Tag Archives: Aaron Cogswell
EDITORIAL: Safety plans for fishing vessels crucial to prevent further deaths in dangerous industry
There have been many tragedies on the water in recent years. During last year’s lobster fishery, Christian Atwood, 27, died when he was lost overboard on Boxing Day from the fishing vessel MV Little Weasel II near Cape Sable Island, N.S. The previous March, Jeremy Hart, 35, died after falling into the water as members of his crew were being transferred from a life raft they had launched from their sinking vessel, Mucktown Girl, off of Canso. But it was the sinking of the scallop vessel Chief William Saulis in December 2020, and the deaths of all six crew aboard, that prompted the changes to the 2023-24 season. Capt. Charles Roberts, Aaron Cogswell, Daniel Forbes, Michael Drake, Geno Francis and Leonard Gabriel were all tragically lost in that event. >>click to read<< 12:29
In aftermath of sinking, crew member’s widow says Transport Canada reform falls short
Transport Canada will tighten inspections of fishing vessels in the aftermath of a deadly Nova Scotia sinking in 2020, but the widow of a lost crew member says the reform doesn’t go far enough to prevent future tragedies. Six crew members died on Dec. 15, 2022, when the Chief William Saulis capsized as heavy seas crashed into the rocking boat and 2,700 kilograms of unsecured scallops slid around a deck, blocking drainage. But Michelle Nickerson-Forbes, the widow of Dan Forbes, said in an interview Friday that the federal department is failing to move on what she and other families consider a root cause of repeated fishing tragedies: unstable vessels going out to sea. >click to read< 07:58
‘We’re not going to stop fighting’: Families of F/V Chief William Saulis crew to keep pushing for safety in fishing industry
Michelle Nickerson-Forbes had worried that the longer it took for the Transportation Safety Board to come out with its report about the December 2020 fatal sinking of the Chief William Saulis scallop vessel, that people would forget about the six-member crew whose lives were lost. Initially, the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) had said the investigation and report would take up to 450 days. Instead, it took over two years. Lori Cogswell Phillips, a resident of Cambridge in the Annapolis Valley, is also never going to give up. She’s been fighting for answers on behalf of her son Aaron Cogswell and the rest of the Chief William Saulis crew for the past two-plus years. She says the TSB report – which took too long to come out – still leaves more questions unanswered than answered. Photos, >click to read< 09:51
Transport Canada must be ‘more vigilant,’ relatives say two years after N.S. sinking
“My father said, ‘After this trip, this was it,’ because it was quite dangerous,” Michael Francis said during a recent interview at his home in Milton, N.S., a few weeks before the second anniversary of the sinking of the Chief William Saulis. The bodies of Eugene (Geno)Michael Francis, Aaron Cogswell, Leonard Gabriel, Dan Forbes and captain Charles Roberts were never recovered after the 17-metre vessel capsized on Dec. 15, 2020, just off Delaps 
Cove, about 50 kilometres north of Digby, N.S. The body of crew member Michael Drake was swept up on the rocky shoreline. Two years later, Francis and Lori Phillips, the mother of Cogswell, say Dec. 15 is a date that provokes painful memories, unanswered questions and frustration over a Transportation Safety Board investigation that still hasn’t officially delivered its findings. >click to read< 08:43 >Search Results for Chief William Saulis<
‘The spot is beautiful’: Chief William Saulis crew remembered with memorial
Lori Phillips was at a loss. She didn’t want to go to just any random cemetery and place a headstone with her son Aaron’s name on it. She would have no relationship to that spot, she says. It would just be a stone on a piece of land. Her son, Aaron Cogswell, was one of six fishermen who lost their lives in the Dec. 15, 2020, sinking of the Chief William Saulis scallop dragger. The others were Charles Roberts, Daniel Forbes, Michael Drake, Eugene Francis, and Leonard Gabriel. Phillips needed a place for her and others to remember the crew. >click to read< 09:01
Questions linger for mother as monument erected for lost fishermen in Nova Scotia
Questions about how a scallop dragger sank suddenly in 2020 are lingering for a crew member’s mother, who this week installed a stone monument close to where the boat was lost. The bodies of Aaron Cogswell, Leonard Gabriel, Dan Forbes, Geno Francis and captain Charles Roberts were never found after the sinking of the Chief William Saulis on Dec. 15, 2020. The body of crew member Michael Drake came ashore near Delaps Cove, a coastal village about 50 kilometres north of Digby, N.S. Lori Phillips, Cogswell’s mother, has worked alongside Darlene Roberts, the wife of the captain, to create a stone memorial to honour the men on a wilderness trail within sight of the coastal waters where the dragger went down. >please click to read< 16:22
Plans underway by mother, Yarmouth for memorials to six Nova Scotia fishermen lost at sea
Plans are underway by a mother and the town of Yarmouth, N.S., for memorials to six fishermen who died when their scallop dragger sank off the province’s southwestern coast 14 months ago. Lori Phillips, Aaron Cogswell’s mother, has ordered a stone monument to be installed in the Delaps Cove area as a place to remember her son, and it also has the names and images of the other fishermen on it. She used funeral funds provided by the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia, and some of her own money, to pay the $6,000 cost of the stone monument, which was delivered at a reduced price. On the stone is a photo of the dragger and photos of all the crew, and it is written, “these six men held important roles in the lives near and dear to them.” >click to read< 10:26
Hearts broken and fears realized when the Saulis crew didn’t come home – A Year Later
Dec. 15 marks the one-year anniversary of the sinking of F/V Chief William Saulis scallop vessel, a tragedy that took the lives of six men and forever changed the lives of so many more. We still think about the crew. We still think about their families. We still think about the fishing communities that are deeply touched and heartbroken when those who make their living on the water do not come back home. Those aboard were Capt. Charles Roberts, Aaron Cogswell, Daniel Forbes, Michael Drake, Geno Francis and Leonard Gabriel. It was reported there had been no distress call made. photos, >click to read< 17:59 By Tina Comeau
A family’s heartache and the frustrating push to talk more about workplace deaths in Nova Scotia
Ryan Durling was 21 when he was crushed in a garbage truck while working in Port Williams, N.S. Durling’s death was one of 44 acute workplace fatalities in Nova Scotia in five years. Among those who died while working were RCMP Const. Heidi Stevenson and Kristen Beaton, a Victorian Order of Nurses community health worker. But there are other fatalities that the media never covered,,, The largest workplace event in 2020 in Atlantic Canada was the loss of the six men who were on board the scallop vessel the Chief William Saulis.,,, Durling’s parents hope that their son’s death will 
prompt some change, and his mother hopes other families who suffer a workplace loss are supported as they press for answers. “The more we talk about things and be aware of things and issues and things that arise and that, you know, will bring in awareness and maybe preventative measures,” Pam Durling said. >click to read< 10:39
More than $200K raised for families of fishermen lost aboard the F/V Chief William Saulis
More than $200,000 have been raised to provide monetary donations to the families of the fishers who went missing off the coast of Delaps Cove, N.S., according to Full Bay Scallop Association and Yarmouth Sea Products. The association set up ‘The Chief William Saulis Benevolent Fund Trust’ in December of last year with funds raised through a GoFundMe page and contributions from the vessel owners and other members of the association following the tragic incident. The association said that contributions can be made to the account at any branch of the credit union, and will cover the following expenses: >click to read< 07:14
F/V Chief William Saulis: Royal Canadian Mounted Police end search for missing crew on sunken scallop dragger
More than a month after the crew of a scallop dragger from Nova Scotia disappeared on the Bay of Fundy, the RCMP are calling off their search for the five men suspected of going down with the vessel, citing “significant” risk to the lives of divers. The RCMP said at the time that their crews were not equipped to dive to the necessary depths to look inside, but they said they were studying their options. On Saturday, they announced in a news release that those options had been exhausted. >click to read< The RCMP is calling off its search for the Chief Willian Saulis – >click to read< 11:43
ROV introduced into search for F/V Chief William Saulis and missing fishermen
On Friday the RCMP, in partnership with the Canadian Coast Guard who provided a platform, and Canada Border Services Agency providing a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV), were on the water continuing the search. The search did not locate the missing vessel, a Jan. 2 media release update reads. Due to unfavourable and deteriorating conditions, there is no search activity happening on Jan. 2 “Expectations are to return to the water Jan. 3 to resume the search, weather and water conditions permitting,” the RCMP says. >click to read< 07:07
Coast guard vessel with platform to help with search for missing scallop dragger
The Canadian Coast Guard has deployed a vessel with a platform to help search the Bay of Fundy for a scallop dragger that went missing two weeks ago. The coast guard vessel left Dartmouth on Wednesday and should arrive in Digby, N.S., by Friday, according to a release from the Nova Scotia RCMP. From there, the RCMP’s underwater recovery team will be able to perform sonar exploration in the area in search of the Chief William Saulis. The fishing vessel with six men on board sent out an emergency beacon near Delaps Cove, N.S., in the early morning of Dec. 15. >click to read< 19:09
RCMP resumes aerial search, C.G. planning sonar exploration for missing F/V Chief William Saulis fishermen
The search will take place about 100 kilometres off the coast from Digby Gut to Harbourville by helicopter, according to a news release. The scallop vessel sank in the early hours of Dec. 15 off the coast of Delaps Cove. The Nova Scotia RCMP and the RCMP Underwater Recovery Team are currently in the planning stages of a partnership with the Canadian Coast Guard to provide a platform which will assist in recovery efforts, including sonar exploration. >click to read< 15:44
Chief William Saulis: RCMP to use sonar in effort to locate missing Nova Scotia scallop dragger
In a news release Tuesday morning, RCMP say the aerial search would resume, weather permitting, after it was paused on Monday, and an underwater recovery team would join the efforts and explore the water with sonar equipment. RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Andrew Joyce said the sonar search was dependent on conditions and it was not clear, as of late morning, whether the underwater crew would be able to start Tuesday. The goal, he said, is to locate the vessel. >click to read< 10:58
Chief William Saulis: RCMP continues search for missing fishermen on Monday, say unidentified debris found
The RCMP says it is continuing the recovery mission for five scallop fishers and a vessel missing off the Nova Scotia shore on Monday. Police say helicopter crews did an aerial search of the coastline spanning approximately 100 kilometres, from Digby Gut to Harbourville. The search did not locate the missing fishermen nor the debris from the Chief William Saulis fishing vessel. video, >click to read< 14:06
For Nova Scotia mother of scallop fisherman, a painful wait for her son lost at sea
For Lori Phillips, waiting for news of a son lost at sea is painful, as she says closure could begin with his body’s return from the Bay of Fundy. As of Sunday at 4 p.m. local time, crewman Michael Drake is the only one of the six people on board whose body has been recovered by search teams. Phillips says she hopes desperately her son Aaron Cogswell and the others still missing can be located as well, whether by searches or raising the vessel. The continuing care assistant in the Annapolis Valley has had a trying year, looking after elderly residents in a Berwick, N.S. long-term care facility during the COVID-19 pandemic, and recently grieving the death of her father-in-law. “I want my son home. I want to have something that I could go to,”,,, “I need his body, I need closure and , video, >click to read< 17:27
F/V Chief William Saulis: Helicopter search reveals no sign of scallop fishermen lost off Nova Scotia this morning
RCMP say an aerial search for five fishermen who were working on a scallop boat when it sank in the Bay of Fundy has not spotted any sign of them as of late morning local time today. Police had said in a news release on Saturday that a search with a helicopter would be suspended until Sunday, but have since corrected this to say some aerial searching occurred on Saturday and was continuing into Sunday morning. A release said the search did not locate the missing fishermen or debris from the scallop dragger Chief William Saulis,,, >click to read< 12:29
Search for missing fishermen in Bay of Fundy has paused
The search for five fishermen, and clues about what happened to their missing scallop vessel in the Bay of Fundy, has been put on pause, again.What began as a search-and-rescue mission on the water, as well as by ground and air on Dec. 15, turned into an RCMP recovery mission 36 hours later. All efforts were suspended when a winter storm hit the province on Dec. 17, and resumed only briefly by helicopter the following day. In an update Saturday morning, RCMP said the ground search has been suspended indefinitely because of unsafe conditions. A search by air may resume Sunday if the weather allows. >click to read< 12:14
Please Contribute to Chief William Saulis Families Fund
Charles “Hot Dog” Roberts, Leonard “Layback Lenny” Gabriel, Aaron Cogswell, Eugene “Geno” Francis, Dan Forbes, Mike Drake. These six men were tragically lost while returning to port from a trip fishing for scallops aboard the Chief William Saulis on the morning of December 15th 2020. So far, only Mike Drake’s body has been recovered. Any funds collected from this GoFundMe will be added to that account and will then be provided to the families of these men. Please >click to read< and donate if you can. Fundraiser organizer is Alain D’Entremont. Thank you, Alain. 22:14
Search resumes for missing F/V Chief William Saulis fishermen in Bay of Fundy
Police say the search for five missing fishermen from the Chief William Saulis fishing vessel in the Bay of Fundy will resume from the air on Friday morning. Nova Scotia RCMP said in a news release that they are partnering with the Department of Lands and Forestry to search by helicopter. The ground search is still suspended due to safety concerns, after a snowstorm that hit the province on Thursday. Police say they will reassess conditions on Saturday. >click to read< 11:37
F/V Chief William Saulis: Support being extended to families of lost and missing fishermen – Vessel Owner Issues Statement
“As our community continues to grieve, it is most important that the families and friends of those lost know we are here to support them in whatever way they need – physically, mentally, spiritually,” said Yarmouth Mayor Pam Mood on Thursday, Dec. 17. “We are a resilient community but now is not the time to talk about bouncing back. Now is the time to grieve. To cry. Be angry. To feel.”,,, With families at the forefront during this time of grief, Mood reached out to Bertha Brannen, a grief recovery specialist in Yamouth, who will work with families of those lost. >click to read< 07:49
Search Suspended; Owner Of Capsized Vessel Issues Statement – Yarmouth Sea Products issued a statement Wednesday about the loss of the Chief William Saulis and the six fishermen aboard. >click to read the statement in full<
Yarmouth is heartbroken by fishing tragedy – ‘It’s such a feeling that ‘sad’ doesn’t even describe’
If there is one thing Yarmouth prides itself on, it is for being a fishing community.,, There are ups. And there are downs. It’s almost like wedding vows. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. And sometimes, tragically, ‘till death do us part.,, Southwestern Nova Scotia has not been immune to loss, heartbreak and tragedy on the sea. And it can also be cruel. And now comes more heartache. The scallop dragger F/V Chief William Saulis and its six-member crew was on its way into port on Tuesday, Dec. 15 when something went terribly wrong. >click to read< 10:19
F/V Chief Williams Saulis: ‘Hearts are extremely heavy’ as search for missing N.S. fishing crew ends
The Maritime Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre said late Wednesday afternoon that it is suspending the search for five missing fishermen in the Bay of Fundy. The news comes after 36 hours of searching for the crew of the Chief Williams Saulis, a scallop vessel based out of Yarmouth, N.S. The RCMP will now handle the investigation as a missing persons case. The JRCC said the search covered 260 nautical miles by sea and air. One body was recovered on Tuesday night, but had not yet been publicly identified. >click to read< 07:16
Body of Newfoundland Fisherman Recovered, Search for Others Called Off in Nova Scotia – Residents of the Town of Fortune are rallying around the family of a man whose body was recovered,,, The man, Michael Drake, was one of six crewmen on board the Chief William Saulis,,, >click to read<
RCMP suspend search for Chief William Saulis fishermen due to impending storm – Chief Deborah Robinson of Acadia First Nation also expressed her condolences in a statement on Thursday morning. Eugene Francis, nicknamed Geno, was a community member who lived on the Yarmouth reserve, growing up in Milton, N.S., where his parents and son still live. “We were devastated to hear that Geno was among those on board and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and all the families, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, who are impacted by this tragic event,” Robinson said. >click to read<
Missing fishermen identified as Bay of Fundy search stretches into 2nd day
The mother of one of five fishermen still missing in the Bay Fundy says she has accepted her son won’t be found alive, as searchers continue for a second day to comb a stretch of Nova Scotia coastline for signs of the crew of a scallop fishing vessel that hasn’t been heard from since Tuesday morning. Aaron Cogswell, Leonard Gabriel, Dan Forbes, Michael Drake and Geno Francis, along with captain Charles Roberts, were the six men on 
board the Chief William Saulis. Lori Phillips said her son, Cogswell, 29, had been fishing with the captain of the vessel for seven years. “I know he’s not coming back alive, but I want him to come back home,” Her son had high-functioning autism, Phillips said, and Roberts, the captain, took him under his wing. “He was always there for him. He was his protector,” Video, photos, >click to read< 16:35
Digby, NS residents apprehensive as search continues for missing scallop boat – Digby resident David Stephens talked about the impact on the local community, while fellow scallop fisherman Kim Emino discussed his own personal search and rescue effort for the missing fishermen. Video, >click to watch<
Search continues for 5 remaining fishermen of missing scallop boat, crew identified
Searchers are back on land, sea and on the ground today, Dec. 16, looking for missing crew members of the Chief William Saulis,,, The body of one crew member was recovered from the water Tuesday night. Five others remain missing. Multiple people, including the Coldwater Lobster Association, have posted on social media that the crew consisted of Captain Charles Roberts and crew members Aaron Cogswell, Michael Drake, Dan Forbes, Geno Francis and Leonard Gabriel. “We’re going to be out through the rest of today,” JRCC spokesman Lt.-Cmdr. Brian Owens said Wednesday morning. “No determination has been made as to any change to that posture right now.” >click to read< 13:16
