Climate Change and the Discovery of the Carricks

LOST CHILDREN FIRST DISCOVERED

In 2011, three skeletons were found. A passerby discovered fragments, partial human remains, on the shoreline of Cap-des-Rosiers, within the boundaries of the Forillon National Park, 700 km northeast of Quebec City.

Erosion had revealed several long bones, over 25 vertebrae, pieces of a jawbone. At the time, Parks Canada was unwilling to use carbon dating or DNA testing analysis to determine to be sure the victims children of the Carricks or whether these were clues to the rumoured mass grave of the 87 shipwreck victims.

Officials have determined partial skeletons discovered near the surface of a stony beach on Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula three years ago are those of three children from Europe who showed signs of malnutrition. They believe they were almost certainly Irish migrants who died in a 19th-century shipwreck in Canadian waters as they fled poverty in search of a better life. Georges Kavanagh, a unilingual francophone today, feels a strong pull to the story of his Irish forebears. His ancestor survived the shipwreck.
JACQUES GRATTON/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Coastal Erosion Solves Mystery in Forillon National Park

Each year, Parks Canada facilities were facing increased coastal erosion. Climate change is a major factor. So much that eroding coastlines are changing Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula.

Gaspé winters are milder so there is less ice to protect the shores from storms. Another important cause of accentuated erosion is the infrastructures themselves, like a riprap, built along the shore.

It was decided to protect the Carrick shipwreck monument in Cap-des-Rosiers from from storms by moving it further inland.

In the same area, the work to be done mostly involves dismantling the road that ran along the coast, dismantling the riprap that protected the road and reshaping the banks The new stretch of Highway 132 has been moved further inland, nearer the forest, away from the dynamic coastal zone.

THE ROLE OF RIPRAP

Riprap has an impact on beaches in dynamic environments or when there are strong waves. When waves break on natural beaches, the beach absorbs the energy of the wave across a fairly big distance. When a wave hits a rigid structure like riprap or a wall, its energy is dissipated upwards or downwards —often both—which causes backwash. When it moves upwards it can overflow and submerge part of the shoreline … and when it moves downwards it can drain the sediment at the base of the riprap and pull it out to sea.

This lowers the beach and makes the shoreline even more vulnerable to future storms, which will roll in with even more energy and have an even greater impact, intensifying erosion and in extreme cases, damaging the rip-rap

Thanks to research carried out at Forillon by Université du Québec à Rimouski, Parks Canada was able to identify appropriate areas to build infrastructure adapted to coastline.

THE MASS GRAVE of IRISH FAMINE VICTIMS DISCOVERED (2016)

Human bones discovered on Gaspé peninsula ‘witnesses to a tragic event’

In 2016, Parks Canada archaeologists (including archaeologist Martin Perron) discovered eight skeletons near the Irish Monument memorial to the Carricks . The archaeological work eventually confirmed the presence of a mass grave where Irish shipwreck victims were buried in 1847. 

In 2011, three skeletons were found  in the same area.

According to the first observations, the bones were from five adults and three children. This discovery reinforces the hypothesis of the existence of a mass grave for those Irish shipwrecked who were fleeing famine.

Archeologists discovered the remains of 18 individuals during a dig at the Cap-des-Rosiers Beach before a restoration project in 2011. (Radio-Canada) (WEB EDITOR NOTE: This picture is NOT of bodies)

Fast Facts

  • The Carricks of Whitehaven, a brig between 200 and 300 tons, left Sligo Ireland carrying 173 passengers from Lord Palmerston’s Irish estates
  • Captain Thompson, master, belonging to Sunderland and all his crew less one boy survived the wreck
  • Only 48 of the Irish famine passengers survived
  • The 87 bodies that were found or washed ashore were buried in a mass grave
  • The Carricks ship’s bell was found September 24, 1968, on the beach at Blanc-Sablon on Quebec’s North Shore—is now located next to the monument.
  • The human remains of 21 victims were buried in a single coffin on July 4, 2019 near the Irish Memorial.
  • A monument in memory of the shipwrecked Carricks passengers was erected in 1900 by St. Patrick’s Parish, Montreal. The date on the monument reads April 1847 and is incorrect.
  • Following a 2017 public consultation, Parks Canada announced that the Irish Memorial, which was threatened by erosion, would be relocated to the top of the beach at Cap-des-Rosiers.

From 1832 to 1937, all ships had to make a mandatory stop at Grosse Île, which was then used as a quarantine station for the Port of Quebec. Without this catastrophic tragedy, the Carricks would also have followed this route.