An unexpected and dangerous landmass

Peter Alexander Tager was a stowaway on the Good Intent, a Liverpool cargo ship carrying a load of timber back to England from Quebec. The Brophys set sail on an Irish famine ship called the Miracle, carrying hundreds of immigrants to a hopeful new life in Canada. Robert Best was returning to the Channel Islands on the Perry, a ship loaded with salt cod from the port of Gaspé.

They all set sail for different reasons but they all succumbed to a similar fate: their ships were violently thrown off course and ultimately consumed by the sandy beaches and shallow waters of the Magdalen Islands (Les Îles de la Madeleine in French) in Canada’s predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec.

Isolated in the middle of the Gulf of St Lawrence, the fishhook-shaped archipelago was an unexpected and dangerous landmass in the way of ships sailing between Europe and Quebec. An estimated 500 to 1,000 vessels fell victim to its whims, mostly in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

“Many of them didn’t even know that an island was there,” said coastguard Charles Cormier. “Once, 48 ships sank during a single storm.”