Titanic: The Canadian Story By Alan Hustak
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 hundreds of interviews across the country with direct descendants and relatives of Canadians who sailed on the Titanic's maiden. 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 fiance 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. The Canadian Story begins where other Titanic accounts end. Titanic: The Canadian Story

Alan Hustak ¾ 2 Summary
I am so glad I have Alan Hustak here to love Quigg and Berthe (and the rest of the Baxter family's) story as much as I do. 1550651137 This was very well researched and contained a lot of interesting information. I wish that each passenger's story had been told from start to finish in one segment, as it was hard to remember who was who when the many passengers' stories were split up over several chapters. 1550651137 I’ve been to the cemetery in Halifax and heard stories about the deaths and burials. I’ve had this book for about 4 years and finally read it. It was so interesting to read about the Canadians and to hear the Titanic’a story from their perspective. The author gave the facts and wove them to tell the story in such a way that the book was easy to read. In fact, I read the entire book in one day. Very well written. 1550651137 With it being the 100th anniversary, there has been lots of attention this year to the sinking of the Titanic.
This is an interesting book because it tells the stories of the 130 Canadians who were on board. There isn't a lot of detail about them, just enough so you know who they were and why they were on the Titanic.
The book starts with the building and launch of the Titanic, then tells us who the Canadians on board were, what happened when the Titanic hit the iceberg and started sinking, and what happened to the bodies when they were brought to Halifax.
It is a high level coverage of the story with just the right amount of detail for me.
Blog review: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2012/07... 1550651137 I've had a copy of this book by journalist Alan Hustak for some time now and for some unknown reason never got into it. But after reading the story last week of the eight musicians that played as the Titanic went down, my appetite was whetted for more. Titanic: The Canadian Story was a delightful surprise. It grabbed me right from the start and flowed from one Canadian passenger to the next with an ease and pace that kept me intrigued.
With pictures of all the Canadians who were returning from Europe, their family backgrounds and financial status — mostly wealthy people in first class like Major Arthur Peuchen of Toronto, Harry Markland Molson, the Fortune family of Winnipeg, the Allisons with their two young children, and the honeymooners Bert and Vera Dick of Calgary — the characters virtually come alive. There were others on board heading for Canada from Britain, Ireland, and parts of Europe. A few were in second class but mostly in third or steerage.
Hustak has done exhaustive research and included excerpts from letters, postcards, interviews, as well as other sources of documentation, and describes the circumstances that put them on the Titanic — many were supposed to return on other ships put were switched because of a coal strike that prevented them from leaving dock — their time on shipboard, and what can be pieced together of the disaster itself and its aftermath — body retrieval, burials, tributes, attempted fraud, and mistaken identity. He includes a list of those buried in the three cemeteries in Halifax, Nova Scotia including many unidentified. He also includes a list of all the Canada-bound passengers, those lost highlighted in bold print.
This is a story well-told with a different perspective bringing new insight to the most famous disaster of the 20th century. It was a very fast read because the story just kept pulling me along with its interesting tidbits and beautiful prose. For anyone who considers themselves a Titanic buff, this book provides an important link to the Canadians who might have otherwise been forgotten. 1550651137