Maritime Museum of the Atlantic Opens Shipwreck Exhibit

N.S. MUSEUM--Maritime Museum of the Atlantic Opens Shipwreck Exhibit

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax today opened an exciting new exhibit -- Shipwreck Treasures of Nova Scotia -- after several months of painstaking research, design, and construction.

This permanent exhibit explores a history rich with stories. It uses a wealth of artifacts -- and more than simply gold and silver.

Parts of Nova Scotia have been referred to as “the Graveyard of the Atlantic” and “Shipwreck Shoreline.” Nova Scotia has more wrecks per kilometre of coastline than almost anywhere else in North America, ranging in time from aboriginal vessels to modern craft, and involving virtually every type and size of vessel. Estimates range from 10,000 to 25,000 wrecks, in some places so thick that ships are piled on top of each other.

More than a dozen dramatic shipwreck stories will be featured.

One such story is about the SS Atlantic, the world’s largest steamship of its time. Due to navigational error, the Atlantic wrecked off Prospect, near Halifax, in 1873 with the loss of 562 lives. It was a tragic precursor to the Titanic, which has its own special exhibit.

When the 18th-century warship HMS Tribune wrecked near Halifax Harbour, its captain refused to let his men abandon ship, causing unnecessary loss of life.

Saladin, the scene of mutiny and murder on the high seas, eventually wrecked near Country Harbour on Nova Scotia’s eastern shore in 1844.

The SS Hungarian, a major ocean liner, was pushed off course by a storm and wrecked off Cape Sable in 1860, with no survivors.

The museum worked closely with Parks Canada for a significant feature, about the wrecks of 18th-century warships from Louisbourg Harbour, where wrecks were particularly well-preserved and protected.

Many objects in the exhibit would not have been found, nor their stories told, were it not for the efforts of avocational divers. The mysteries of a humble 18th-Century fishing schooner that wrecked at Terence Bay is a significant example.

The exhibit will include well over 100 artifacts, including important archaeological finds, bizarre curiosities and dozens of rare gold and silver coins from three “treasure wrecks” from Cape Breton Island. But beyond the artifacts, this exhibit shows that the wrecks are treasures themselves, from which we are able to learn much about who we were, and are, as a sea-going people.