A year later, B.C. ferry sinking marked by unanswered questions

A year after a B.C. ferry sank in the cold waters off the province's central coast, there are memories and memorials, but still not many answers.

The Queen of the North was ripped open after it hitGil Island in the early hours ofMarch 22, 2006. Two people are believed to have died in the sinking of the 125-metre ship and 99 were saved.

But there are still many questions about what happened that night and how the ferry came to be off course.

A report by the federal Transportation Safety Board is still several months away. The agency that runs the provincialservice, BC Ferries, has completed an internal reportthat is expected to be releasedby next week.

"I think we know what happened," BC Ferries president David Hahn said Wednesday.

The two people believed to have died, Shirley Rosette and her husband Gerald Foisy of 100 Mile House, B.C., have not been declared legally dead because thereis noevidence of their deaths. They were not among the people rescued and their bodies have not been found.

Their families have applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for a declaration of their deaths so Foisy's two teenaged daughters and Rosette's two teenaged sons can receive survivor benefits.

Foisy's sister, Diane Melnyk, said the family is planning toerect two crosses on Gil Island this weekend.

Fuel a concern

When the ship sank, people from the nearby First Nations community of Hartley Bay took to their fishing boats in the dark to pick up the survivors. The ship took an hour to sink, so the crew and passengers had time to get into the lifeboats.

A year later, some residents of the community want BC Ferries to pump out the 200,000 litres of fuel in the ship, which is sitting upright on the ocean floor in about 400 metres of water.

If the tanks rupture, it would be an environmental disaster, said Gitga'at Nation councillor Cam Hill. The technology exists to get the fuel out, he said.

But Hahn disagrees.

"The worst thing you can do is go down there and try and extract it and cause a bigger issue," he said.

Graeme Clark was on the ship the night it sank.

He woke up to a jarring thud. "My first impression was that we had broken a propeller shaft. But then when the second impact came, it was a long, tearing grinding sound, I knew that wasn't the case, I knew we had hit something."

As the Queenrolled on to its side, Clark realized it was going to sink. "I took my time, I felt it was going to be a long night."

Other passengers wereindignant orbemused, but as they realizedthe extent of the danger,"they were suddenly very focused and paying attention to what the crew had to say," Clark said.

Asthe passengers floated in lifeboats, they heard the death throes of the ship. Tractor-trailers broke from their restraining chains andtumbled toward the stern as the bow lifted, creating great crashing sounds.The air rushing out of the ship caused more noise,Clark recalled.

"And then there was complete silence. Nobody was saying anything. There had been a great din, and now there was silence."