After Swissair

On September 2, 1998, Swissair Flight 111 plunged into the sea near the mouth of St. Margaret's Bay in Nova Scotia, killing all 229 on board. Thousands of people responded immediately: emergency personnel, fishermen, the military, divers, community searchers and RCMP officials. In the days, weeks and months after the crash, local residents and ordinary people supported the investigation in any way they could and, more critically, they also sought to comfort the families of the victims. Over the past 17 years, Wilson has been informed and inspired by the families of the victims, workers on land and sea, observers, professionals and by the local residents she has interviewed. She wove together these experiences to create a poetic vision of the sea change that occurred because of what Nova Scotians saw, heard or imagined about people they had never met, revealing the wonder of the sheer courage and generosity of the human spirit.