Join us online Thursday July 23th 2020, for a special talk with author and historian Dan Buchanan!

Author and historian Dan Buchanan presents an engaging 45-minute talk based on his new book The Wreck of HMS Speedy: The Tragedy That Shook Upper Canada. The loss of HMS Speedy in 1804 was a disaster of immense proportions for the fledgling province of Upper Canada. and much of it happened in York, the former Toronto. It is a story that has been told many times in the past but Buchanan takes a different tack. He digs deep into contemporary documents to uncover the conflicts and forces and prejudices that conspired to send the Speedy to its fate. Who were the twenty people on board and why were they there? What did they leave behind?

Buchanan then enhances this Canadian history story with never-before published details about the efforts in the early 1990s to discover the remains of HMS Speedy in Lake Ontario. With exclusive access to the personal papers of Ed Burtt, the diver who undertook three years of exploration in the water south of Presqu’ile Point, Buchanan helps us understand what was found and what it might mean. Why was Ed Burt 99.99% sure he had found the remains of HMS Speedy? This presentation will answer that question and leave you with more to ask.