The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 Remembrance Committee

Goderich (Ontario)

Great Lakes Storm of 1913 Remembrance Committee came together in 2012 to plan a multi-faceted centennial remembrance for the greatest Canadian maritime disaster ever to occur on the Great Lakes. Also known as “White Hurricane,” this fateful storm wreaked havoc across the Great Lakes for three days in November of 1913, taking the lives of 265 people and causing irreparable damages to families, business, and communities.

The Remembrance Committee’s goal was to design activities around Goderich, Ontario — the headquarters for the Great Storm Inquest — and to inspire others along the Huron lakeshore, and beyond, to undertake complementary activities that crossed the traditional bounds of education, arts, culture, heritage and maritime business and industrial interests on the lakes.

With the Remembrance Committee acting as leaders and mentors to local groups, their extraordinary efforts resulted in sixty-five collaborations, the involvement of over 1000 volunteers, and numerous events that hosted over 12,000 guests – including sixty descendants of the disaster’s victims. Several legacy projects will forever honour the memory of all those affected and celebrate a former way of life that was central to the Great Lakes lakeshore communities.