Evidence from a disaster: Inside an Ottawa museum that holds Ocean Ranger artifacts

On storage shelves, in an Ottawa museum, sit pieces of the past from a tragic event in Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore oil industry.

It's a collection of evidence from the Ocean Ranger disaster that includes portholes, the oil rig's ballast control panel and dozens of documents and logs taken from inside the sunken rig. 

The pieces were retrieved by divers in the months following the 1982 catastrophe and were used by the Royal Commission to determine what caused the rig to list and eventually capsize. 

For the past 40 years, the collection of evidence has been kept at the Canada Museum of Science and Technology, one of three museums in a network of national museums known as Ingenium. Museum staff are now interested to speak with family members of the 84 men who died on the Ocean Ranger about the collection.

Sharon Babaian, Ingenium's recently retired curator of land and marine transportation, says the museum is looking for input from families about what they would like to see done with the artifacts and archival material. 

"This is not a forensic collection. It's what curators call an association object. These collections are, even though it's a piece of wiring and a light, it's associated with a disaster. It's associated with someone they loved," Babaian said.

"So we have never felt comfortable with the idea of doing an exhibition that didn't involve family members in some ways, because they need to help us understand the collection and understand what it means to them and also guide us on how if we were going to exhibit it, how would we exhibit it? What stories would we tell with it?"

Noreen O'Neil is one of those family members.

O'Neill lost her husband, Paschal O'Neill, on the Ocean Ranger. She had a nine-month-old son at the time and remembers the sense of devastation she felt.

While O'Neill says she appreciated the work done by the Ocean Ranger's Royal Commission, she didn't participate in the inquiry, hear any of the testimony or view any of the evidence that was presented. 

"The inquiry, I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I know some of the women who did go faithfully, I think to most of it, but I just couldn't bring myself to go," said O'Neill. 

Even though more than four decades have passed, thoughts of the Ocean Ranger rarely leave her mind. O'Neill communicates regularly with family members of those lost on the Ocean Ranger. In 2013, she started a Facebook group called Ocean Ranger Family and Friends. 

"I knew there was a need for it, because people still needed to talk. We never had the opportunity when it happened," she said. "There's a lot of people still hurting from it. People still haven't gone and spoke or got counselling or anything else for it. And when something lingers like that and … you don't get help, well, it just lingers."

When CBC's Land and Sea contacted O'Neill to tell her about the collection of Ocean Ranger artifacts and archival material in Ottawa, she agreed to an invitation to travel to view the pieces. Through her social media page, O'Neill is now spreading the word among family members about the collection. 

She says she did have to muster courage to make the trip to Ottawa.

"Even though it's 42 years ago … it's still difficult when you're facing it again. It was an eye-opener. I've heard so much and read so much, but to actually see it and touch it and I'm really happy that I came," said O'Neil. 

There are pieces that evoke strong emotion. Eight life-jackets are preserved in a temperature-controlled unit at the museum's Ingenium Centre. O'Neill was able to view and handle the safety gear that may have been worn by some of the men who died. 

The Royal Commission found that the life-jackets aboard the Ocean Ranger were woefully inadequate and if every man had been protected by a survival suit, some might have lived.

"That makes me angry. It just leaves you without words to think how it ever happened," said O'Neill.

There are also pieces that were salvaged from the ocean by searchers; oars from lifeboats with "Ocean Ranger" painted in orange.

"It was very touching to me. And I just felt I had to touch them. I wondered who touched those, you know, what men were the ones who were touching those?" said O'Neill. "Was it my husband?"

Showing the collection to a family member was an emotional experience for Babaian too. She says she now sees the artifacts with new eyes.  

"You know, when I saw Noreen look at the oar and touch the oar, I thought, yeah, OK, this is not about understanding the disaster. That's about connecting to someone and something that has shaped your life or misshaped your life," said Babaian. 

Babaian hopes more family members will be willing to express their wishes about what should be done with the evidence that was collected for the Royal Commission. 

"Even though technically it belongs to the people of Canada, in a much more powerful way it belongs to the survivors, it belongs to the family members and the friends who lost loved ones. And so even if we have ideas, I don't think that those ideas can go anywhere until we talk to people like Noreen and others who lived this experience and are still living," said Babaian.

O'Neill says she's certain about what her husband would want for the artifacts.

"I think he would want them here in Newfoundland, You know, as much as they could, they would want them here. They died for this. And you know, the oil industry still needs to go forward, but to know that this is here and it's a reminder that their lives just weren't in vain," said O'Neill. 

The Land and Sea documentary about the Ocean Ranger collection in Ottawa is called Evidence From A Disaster. Click on the video above to watch the full episode. 

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