'To Help Save Just One Life'

By John Goddard. From The Ottawa Citizen, May 1999

Celtic-music superstar Loreena McKennitt lost her fiance in a boating mishap last summer. As John Goddard writes, she's determined to help others avoid such tragedy

Yvonne Berg, The Canadian Press / Musician Loreena McKennitt will donate $10 from every copy of her new album, sold in co-operation with the Canadian Coast Guard, to help support water safety measures, such as the inflatable flotation device being fit on her by guardsman Peter Garapick.

TORONTO - International Celtic music star Loreena McKennitt was preparing to enter an English recording studio last July when she received the type of horrific telephone call that hundreds of other Canadians almost certainly will receive this summer.

There had been a boating accident. Her fiance was missing and presumed drowned.

Two others had also disappeared, including her fiancé's brother.

"I'm not a tell-all type of celebrity," Ms. McKennitt said yesterday of her decision to speak publicly of the tragedy for the first time, as the onstage conjurer of myth and mystique converted herself during a one-hour interview into a temporary water-safety officer.

"The exercise for me is to try to narrow the gap between what people's perception of the risk is (when boating) and what the risk really is, and what measures people can take to protect themselves."

An average of 200 people die in Canadian boating accidents every year, she said in a Toronto hotel suite overlooking Lake Ontario.

"If I can help to save just one life, the loss of my friends' lives will seem less senseless."

Ms. McKennitt spent much of the interview going over new federal water-safety regulations coming into effect this summer and made two related announcements timed to coincide with the coming May 24 long weekend -- the first of the summer and traditionally a prime time for boating accidents.

She officially released a live double-CD, Live in Paris and Toronto, recorded at concert stops on a 33-city European and North American tour last spring. Lavishly packaged with a full-colour booklet, the album is to be sold exclusively through her mailing list and Web site, http://www.quinlanroad.com/ -- not in stores -- with at least $10 per CD going towards a water search-and-safety fund in memory of her friends.

Sales could reasonably be expected to exceed 100,000 copies, generating more than $1 million for the fund, said a publicist for her company, Quinlan Road.

The singer also announced the gift of a $30,000 underwater video-equipped robot to the Canadian Coast Guard for search and recovery.

The robot complements special sonar gear donated through the fund last fall, helping Ontario authorities locate a body underwater "and help bring closure to families," Ms. McKennitt said.

She also gave what few details she could of the boating mishap that look the lives of her fiance, Ronald Rees, 28, whom she said she was to marry last fall, his brother Richard, 25, and boating companion Gregory Cook, 17.

All lived in Stratford, Ont., where Ms. McKennitt has also made her home since the early 1980s, after growing up in the Prairie town of Morden, Man.

The events began last July, as Ms. McKennitt prepared to enter musician Peter Gabriel's Real World studios in England to mix her first live album from the concert tapes.

Her popularity was at an all-time high.

Her seventh album, The Book of Secrets, had sold three million copies worldwide and her song The Mummers' Dance had scored a radio hit across Europe, North America and Australia.

"We were to have started mixing on the Sunday (July 19) and I went down to Real World on Saturday afternoon," Ms. McKennitt recalled. "Ron and I had a habit of speaking every day at a particular time and I wasn't able to reach him on the Saturday night before I went to bed, which was very odd because he had a pager.

"At about three in the morning, somebody from my office called, telling me the news."

The three men had been staying at a cottage near Meaford, Ont., at the south end of Georgian Bay. After dinner, at about 9:00 p.m., they borrowed a five-metre sailboat for a sunset sail.

All three were said to be strong swimmers. The boat was equipped with four life preservers and a small motor.

At around 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Ronald Rees' lifeless body was found wearing a life jacket. The two other bodies were never recovered.

What happened, exactly, nobody knows. Ms. McKennitt described a calm, warm summer evening, the wind at a comfortable 11 knots.

Maybe the wind came up. Maybe a crosswind coming over the Niagara escarpment created a squall. Maybe somebody stood up in the boat and created a chain reaction that led it to capsize.

The cause remains a mystery, Ms. McKennitt said, "but there is a need for a greater awareness on the public's part concerning how vulnerable people really are."

Wearing a life jacket is key, she said. Her three friends had life jackets aboard, as the law requires, but two were not wearing them.

"And even if you do prepare yourself to the hilt, that might still not be enough to save you," the singer said.

"There were six or seven people who knew they were out all night and never placed a call to the Coast Guard (or police).

"I think this is a hurdle. I think all of us have an inclination not to believe the worst has happened. We don't want to trouble the authorities. We might be embarrassed.

"But it's quite possible if a call had gone in at 11 at night they might have found Ron alive."

New federal water-safety regulations being phased in over the next several years, beginning last month, introduce a range of measures designed to increase education, training, licensing and equipping of boat operators -- the first major overhaul of regulations in 40 years.

As of April 1 this year, a child under 12 must be supervised by somebody 16 or older when operating a boat, and the boat cannot be powered by a motor of more than 10 horsepower.

Anybody under 16 is prohibited from operating a personal watercraft.

Details of other regulations are available by calling 1-800-267-6687 or accessing the Coast Guard Web site at http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/.