Two years after his trawler, The Bootlegger, sank off Vancouver Island, artist Paul Burgoyne is on the verge of reclaiming a lost piece of his history—thanks to an incredible underwater find. In May, a team from Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre—including students Tella Osler and Beau Doherty, along with Dive Safety Officer Siobhan Gray—discovered Burgoyne’s submerged camera 12 meters deep at Aguilar Point. Though the camera, lost in the 2012 shipwreck, was crusted with barnacles and inhabited by sea life, its 8 GB Lexar Platinum II memory card remained perfectly intact.
Marine ecology professor Isabelle M. Côté reviewed the files and found them fully preserved. She posted one of the recovered family portraits online in hopes of identifying the owner. Before long, a Bamfield Coast Guard member—who had once rescued Burgoyne from the wreck—recognized the image and contacted him.
Burgoyne, who lost his vessel along with irreplaceable family photos and footage of the storm that sank it, was stunned by the card’s survival. “It’s amazing that this little memory card still worked after two years underwater,” he said. He now eagerly anticipates seeing the cherished images again—such as those capturing his parents’ ashes being scattered at Lake of the Woods and the haunting final moments aboard the Bootlegger.
This remarkable discovery highlights not only the unexpected durability of modern technology, but also the mysterious ways in which the past can find its way back—proving that even beneath the sea, memories endure.