See the refloating of a cargo ship that ran aground in Norway

A container ship that ran around in Norwegian homeowner Johan Helberg's yard last week has been refloated. 'I doubt I'll ever experience anything quite like this again.'

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3 days ago

Search for century-old artifact from Canadian shipwreck solved with a call from the U.S.

David Saint-Pierre says he had little information to go on in his effort to hunt down the keeper of a 111-year-old artifact from the shipwrecked Empress of Ireland. He had a photo of a man in a diving suit, an address from 1975 and a name: Ronald Stopani. Saint-Pierre — a maritime historian who has studied artifacts recovered from the site of the 1914 shipwreck off the coast of Rimouski, Que. — treated it like a modern-day scavenger hunt. He was looking for the Marconi wireless apparatus, the communication system used to receive and send wireless telegraphs on the ship before it sank, claiming the lives of more than 1,000 people. The system included a tuner, work table and keys to send messages. Saint-Pierre and staff at the Empress of Ireland Museum in Rimouski discovered it was found and recovered during an expedition to the site 51 years ago by a diving crew from Rochester, N.Y. With Saint-Pierre's help, the museum found Stopani — a member of the diving crew who first pulled it up from the water in the 70s — and in the spring, the apparatus was sent back to Quebec. 'I didn't even know if that man was still alive' The process of finding Stopani involved dozens of emails, Facebook messages, a handful of phone calls and physical letters, says Saint-Pierre. I didn't even know if that man was still alive, said Saint-Pierre. It was a shot in the dark. The Empress of Ireland is shown in an undated photo. The Canadian Pacific steamship collided with a Norwegian freighter near Quebec on May 29, 1914, sinking in 14 minutes and killing 1,012 people. (Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père) Photo: (Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père) He says he wrote to probably anyone with the last name Stopani on Facebook for a few weeks. If your name is Stopani, you probably have one of my messages in your junk box, joked Saint-Pierre. One day in January, he got a call back. In an interview with CBC News, Stopani said he still had the apparatus stored in a clear storage box in his home in Las Vegas — and he was eager to donate it. As soon as I opened up the letter, it even had a picture of me in there so I knew exactly what it was, said Stopani, reached in Las Vegas. I wanted to donate them for a while, but I had no way of contacting anybody. The 81-year-old, who splits his time between his homes in Florida and Nevada, says he half expected to be contacted. Years earlier, the family of his best friend, Fred Zeller — who had led diving expeditions to the shipwreck and who recently passed away — told Stopani that they travelled to the Rimouski museum to donate artifacts Zeller found and documents from over the years. Included in the donation was the photo of Stopani with the Marconi and correspondence between him and Zeller from the mid-1970s — when the pair met up to dive the shipwreck together. It was that photo and letter which first inspired Saint-Pierre and museum staff to find Stopani — and the pictured artifacts. Five decades later, Stopani still remembers the day he pulled the items up from the floor of the St. Lawrence River — decades before it was prohibited to recover artifacts. Believe me, it was cold, he said, adding that during the dive in July, he could see small pieces of ice floating in the river. He recalled inflating his dry suit to float up to the surface with a bag that he says weighed about 30 kilograms. For the next 51 years, the artifact was well-travelled as he brought it with him on his moves from Rochester to Brampton, Ont., to Florida and finally Las Vegas. Having shipped the Marconi out a few months ago, he says sending it back to Quebec made him feel elated. Artifact to be sent for restoration work Roxane Julien-Friolet, a museologist, says the Marconi arrived at the museum in mid-March and in great condition. We're just amazed and really honoured to have this really important object part of our collection now, said Julien-Friolet. She says it will be sent for restoration work and then displayed. Operated by telegraphist Ronald Ferguson, this device was a very useful tool, she says, and part of the reason some were saved from the wreck in 1914 after an SOS message was sent. Saint-Pierre says laying eyes on the device gives historians even more information as to what happened on board. In a photo, Saint-Pierre's friend noticed the switch on the tuner was turned off. It means that … [Ferguson] had to abandon his post [but] he took the time to turn the machine off, said Saint-Pierre. Which was standard protocol. So really a professional man. Ferguson was one of the 465 survivors of the wreck and lived until the 1980s, he says. Saint-Pierre has since connected with Ferguson's son, who lives in the U.K., and informed him that his father's instrument was finally found. That was also a great moment for me to be able to tell [him], said Saint-Pierre. Knowing that it was still in existence and that it would be in the museum was really emotional for him. Rachel Watts (new window) · CBC News

National Observer

13-06-2025

• National Observer

Inuit-led cruise sets a new standard for Arctic tourism

Mariah Erkloo remembers as a child watching massive, gleaming vessels glide into her hamlet of Pond Inlet, Nunavut, bringing strangers to her Arctic home for a few hours before vanishing over the horizon. It wasn't an altogether positive experience, she recalls. 'You just feel their presence and that's it,' she said. 'It never felt like there would be any benefit or like a mutual relationship in that.' Arctic cruise tourism has grown rapidly in recent years. In Nunavut, just a few ships used to visit, but now places like Pond Inlet can see up to 30 cruise ships in one short season between July and September. International cruise operators typically sell and finalize their itineraries, then reach out to communities afterwards, asking them to organize events and tours for the visitors — sometimes at the last minute. 'There are examples in the past where companies are literally like, 'We're coming to your community on this day and we want you to do this for us,' which is insane to me,' said Alex McNeil, chief expedition officer at HX, a UK-based cruise operator. This summer, Erkloo is helping McNeil and HX flip the script. Inuit communities are not just greeting tourists, but leading how the local experience is planned from the start. 'The majority of the industry, including us, are far from achieving what's possible through expedition travel,' said Alex McNeil, CXO at HX. 'We're trying to be further along on that journey than others, but it's still a work in progress.' 'We want more people involved and we want to impact more people and make sure we are a part of the conversation,' said Erkloo, who joined the HX team last summer to co-develop the project. She is a sociology student at UBC who returns home in the spring. HX, formerly known as Hurtigruten Expeditions after its parent company, the Norwegian national ferry operator, is the first major international cruise operator to hand over control of shore excursions to the communities themselves. McNeil, who has worked in tourism for a long time, recalls visiting Grise Fiord as a junior expedition guide in the late 2000s, when the mayor and residents welcomed the cruise guests with traditional food, games and performances. 'It wasn't a business transaction,' McNeil said. 'It was like, 'You're coming to our home, our shores and we're going to open our doors and just welcome you.'' But when the mayor asked the expedition leader where to send the invoice for their hospitality, he was told there was no budget. The community, not the cruise line, was left to cover the costs. 'I had never been so embarrassed and ashamed in my life,' McNeil said. 'There was such a disparity in resources and no compromise.' More than a decade later, McNeil is overseeing HX's effort to do things differently. Flipping the script Traditionally, Arctic cruises visiting Nunavut communities operated the same way — cruise operators typically paid a base fee to the local hamlet. In exchange, visitors were offered a walking tour and a cultural performance at the community hall. The economic impact was minimal and the experience, though genuine, was not shaped by local priorities, McNeil said. Under the new model, activities will look a little different: guided hikes, Arctic char fishing, community bingo, art workshops or a small-group conversation with community members will be offered instead. From the outset, the company is co-creating itineraries with communities, including Pond Inlet, Gjøa Haven and Cambridge Bay. 'The majority of the industry, including us, are far from achieving what's possible through expedition travel,' McNeil said. 'We're trying to be further along on that journey than others, but it's still a work in progress.' Last summer, HX ran pilot projects in Pond Inlet to test what it would look like if elders and residents shaped the cruise excursions — choosing the activities, setting the pace and deciding who would be involved. 'It feels like now the communities are like, 'Okay, these are things we want to do,'' Erkloo said. Communities established their own limits on visitor numbers, duration of the excursion and the types of experiences they felt were both authentic and sustainable to share. The company organized open community meetings where anyone could attend, not just community leaders or business owners. 'We just kind of opened up the space,' McNeil said. 'We want to invite them to add input and know what pressure points are [there]? What are areas you think are beneficial? What works and what doesn't?' Arctic's tourism boom The concept " last chance tourism ' has become a significant driver of demand in the Arctic, with many visitors motivated by the desire to see melting sea ice, threatened wildlife and unique Indigenous cultures before they are irrevocably changed. In recent years, Inuit communities near Pond Inlet have taken a stronger role in shaping tourism activity, particularly as they pushed for changes to protect narwhals in Eclipse Sound after hunters and trappers reported sharp declines linked to heavy ship traffic. In response, cruise operators under the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators have agreed to avoid Eclipse Sound during peak narwhal migration, opting for less sensitive routes instead. Christopher Debicki, vice president of policy development and counsel at Oceans North, a Canadian charity for Arctic and Atlantic marine conservation said while cruise and expedition travel are increasing, he rejects the idea that the Arctic is already lost. "It's not too late, these places are still very, very vibrant both from a human perspective and from a biological perspective,' Debicki said. 'We're working really, really hard with community partners to make sure that's not the case, to make sure they stay really productive.' Debicki said historically, ship noise in the region was rare, but recent increases in mining and cruise traffic have led to more repetitive noise, which interrupts narwhal behavior and makes hunting more difficult for local communities. Oceans North is working with the Arctic cruise association and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography to better understand how underwater noise affects marine animals in the eastern Canadian Arctic. By using acoustic monitoring and working in close collaboration with Inuit hunters in Pond Inlet, their team aims to shape policies that protect wildlife and the people who depend on them. 'If we make the right choices, they're going to stay vibrant for this generation and for future generations,' Debicki said. All revenue from shore excursions will go directly to the communities. 'If the tour costs, say, $200, we leave $200 in Nunavut,' he said. The company earns its profits by selling their premium-priced packages, often marketed as once-in-a-lifetime Arctic journeys. 'We're selling trips that are like $20,000. If we can get people to go on those trips, we're doing just fine,' McNeil said. McNeil is quick to mention that not all companies are falling short of delivering responsible programs in the Arctic. He pointed to Adventure Canada, a Canadian-owned operator, as a company that has set a high standard for community-focused Arctic tourism. However, their scale is smaller than HX — they run a single, smaller ship seasonally. Most expedition cruise ships in the Arctic carry between 100 and 200 guests. HX operates two vessels on the Northwest Passage that can each accommodate up to 500 passengers — more than double the industry standard, though they typically sail with 300 to 400 guests. Larger ships, like the Crystal Serenity, have sailed the Northwest Passage in 2016 with about 1,000 passengers and more than 600 crew raising concerns about overwhelming small hamlets along the route. To avoid swamping communities, HX worked with the communities to break large groups into much smaller, more personalized excursions. Each excursion is limited to about 10 to 12 guests. 'If we're just putting more people, we're probably contributing toward negative outcomes, rather than creating positive change,' McNeil said. Their approach is intended to spread economic benefits more widely, ease the strain on local resources and foster more meaningful exchanges between visitors and hosts, McNeil said. McNeil said as a major industry player, they feel a responsibility to invest in local development, skills training and mentorship. By proving the concept works, they hope communities can adopt the model to offer tours and experiences to any cruise line that arrives in Nunavut. Beginning in summer 2025, the operator will offer the community-led excursions as part of its 25-day Northwest Passage cruises between Greenland and Alaska. 'I just feel like we were planting seeds and then we're going to see what comes out of that,' Erkloo said. 'Right now, we're at the perfect turning point and it's really exciting for me.'

CTV News

04-06-2025

• CTV News

A-ha front man Morten Harket diagnosed with Parkinson's disease

OSLO - Morten Harket, the lead singer of Norwegian band A-ha, whose 'Take On Me' track remains one of the most popular songs from the 1980s, said on Wednesday that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In a statement on the band's website, and confirmed by record label Sony Music, Harket, 65, said he had undergone several rounds of brain surgery and that he was managing the symptoms of the disease. Parkinson's causes deterioration in the brain's nervous system, leading to tremors and other symptoms that can become progressively worse over time. The disease can be treated with surgery and medication, but there is no cure. Harket said he last year underwent neurological procedures to have electrodes implanted inside his brain and that this had reduced the symptoms. Known for the wide range of his voice, Harket said he did not know if he would be able to perform again. 'I've got no problem accepting the diagnosis,' he said, adding that it was difficult to balance medication and managing side effects of the treatment. 'I'm trying the best I can to prevent my entire system from going into decline,' Harket said. Formed in 1982 by Harket and his friends Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen, A-ha saw a global breakthrough in 1985 with their debut album 'Hunting High and Low' which yielded several hits such as 'Take On Me' and 'The Sun Always Shines on TV.' 'Take On Me' was recently featured in the second season of HBO's hit series 'The Last of Us' when the main character Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, performed an acoustic version of the song. Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Toby Chopra, Reuters