Book Description

This is the untold saga of the 130 passengers aboard the ill-fated luxury liner who were bound for Canada. Author Alan Hustak began his research ten years before the blockbuster movie came out. He conducted interviews across Canada with direct descendants and relatives of Canadians who sailed on the Titanic's maiden voyage. In the process he unearthed historic photographs and stories which contribute another dimension to the familiar tale. Hustak's chronicles are more poignant than fiction, such as the tale of Quigg Baxter, the young Montreal hockey player who risked all to smuggle his Belgian fiancée aboard, the Fortune family from Winnipeg which failed to heed a clairvoyant's warning; and Harry Markland Molson, the richest Canadian aboard who was persuaded by Toronto millionaire Arthur Peuchen to extend his stay in England and sail home with him on the Titanic. Hustak discloses the scandalous behaviour of second class passenger Joseph Fynney and tells of the young honeymooners Bert and Vera Dick of Calgary who started an enduring legend about the disaster. Some books insist the Titanic's last victim, found in a lifeboat a month after the disaster, was from New Jersey; others say he was from Chicago. In fact he was Thomson Beattie of Winnipeg. These stories and others have been overlooked or ignored by American and British historians and enthusiasts who have written about the Titanic.