Climb the gangplank and join the ranks of passengers who boarded the mighty steamer Titanic in April 1912.
Walk through a first-class cabin, furnished with authentic artifacts. Step into the boiler room where crew members shoveled coal despite the rising water. Emerge onto the ship's deck and relive the fateful evening the ship struck an iceberg and sank.
Touch the iceberg that held the fate of more than 1,500 lives.
The R.M.S. Titanic has now arrived in Salt Lake City — its artifacts, that is.
More than 200 items recovered two and a half miles under the ocean's surface are on display in "Titanic: The Artifacts Exhibition" beginning today at the Utah Museum of Natural History's Annex on the 2nd floor of the ZCMI Center. Open through Jan. 8, the exhibition gives visitors a chance to see, firsthand, the ship that made history.
"It (was) a very amazing event. You really are immersed into the environment, and it really gives you a sense of what these people were experiencing on the trip," said Sarah B. George, the museum's director.
The exhibition is on loan from R.M.S. Titanic Inc., the company that owns salvage rights to the 52,310-ton ship and its watery grave, which lies 963 miles off the coast of New York. More than 5,000 artifacts were recovered during six expeditions since 1987.
Mark Lach, the exhibition's designer and curator, had the chance to participate in the last dive to the site in 2000. During his 12 hours underwater, he and two others collected a few debris samples and took photographs of the wreckage.
For Lach, the experience was an exciting time, but also very emotional.
"It becomes a very human connection. You walk away from the experience knowing you have a great responsibility to present these objects to bring dignity, honor and respect to the ship's passengers and crew," Lach said.
Since designing the exhibition in 1991, Lach has taken the Titanic experience to more than 50 cities and 14 million people. At each location, the exhibition has to be specifically designed for the space chosen, which usually takes up to six months.
"The focus will always be the artifacts — the real stars of the exhibit. The theatrical things we do are backdrops," Lach said of the exhibit's design. "You want to focus on art but also focus on the human story. That's what people relate to the most."
In order for the Titanic exhibition to visit Salt Lake City, the UMNH needed more room than the 2,800-square-foot space it can devote to traveling exhibits at its building on the University of Utah campus.
That's where the Annex at ZCMI Center came in. Through an ongoing relationship with Zion's Securities Corp., the museum acquired 10,000 square feet of exhibition space in the downtown mall to hold Titanic's artifacts.
"We wouldn't be able to have it here at all without the relationship," George said. "We are looking forward to strong community visitation, and are very excited about the opportunity to make it available to the public."
The location is also perfect for more people to see the artifacts, said Tom Taylor, project manager for the exhibit. "This ties us into downtown and the audience of summer. (For) all the things we wanted to do, this was a natural fit for us here."
Upon arrival, visitors to the exhibition will receive a boarding pass bearing an actual passenger's name. They'll then be able to walk through re-creations of parts of the ship. Not only will they experience the story of this tragedy, they'll learn about the conservation techniques used in the recovery of the objects.
"The whole science of understanding what does survive has been very eye-opening for conservators," George said.
If you go . . .
What: Titanic: The Artifacts Exhibition
Where: Utah Museum of Natural History Museum Annex at ZCMI Center (2nd floor)
When: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
How much: $14.95 and $19.95 for adults; $9.95 and $14.95 for children and seniors. Tickets can be purchased at the ZCMI Center or www.ticketmaster.com.
Phone: 581-6927
E-mail: ltaylor@desnews.com