Marc Guylaine was a Canadian herring seiner built in 1969, along with its two sister ships, the Lady Dorianne and Lady Audette. After its two sister ships both mysteriously sank in the Acadian peninsula, drowning nine men, and the only two other ships built to the same specifications met identical fates, the Marc Guylaine became the subject of great fear that it would meet a similar end.
The government eventually agreed to purchase the "cursed" ship from its captain, and subsequently renamed it and moved it out of Atlantic Canada, selling it to a fishing corporation on the Pacific Coast where it remains in service today as the Freeport.
Construction In 1969, Saint John Shipbuilding built three identical 126-tonne fishing trawlers named the Lady Audette II, the Marc Guylaine II, and the Lady Dorianne II.Miramar Ship Index, Lady Audette II, Marc Guylaine II, Lady Dorianne II The original engineering records for the Dorianne and Audette were obtained by the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston for their records-collection. Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston
The Marc Guylaine was sold to Gélas Haché, and the Lady Audette was sold to A. Chaisson.Marine News 1970 page 260
Sinkings On November 23, 1970, Lady Dorianne departed from Havre-Aubert en route to Shippagan following a storm. It was alternatively reported as having five or six men aboard, including captain Sylvio Noël, when it disappeared off the coast of Miscou Island. Everybody aboard was presumed killed, although the ship and bodies were never found.Important Dates in the Islands de La Madeleine In December, the Ministry of Transportation was urged to not give up its search for the ship, since the previous sinkings of two identical ships were still unexplained and it was hoped that the wreckage might provide a clue to its fate.Bourque, Claude. L'Evangeline, Sea Tragedy, April 26, 1971 It was never found, although searches turned up an uninflated life raft from the ship.
On April 23, 1971, the Lady Audette radioed the trawler Apollo III, addressing its captain Roméo Michon: "Roméo, come quickly to us, we are sinking."Rapport du capitaine Michon à la compagnie d'assurances. The Lady Audette is believed to have inexplicably sunk near the Rochers aux Oiseaux off Magdalen Islands, and could not be found. Three men drowned but, unlike the sinking of her sister ship, there were also four or five survivors.Cokinos, Christopher. "Hope is the Thing with Feathers", 2001. pp. 323 Two years later, the wreckage was discovered.
Aftermath In May 1971, an anxious Acadian fishing population demanded a public hearing into the safety of the Marc Guylaine, and 400 people met at the Ste-Marie-St-Raphaël community centre where an "action group" was commissioned to study the issue. Ultimately the last of the sister ships was found to be unseaworthy.Davis, Nanciellen. Ethnicity and Ethnic Group Persistence in an Acadian Village in Maritime Canada (New York, 1985), pp. 194-202
Federal official Bernard M. Deschênes was appointed as Commission Counsel to study both the Audette and Dorianne sinkings.Deschênes, Bernard M. "Study on Marine Casualty Investigations in Canada", Ministry of Supply and Services, 1984 In 1973, the Canadian Coast Guard released its report entitled In the Matter of a Formal Investigation Into the Circumstances Attending the Loss of the M.F.V. "Lady Dorianne II" and the M.F.V. "Lady Audette II" in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Nov. 23, 1970, and Apr. 22, 1971, Resp.Marine Casualty Investigations, In the Matter of a Formal Investigation Into the Circumstances Attending the Loss of the M.F.V. "Lady Dorianne II" and the M.F.V. "Lady Audette II" in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Nov. 23, 1970 and Apr. 22, 1971 Resp., 1973
Haché, the captain of the Marc Guylaine, subsequently found he could not hire any local fishermen to man his ship, and petitioned the provincial Ministry of Fisheries to offset his financial losses incurred. The resulting battle took a year to wind its way through bureaucracy, as civil servants ruled that Marc Guylaine was perfectly seaworthy. In May 1972, at the urging of the local population to consider Haché an "innocent victim", the Ministry agreed to purchase the boat from him.Bourque, Claude. L'Evangeline, Le Marc Guylaine enfin vendu, May 31, 1972
Rather than scrap the ship, the ministry simply renamed the vessel to Jean Marc IV and re-sold it within the year. It was renamed the F/V Freeport in 1974, and registered in Vancouver on the Pacific coast three years later.
In 1992, it was one of two Pacific vessels to cooperate with the Simon Fraser University research study "Decision Dynamics at Sea: An Application of Foraging Theory to the Study of Fishing Effort".Gillis, Darren M. Simon Fraser University, doctoral thesis, 1992
In 2005, it was cited by Sitka, Alaska authorities for failing to have an Automatic Identification System aboard.Pacific Urchin Harvesters Association newsletter, Volume 2, Issue 5 , April 1, 2005
It remains in use today, registered through 2009, by the Kanata Fishing Company in Prince Rupert, British Columbia.McCague, Fred. B.C. Shipyards Update, November 2007
In media
For several years, the legend of the "cursed" ships became a regular report in the media.Radio-Canada Atlantique, Journal Télévisé , 1973Radio-Canada Atlantique, Journal Télévisé , 1972 In 1973, Stompin' Tom Connors wrote The Curse of the Marc Guylain, referring to the three sister ships as "three floating coffins on the sea".Stompin' Tom Connors and the Hockey Song (album), 1973. Calixte Duguay, a French Acadian songwriter, and performer also wrote the song "La Complainte du Lady Dorianne" on the same subject.Calixte Duguay on Retour à Richibouctou (longplaying album), 1978.
The Lady Dorianne was also the subject of a song entitled The Tempest in 2005.
In 2008, Lighthouse Productions contracted filmmaker Paul-Émile d'Entremont to film a documentary seeking the wreckage of the Lady Dorianne, which was theorised to be sitting 240 feet beneath sea level, as the only known shipwreck in the area. The film is scheduled for completion in late 2009.Mousseau, Sylvie. Paul Emile d'Entremont to follow in the footsteps of Lady Dorianne, July 14, 2008
References