel he had envisioned. Only Chevre and the women in his party survived the sinking of the ship.

“Obviously, it affected Prince Rupert because he never made it back and my understanding is that the town as planned never blossomed,” said Dakers. “He went down with the Titanic as did his dreams for Prince Rupert.”

The exhibit, which was officially announced last week, opens on April 14 – 95 years to the day of the disaster. Created by Premier Exhibitions the event features 281 artifacts recovered from Titanic’s undersea resting place in a series of galleries that trace the life of the “unsinkable” ship – from its design and construction through to its discovery, recovery and conservation. Although none of the artifacts have been linked to Hays, a number of the items have had their owners identified through a team of historians who have matched items from old pictures, family interviews and monograms.

“Titanic is most importantly a human story,” said John Zaller, director of exhibition design, at Premier Exhibitions. “Through my years of research, it has been an honour to learn some of the stories of the ship’s 2,228 passengers and crew and of the ship itself.

“I am so close to the story that it is really a thrill for me that the exhibition moves people so powerfully,”

The exhibit includes a gangplank visitors climb, boarding passes in hand, as they become immersed in the passenger experience. Authentically recreated firs and third class corridors and cabins, outdoor café and boiler room are appointed with artifacts recovered from the shipwreck site 3,800 metres below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Royal BC Musuem is the first venue in Western Canada to present this assembly of artifacts. Close to 17 million people have taken in the Titanic exhibit from as far away as Greece and Korea.