Le Chameau Shipwreck
Le Chameau: a 44-gun, 600-ton, French man-of-war, the pride of the
French navy, "one of the fastest and best equipped line-of-battle
ships in the royal navy of France". On August 27th, 1725, in a storm
off Cape Breton, while trying to make the mouth of Louisbourg harbour,
Le Chameau was swept in upon the rocky shore. Reports of wreckage
at Kelpy Cove, just south of Louisbourg, brought officals out to
make a gruesome discovery. The entire length of the cove was strewn
with bodies. Wreckage, including a carved camel (the Chameau's namesake
and figurehead), littered the coast for miles. All of the 316 people
aboard had perished. Much of the wreck was washed ashore and was picked
up by those sent from Louisbourg. Cast up from the sea were 180 bodies.
A burial, en masse, was carried out with the missionary priest at
Baleine officiating.
There was no sign of the after part of the ship having come ashore, so
it was hoped that some salvage might be made of her guns and treasure,
particularly as the rock on which she broke up was covered at low tide
by only a few feet of water.
The next season some soldiers who were skilled divers were sent from
Quebec and employed at the wreck. Salvage work began almost at once,
directed by Pierre Morpain, a famous French privateer, but the treasure
eluded them. With only grease on their skin and rations of chocolate
to protect them from the cold, they couldn't locate the main portion
of the wreckage. For years afterwards, legends of the treasure lingered:
glimpses of silver and gold in crevices and tales of lobster fisherman
pulling up a few handfuls of coins. The treasure, however, was not
located at the time.
In 1961, a discovery of cannons scattered on the sea bottom
alerted Alex Storm, a diver working part-time on a fishing trawler
from Louisbourg. Braving the dangerous tides and freezing waters
at Kelpy Cove, Storm carefully mapped the wreckage of the
Chameau to locate the treasure compartment.
Storm's discovery triggered a rising interest in the wealth of
shipwrecks off Nova Scotia's waters and brought legislation to
protect them. Today a steadily increasing number of divers flock
to Nova Scotia, although most are seeking adventure, not
treasure.
It is interesting to note that Le Chameau went down in a storm in 1725,
that the first person to attempt salvage in 1726 was named Tempete, or
"Storm", and that she was "raised" by Alex Storm in 1965, more than two
centuries later.
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