“I hadn’t gone and seen the Titanic graves, and it’s stuff that’s here, but I didn’t really know about it, so he kind of gave me a tour around my own city,” says the Dartmouth resident. While Van Zeumeren, too, considers herself a history buff, she admits she didn’t know much about the Titanic until Lynskey came along. It’s also what brought him to Halifax in the first place. “James Cameron’s film came out when I was in kindergarten and I guess that kind of sealed the deal,” says Lynskey, referring to the director’s blockbuster film about the tragedy. While it has been more than a century since the luxury ocean liner sank in the cold waters of the Atlantic, Lynskey says he’s always had a passion for the tragic tale. The couple is now engaged, and Lynskey says they owe it all to the Titanic. “We walked around town after dinner and hung out on the Citadel until late into the night, and then I walked her back to NSCAD, where she was working,” says Lynskey. “It was, kind of seemed like fate, because I wasn’t planning to, but I did,” says Van Zeumeren. That didn’t stop Lynskey from giving her his number and, later that day, he was pleased to receive a text from her.

He asked Van Zeumeren for her number, but she turned him down. “I was mid-sentence with my friends and she walks past in the opposite direction and I say, ‘Hang on guys! I’ll be right back,’” recalls Lynskey of the chance encounter. Lynskey, who is from Pennsylvania, was touring Halifax’s iconic Public Gardens with the Titanic Society of Atlantic Canada when he came across the Dartmouth artist. Just ask Emma Van Zeumeren and Thomas Lynskey, a couple of history buffs whose love story starts with the world’s most famous shipwreck.

Titanic video game cover