Empress of Ireland - Painting the Mural

by Eleanor Matheson, Heritage Interpreter

Time 0:00:59

Transcript:

So I painted a mural of Quebec City. As the ship was leaving, the Empress of Ireland was getting ready to sail away. This might have been the last sight that people were seeing. So it’s a recognizable silhouette of Quebec City, with the hills going up and then you see the fortress, the Château Frontenac. It’s an historic silhouette. It doesn’t have a big addition that would have—more contemporary that you might recognize. But it starts to set you into the mood so that, as you go through the exhibit, you’re ready to feel what it was like maybe to have been on the ship. You can experience their last view as they’re sailing away. And then, as you go through the exhibit you can feel what it would have been like to be on the ship and experiencing the tragedy. And then as you leave, you will have met some characters and then you can see again whether, you know they’re fate after you’ve gone through the exhibit. So it just sort of set[s] you up into the atmosphere and be ready to feel what it was like to be on the ship.