Alex Storm
Treasure hunter who struck gold off the coast of Nova Scotia
ALEX STORM, who has died aged 80, was a Canadian treasure hunter who discovered two valuable 18th century shipwrecks: Le Chameau and Feversham, off the treacherous shores of Nova Scotia.
Le Chameau, a wooden pay-ship of the French Navy, went down off the Fortress of Louisbourg in a storm in 1725 with the loss of more than 300 lives. Its general location was well known but it had been smashed to pieces, the wreckage scattered over a large area, and until 1965 the treasure she was thought to be carrying remained elusive.
Storm and two partners took a scientific approach, mapping known pieces of the wreck on a grid to work out where the storm might have scattered the debris. They struck it lucky in September when, as Storm recalled, he found a crevice in a rock “filled to the brim with slate-grey coins … I picked up a few and turned to let [my colleague] know. It was not necessary. He loomed behind holding both hands outstretched in front of him, both full of coins.”
The discovery was the largest find in Canadian history. Along with other artefacts, Storm’s group retrieved 7,861 silver coins and 878 gold Louis d’or, each of which was estimated at the time to be worth about $250. They auctioned off the coins to fund future expeditions.
The find focused international attention on the potential wealth hidden in the estimated 6,000 wrecks off Nova Scotia’s coast. However, Storm and his colleagues had to endure a costly eight-year court battle with former business partners over ownership of the treasure, Storm eventually benefiting to the tune of $400,000.
In 1968 Storm located the remains of Feversham, a British warship, part of a fleet sent to attack Quebec, which was shipwrecked in 1711 with the loss of 102 lives.
This time his rights were challenged by the Canadian authorities, but Storm was ready for them: “The receiver of wrecks said, ‘Will you please deliver the treasure so we can determine the rightful owner?’ And I said, ‘No, if you want it so bad, you’ll have to dive for it yourself ’.”
Storm put the treasure into a safe and lowered it back into the ocean. “Two or three years later, they came back to me and made a deal,” he recalled. In the end, he claimed, “I got everything I wanted out of it”, though he joked, “because I felt sorry for the government, I gave them some.”
Alex Storm was born to Dutch parents on October 2 1937, in Surabaya, Java, Indonesia. During the Second World War he and his family were imprisoned in Japanese internment camps. After the war they settled in the Netherlands.
In 1959 Storm emigrated to Canada in search of job opportunities and settled at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, where he became interested in the story of Le Chameau.
He worked on a fishing boat and in his spare time would dive for scrap metal from the hundreds of shipwrecks in the area.
After the discoveries which made headlines, Storm continued to salvage artefacts from shipwrecks, writing about his adventures in Canada’s Treasure Hunt (1968) and Seaweed and Gold (2003).
In 1964 he married Emily Lawrence, and in 1977 they opened a museum of artefacts in their home.
She predeceased him and he is survived by four sons and a daughter.