The Doryman

by Maura Hanrahan

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  For the people of the Burin Peninsula, the year 1929 brought an event that towered above the August Gale of two years previous. It was, in fact, one of Newfoundland’s greatest tragedies.

  This was the tidal wave, although the term is not an accurate one, for the phenomenon had nothing whatsoever to do with tides. Instead, what happened on November 18, 1929 was a subterranean earthquake, a tsunami, the Japanese word for harbour wave. Deep inside the earth, a giant quake occurred, causing a kind of landslide on the continental shelf. Enormous waves, mountains high, rushed out from the epicentre of the quake and headed to the South Coast of Newfoundland. Then they rushed back, taking every ounce of sea water with them, draining harbours, and then rushing back again.

  It was almost suppertime in Little Bay, and five-year-old Vince, Richard and Angela’s son, was strolling up the hill towards his home. His belly started to grumble with hunger as he passed his aunt Rachel’s kitchen garden, all picked over now for the winter. Soon his father would be back for the winter, and home until well after Christmas. He couldn’t wait.

  He saw his cousin Stevie, Rachel’s son, come running down the hill. Stevie had just been in Vince’s house.

  “Did you feel the earth move?” Stevie asked.

  “Are you cracked?” Vince asked, thinking that Stevie was pulling his leg.

  Stevie shook his head. “Just now,” he continued. “And the waves are getting real choppy.” He pointed out to Mortier Bay.

  Vince looked out and noticed that, yes indeed, the waves had gotten terribly active all of a sudden. But it was late fall and these things happened. Then he felt the earth tremble. He looked at Stevie, who stared back at him.

  “See?”

  Vince nodded.

  “Let’s go down to the harbour,” Vince suggested, forgetting his hunger. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

  In the harbour, men walked out of their fishing rooms and gathered to talk of the tremor. In their hands they held nets and needles: they were repairing their gear for the next year, something that would take all winter. They were mystified as to what was going on. The boys ran around them, sometimes playing tag, sometimes listening to the men’s conjecture.

  Finally, Stevie’s father Jerry spoke to the boys. He was in the shore fishery that year, and Rachel was glad to have him home, especially now that she had another new baby. This one was named after his father. “You two should get on up the hill for your supper,” he said. “Your mothers will be waiting. Stevie, tell your mother I’ll be up later on.”

  As the boys made their way to their homes, the sky seemed to lower itself to the earth and turned a blackish blue-grey. It looked fierce and threatening, even more than most November skies.

  “Think there’ll be a storm?” Stevie asked.

  “Yes, I sure do,” Vince asked, trying to sound brave. He hoped his father was on Oderin and not at sea.

  “There you are,” Angela said when her son came in the door. “You just about missed your supper.”

  She set a bowl of fish soup on the table for him. On the side was a thick slice of homemade bread with butter, also homemade. The girls had already eaten, as had young Jack, and she had fed Pat, the baby. Angela sat down at the long table across from her son.

  “There’s something strange going on,” she said. “Did you feel the earth shake?”

  Vince nodded. “Once, anyway,” he said.

  “Well, it shook more than once,” she said.

  “At least three times,” Lucy called out as she dried dishes.

  “Might be the end of the world,” said her sister Bride.

  “Maybe God is angry,” Lizzie said.

  “Maybe you’re all being foolish,” their mother answered. “But I think some weather is coming on. I’m some glad your father took that top storey down.”

  “You were always afraid of that,” Monnie said.

  “More like frightened to death of it,” Lucy added.

  Angela laughed.

  Vince finished his supper. “I’m going back down to Uncle Jerry’s fishing room,” he said, moving towards the door.

  “He’s always got to be where there’s something going on,” Bride teased him.

  Angela walked to the window and looked out. The waves were wild now.

  “Vince,” she said. But he was gone.

  *

  Vince was helping his Uncle Jerry mend nets when Stevie rushed in, out of breath.

  “Aunt Angela told Mom to tell you to get your dory in,” he said, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

  Jerry put his net down and went to his door. He looked outside at the water.

  “Good God!” he said.

  He rushed outside and down the beach to his little boat. He plunged into the water up to his knees without even bothering about getting wet and hauled the boat onto the beach. Then he quickly threw a tarpaulin over it and tied it down as fast as he could.

  Stevie and Vince watched from the fishing-room door. They were amazed. What they saw was a humongous wave in Mortier Bay. Then it headed into Little Bay. As it came closer, they scurried into the fishing stage and peered out the window. It was massive. They had never seen a bigger wave.

  The wave pulled back and emptied the harbour. The bottom of the entire fjord was exposed and stayed that way for several minutes. Never before had either of them seen anything like it. “Good God!” he kept saying. Over and over it happened. All the while, Vince and Stevie said nothing. They were too awestruck to feel scared. They didn’t know what was going on.

  All of a sudden, Vince remembered that his father wasn’t home yet. Oh, no! he wasn’t at sea, was he?

  Then the snow started. It was accompanied by a northeast wind that brought a biting cold. The snow grew thicker and thicker. With the wind, it was getting harder to see. Before long, the peninsula was plunged into a full-blown blizzard. Jerry took the boys up the hill to their homes, wondering silently, too, where Richard was.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The quake was felt in the Maritime provinces of Canada and as far west as eastern Ontario. The people of Delaware in the United States, well to the south, reported feeling it as well. The great Newfoundland trade unionist Sir William Coaker was at the Newfoundland Hotel in St. John’s, and he noted that men on the waterfront were loading fish when they saw a tidal wave of six or seven feet. The schooners at the pier were grounded in the empty harbour, he said, and the water did not return for ten minutes. A schooner coming down the harbour was forced around in a complete circle, he wrote. Meanwhile, the breakwater at Catalina, Bonavista Bay was swept away, and a couple of dozen cracks appeared in the concrete and stone powerhouse there.

  It travelled at almost eighty miles per hour. Like the August Gale two years before, communications were cut off. As luck would have it, for some reason the only telegraph line linking the Burin Peninsula to the rest of Newfoundland had gone out of service before the quake.

  The first accounts of the horrendous damage wrought by the quake came from the coastal boat SS Portia. The Portia was the first radio-equipped ship to visit the peninsula, five days after the quake on November 23. She was followed by the SS Meigle, a relief ship carrying doctors and nurses, two coastal boats, the SS Glencoe and the SS Argyle, and the revenue cutter, the SS Daisy. The stories they gathered were both frightening and sad.

  All the stages and stores along the waterfront in Lamaline were swept away. The road between Lamaline and Lord’s Cove was washed out. James Lockyer, an old man who lived on nearby Allan’s Island, was “crushed by the sea” and later died of injuries. In Point au Gaul, eight people died. Elizabeth Hillier and her four grandchildren drowned in their home when it was pulled out to sea. Elizabeth Walsh, a widow, and Mary Anne Walsh, were swept away in their houses. Thomas Hillier and Thomas Wals
h also died. All the community’s fishing property was destroyed, including all the stages and stores, cod traps, and provisions. Three houses were flattened, and seventy other buildings were wrecked. The livyers were in a state of shock as they looked at the sight around them the next day. This stretch of coast was flat, and the people had built their houses close to the sea. They had considered it safe to do so.

  In Taylor’s Bay, the waves had been between 80 and 100 feet high. The Bonnell family was stricken with the loss of Bridget Bonnell and her child, as well as the two children of Bertram Bonnell. A child of George Piercey later died of injuries. The tsunami had left fifteen families homeless, and all the fishing property in the village was gone. The coal was swept away, too, as it had been in Point au Gaul. In Taylor’s Bay, only five houses were habitable, out of the seventeen that had been standing before the quake. Homeless women and children had to go to neighbouring communities in Fortune Bay for shelter for the oncoming winter.

  The people of Lord’s Cove were left without their provisions that November. So were their neighbours in Lawn, St. Lawrence, and Corbin. More than thirty buildings in St. Lawrence were lost. The quake and its wicked waves took a house in Lance au Leau and all the fishing gear in the village, and it had swept Great Burin clean. It ripped down all the waterfront premises in Step-a-side, known so well by Richard, as well as a house there.

  In Kelly’s Cove, one of the more exposed parts of Burin, it tore down three houses and carried away Frances Kelly and her fourteen-year-old daughter. Besides that, all the fishing premises were destroyed. Similarly, the fishing premises in Collins Cove, Ship Cove, Burin North, and Burin East were all wrecked.

  Port au Bras was particularly hard hit by the tsunami. No less than eleven houses were levelled to the ground. Six of the houses had been built on a breakwater and were carried out to sea en masse, leaving dozens of people with nowhere to live. Fourteen western boats were smashed to bits, all the dories and skiffs destroyed. So were the fishing premises, gear, and winter provisions. Even worse was the loss of life. Among the dead were Jessie Fudge and her three daughters, Gertrude, Hannah, and Harriet, and Henry Dibbon and his sister, a schooner widow who had been visiting him, Louisa Brushett Allen.

  At Cape La Hune, on the western entrance to Hermitage Bay, Stephen Spencer lost almost everything, his home, shop, stages, flakes, and stores. So did William Parsons. The whole village was “in ruins.”

  Rock Harbour, too, near Burin, another place quite exposed to the sea, was swept clean. James Hodder’s house was swept away, taking with it $500 in cash. The destitution was general. Adding to the grief was the fact that many of the bodies were not recovered.

  The next day the blizzard turned into rain, falling in torrents. The winds came from the southeast and weren’t as cold. Men donned their oilskins and rowed out in dories and skiff to retrieve what they could. They picked up nets, tables, chairs, a few bodies.

  The SS Daisy and the SS Meigle reported that the people of the Burin Peninsula were in deep shock. Some of them were desperate, others lethargic, some prone with grief. Ahead of them was a long winter with no food, no homes, no clothing, and most of the fish they’d caught and salted swept out to sea. They couldn’t bear to think of the next fishing season. They had no gear: no nets, boats, tubs, hooks, and no way to get any. Their relatives were dead, and in most cases they had no bodies to bury. They didn’t know what to do.

  In the middle of these black days there was a speck of hope to which even the most distraught people clung. It came from Lord’s Cove, and the name of the community was not lost on those who heard and told the tale. One of the giant waves had dragged a tiny house hundreds of yards into the harbour. Sarah Rennie and her three children were in the house when seawater flooded in and ripped the house off land. They ran upstairs, trying to stay dry, as none of them could swim. They panicked and screamed as they were swept out the bay. The glass of the windows shattered as the water covered their ankles, then their legs. Then the waves threw them about mercilessly, and all four drowned.

  After the storm, some men from Lord’s Cove rowed out to the little house, half-submerged in water, with its bright white curtains flapping in the breeze. They hoped to find the bodies of the Rennie family. Instead, they found a baby in its crib upstairs, entirely unharmed. The story made its way up and down the peninsula and indeed through Newfoundland, giving survivors and all those who felt some sympathy for them a reason to keep going.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Angela spent yet another night worrying about her husband. Again she thought of her children; were they orphans? Lucy and Monnie were almost old enough to go into service. She knew people in St. John’s who could help them get good positions. She’d probably send them there. Like herself and their Aunt Rachel, they’d do that for a few years before they got married. They were very pretty girls, Lucy with her dark eyes and skin, and Monnie with her sky-blue eyes and high cheekbones. They were almost grown now. But Patrick, named for her father, was just a few months old. He wouldn’t even know his father if he died now. And Vince and little Jack ... well, boys needed their father. Vince would want to go fishing with Richard in five or six years, in the shore fishery, at least. He was six now and adored his father, following him everywhere, always asking him questions. Richard got such a charge out of him.

  Where was Richard? That question had almost driven her mad during their fifteen years of marriage. It was always in her head, whenever there was any sign of weather, and many times when there was not. It always left her frustrated. It emphasized her powerlessness. There was never any answer to it. Not until she looked out the window or up from the turnips and cabbages in her kitchen garden and saw him coming up the hill. It was late now, nearly the end of November, but he might still be at sea.

  They were strange events last night, awful strange, not like any of them had ever seen before. Nobody could explain it. Thank God the storm hadn’t caused much damage. Hopefully it was the same in the other communities in the bay, although Little Bay was more sheltered that most. It might be different around Burin, she thought, where many of the buildings and houses were perched on bald rocks poking out into the sea, and farther up the bay, around Lawn where she had relations. No shelter there. They built their houses in that place to be near to the fishing grounds, but maybe it wasn’t so safe there.

  *

  Angela would have been pleased to know that Richard was in fact onshore at Oderin. The Tancook had finished her last trip of the year and had done well. John, Val, and the rest of the crew were in a good mood, having returned to the harbour with a full load of fish. They eagerly looked forward to Christmas.

  They were so well pleased with themselves that they didn’t mind doing the usual end-of-season work, as back-breaking as it was, and even though they were exhausted after baiting their hooks and hauling their trawls almost around the clock for weeks on end. Around suppertime they were on deck with the Tancook moored, folding and lifting the mainsail, an onerous task, when they felt the first tremor.

  “What the hell was that?” Val asked.

  “It’s like the earth shook,” Richard said.

  “Like an earthquake you get down south,” John answered.

  Like his brother, Val had been to the West Indies and had seen the destruction wrought by the high winds of fall hurricanes and sudden earthquakes.

  “Be glad we don’t live down south,” he said. “They can do some harm. They can wreck a place. It can take years for a place to get back on its feet after a quake.”

  A couple of hours later, Val and Richard stood in the doorway of one of the stores of the Manning premises, having just put away the mainsail with the other dorymen. They had paused for a quick rest. Then they noticed the peculiar action of the waves.

  Suddenly, Oderin Harbour was empty, clean and dry. They were looking at its bottom. Then, about five minutes later, it was full with a high w
ave. The men were amazed.

  “I don’t know what the hell that is,” Val said.

  Richard was bewildered, too. He was thankful that the waves weren’t higher and that they didn’t seem to be destructive. Like Little Bay, Oderin would be spared that night. He hoped they weren’t worse anywhere else.

  *

  The subterranean earthquake off the Grand Banks that November night measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. The quake caused the sea floor to move several yards, causing the water to go back and forth for several hours. Some of the waves raced across the ocean at more than 800 kilometres an hour, as fast as an airplane. This speed took them far, far away from where they originated.

  When a tsunami reaches shallow water near a coastline, its waves increase in height and become a mountain of water. It is at this point that harbours become empty and everything on their bottom exposed. But then the waves rush in at frightening speed, wreaking the kind of damage experienced by the people of the Burin Peninsula on November 18, 1929.

  Tsunamis create massive waves, often fifty feet high but sometimes 135 feet high. Each wave is higher than the one before. The time period between waves is between ten and thirty minutes. Because of their size, they can be murderous. In 1896, more than 20,000 people were killed by a tsunami in Sanriku, Japan.

  Japan is vulnerable to tsunamis, sitting as it does in the Ring of Fire, the prime tsunami-prone region that encircles the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii, a string of islands in the middle of the Pacific, the world’s largest ocean, is very susceptible to tsunamis, generally experiencing one a year. Alaska, much farther north but also on the Pacific, has one about every two years. The tsunami that hit the Burin Peninsula in November 1929 was way outside the Ring of Fire, and the people who lived there had no way of knowing it was coming. They didn’t know what hit them. Some of them thought the end of the world had come.