The Escuminac Disaster

In June 1959 thirty-five fishers died off the coast of New Brunswick when a hurricane struck their boats while they were out drift-netting for salmon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Escuminac Disaster was one of the worst fishing disasters in Canadian history. In the tiny communities most affected, 150 individuals had to find new ways of getting by in one of the poorest areas in postwar Canada.

Ronald Rudin interviews survivors of the storm, as well as members of families who lost someone, providing the foundation of three short films he is producing. Ronald Rudin will show two of these films. The first film, The Drift Netter/Le pêcheur au filet dérivant, directed by Peter Titus, tells the story of Bill McIntyre, a survivor of the storm, who was engaged for over forty years in the particular form of salmon fishing that took the men out into the Gulf on that night in 1959. Drift-netting ultimately ended in 1983, which was a disaster in its own right, when the federal government banned the practice.

The second film Violet After the Storm/Violet après la tempête is a documentary directed and animated by bekky O'Neil. Shortly after the storm, a fund was set up to aid families in need and Violet Kingston, a widow with eight children and another on the way, was chosen to go to Toronto to serve as the face of the families on a national television broadcast.

How can you participate? Join us in person by or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting or watching live on YouTube.

Have questions or if we can make this event more accessible for you: Contact us at info.4@concordia.ca

Ronald Rudin

Ronald Rudin, author of eight books and numerous articles and producer of eight documentary films, carries out research that touches upon Canadian cultural and environmental history, with a particular focus on Atlantic Canada and its Acadian population. Beyond his Escuminac project, Professor Rudin has long had an interest in how the public comes to understand the past, which has drawn him to study the power of commemorative events.  His book, Remembering and Forgetting in Acadie: A Historian's Journey through Public Memory (University of Toronto Press, 2009) won both the 2010 book award of the National Council of Public History and the inaugural Public History prize of the Canadian Historical Association (2011). Professor Rudin has also served as director of the Lost Stories Project, which takes little known stories about the Canadian past, transforms them into public art, and then documents the process by way of documentary film. 

Ronald Rudin was the Academic Convenor for the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held at Concordia in 2010. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he has held a fellowship to support his research from the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

Liz Miller

Elizabeth (Liz) Miller is a documentary filmmaker, educator, and Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. She uses immersive and participatory documentary practices to connect personal experience with pressing social and environmental challenges. She has developed documentary projects such as The Shore Line, SwampScapes, and WasteScapes to engage audiences in timely issues such as climate change, water, waste, and environmental justice.Miller is co-author, with Steven High and Edward Little, of Going Public: The Art of Participatory Practice.