The Doryman

by Maura Hanrahan

  The weather forecast for that day in the Canadian Maritimes had been more accurate and, had the Banks fishermen known of it, they would have rushed away from the fishing grounds and headed for the shelter of the bays. Reports in the Halifax Herald had warned of easterly to northeasterly winds and probably gales in “Maritime east,” with winds increasing in the afternoon or night on the Grand Banks.

  Reports in the St. John’s Daily News estimated that the August Gale of 1935 caused damages totalling $45,510. Ten schooners were lost, worth a total of $23,000. Between ninety and 100 dories were gone, as were almost twenty small boats. Between twelve and fifteen marine engines were lost; so were twenty-five to thirty trap boats. Reports estimated that 1,000 quintals of fish were lost, but even this large number seems low, given that fish was lost from schooners, flakes, beaches, and onshore premises. Less than one-quarter of the losses were covered by marine insurance.

  Prices had been low that year, so low that most fishermen required between twenty-five and fifty per cent more fish to equal the earnings of the year before. On the South Coast, the fishery was an almost total failure. Many families were facing a winter of destitution, even those with fathers and husbands still living.

  The gale took the lives of dozens of Banks fishermen: men from Harbour Buffett, Kingwell, Petite Forte in Placentia Bay; Doctor’s Cove and Pushthrough in Fortune Bay; Hant’s Harbour in Trinity Bay; Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; and other coves and harbours where human lives and the sea were intertwined.

  But the epicentre of human tragedy was Mortier Bay, home of sixteen of the dead men, and especially Little Bay. The small village had lost nine men and boys. Lillian Walsh, Captain Paddy’s widow, lost no less than six of the men in her family: her husband, three sons, and two nephews. She mourned with Angela and her seven children, Billy Reid’s mother, and Michael Farrell’s wife and children, as well as the rest of the stricken village.

  For many years, Captain James Bruce told the story of Richard Hanrahan refusing to abandon his men at the height of the windstorm. He told it with some sorrow, for he knew Richard’s quest had been futile, if heroic. In one of many ironies and coincidences associated with the 1935 August Gale, years later, Captain Bruce’s son Michael would marry Richard’s youngest daughter Lizzie.

  In another irony, the Ronald W, the large schooner that Richard could have sailed in but did not trust, successfully rode out the gale.

  Meanwhile, Angela Hanrahan, a young woman with five children still at home, was left a widow with absolutely nothing at a time when she had least expected her husband to go to sea.

  When the Daily News wrote a summary editorial on the 1935 fishery, it mentioned the low prices and the loss of the Italian markets. On the other hand, the new exporters’ organization, the Saltfish Codfish Control Board, promised some stability in terms of marketing and prices. Sales to Portugal were increasing, the editorial read. It made no mention of the thirty fishermen who had died.

  Chapter Forty

  The days went by, and there was no sign of Richard’s body, nor of the Mary Bernice herself. Angela assumed the Mary Bernice and Richard had gone to the bottom of the sea. That was all she could do. She prayed, sometimes fearfully, that his death had not been a difficult or painful one.

  There were only stories that people told over and over as if the constant telling could make some sense of what had happened. Angela’s daughter Monnie, back from service in St. John’s, talked of how she had bolted upright in her bed in the middle of the night of August 25 with a feeling of dread deep in her body. It had come as no surprise to her some days later when the priest from St. Patrick’s parish in St. John’s knocked on her door to confirm that her father’s schooner was lost.

  Angela’s brother, Val Manning, told a story, too. He had been on board the Tancook safely moored in Little Bay during the gale and had awakened during the night to see Richard making a cup of tea for himself in the forecastle. The next morning, he sadly announced to Captain John Manning and the Tancook’s dorymen, “You’ll never see Dick again.”

  Angela heard that Albert Wareham over in Harbour Buffet was saying a twenty-ton schooner was bottom-up three miles off Haystack with a motorboat in tow. She was painted green, just as the Mary Bernice had been. In fact, the sighting was recorded in a newspaper report: “She apparently had an engine as propellor blades were over water. She had white balloon pole heads and the hull was under water. Spars were gone in three pieces and canvas gone.” The vessel was a battered skeleton that somehow managed to limp along, if upside down. It did not occur to Angela that Richard’s body might be aboard her, if in fact she was the Mary Bernice.

  At the end of September, there was a kerfuffle at her door. It opened to reveal Rachel, and Father McGettigan, come all the way from the church in Marystown. The priest stood tentatively in the doorway; behind him was Sergeant Larry Dutton, equally grim-faced.

  Angela motioned to her table and the chairs that surrounded it, all pine furniture that Richard had built. They came in and sat down. Rachel sucked in her breath. Then Father McGettigan handed Angela a letter.

  Harbour Buffett, Placentia Bay

  Sept. 25, 1935

  W.W. Wareham & Sons

  Dear Madam:

  The following is a description of the body picked up on the Beach at Keating’s Cove on the Eastern shore.

  Under the oil clothes was a sweater coat of greenish rug colour, darned on the side, also a pair of Kingfisher hip rubbers about size eight or nine.

  She remembered pulling the frayed threads of the sweater together with dark green wool that Rachel had carded that spring.

  The shirt was of dark gray color, singlet was fleece lined, there was a pair of home-knit drawers and home-knit socks and vamps.

  As handy as I can go to an estimate of his weight would be about 170 pounds. He was a man of fairly short body thickly built. The middle finger on the right hand was crooked having apparently been broken at some time.

  Yes, she thought, that’s right, he hurt it at sea, crushed it under a block of ice in the hold. The ice had slammed right onto it, he’d told her on his return home. He had winced dramatically to illustrate; he always had a bit of the performer in him.

  On the body was a small calico bag containing religious articles. This was suspended about the neck and under the arm by a cord or tape of the same material. Attached to this was a small medal in a kid container, those were removed and others which had been blessed were placed on the corpse. The reason for removal was for identification purposes.

  She blinked hard. She couldn’t read all the words, but she recognized “medal” and she knew that St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, had been with him to the last. She’d given him the medal to replace the one he’d given to the poor people of Port au Bras. She crossed herself hastily and uttered a quick prayer that he had somehow felt St. Anne’s comfort in it all.

  The body was buried in the R.C. Cemetary at Port Royal on Sept. 11, 1935.

  Respectfully submitted,

  Thos. Davis, Constable

  Harbour Buffett, Placentia Bay

  She felt the salt of tears fill her eyes. In her throat, a lump took shape and began to rise upwards. She stopped reading and laid the thin piece of paper on the table for a minute. She tried to let this horrible knowledge that he was really dead and his death was final make its way into her brain, but her tears had dried up and she felt numb. She was vaguely aware of Rachel’s bated breath a foot away. Then she shivered a little, remembering that Richard had been Rachel’s brother and that she would want to know.

  “It’s him,” she said, her voice filled with the powerlessness of resignation and learned submission to God’s will. “It’s him.”

  “Oh God!” The voice was Rachel’s. Angela herself let no noise out. Then Rachel’s wailing filled the house and Father McGettigan, red-faced, rushed to
the women’s side.

  As Rachel howled, Angela peered down at the paper again.

  P.S. A finger stall of calico was found inside the vest, in the vest pocket was a tin containing salve or catarrh powder, it was hard to tell which, however, it was in a Dr. Chase’s catarrh powder box.

  As long as Rachel wailed like that, there was no room for Angela’s grief. Not here, not now. Besides, she felt that her grief was something between her and Richard. So she said nothing and folded up the paper. Then she pushed it down into her apron pocket. She couldn’t help thinking of the ordinariness of it all: the salve for his injured finger, the new oilskins that he’d dipped in oil himself, the calico bag into which she’d inserted the medals, how they’d gotten them blessed at Lady Day in Oderin last year, the holes that he’d worn into the knees of his pants, and the patches she’d sewn on to cover them ...

  “Angela,” said Father McGettigan quietly. “The letter said he’s been buried in Harbour Buffett – ”

  “No, Port Royal,” she interrupted. Her attention to detail never left her, even now.

  “The people there saw his medals and knew he was Catholic,” said Sergeant Dutton, glad to have some useful information. “They waked him in the church.”

  “Yes, yes, on the island, I know, on the Catholic side, Port Royal.” The priest was flustered now. He wasn’t used to a new widow showing such a stone face. It must be her Englishness, he thought. Half of them from Oderin were English, whether they admitted it or not. Then he spoke again. “Should we arrange to have him taken back home to be buried here?”

  Angela paused for a minute. Then she pursed her lips and said, “No, Father, he’s fine there in Port Royal.”

  “But none of his own people are there,” the priest objected. “He’ll be all alone among strangers. It’s not ...”

  Angela’s chest rose impatiently. “Leave him where he’s to,” she said firmly. “Leave him where he’s to, he’s been through enough.”

  Epilogue

  Angela took her remaining children – Bride, Lizzie, Vince, Jack, and Patrick – to Oderin for the winter, where she lived with her family, the Mannings. She sold her house in Little Bay to a neighbour for thirty-five dollars.

  Some weeks after Richard died, Angela received a bill from Baird’s for his Kingfisher boots.

  Richard’s youngest daughter Lizzie had a particularly hard time recovering from her father’s death. In what was probably an adaptation of a Micmac custom that she learned from her mother-in-law, Angela cut the child’s long dark hair as a sign of mourning. Later she changed her daughter’s name to Betty to signify that the mourning period was over.

  In 1936, Angela moved her family to St. John’s so that the boys could get the education their father wanted for them. She supported them through a small monthly allowance available for the widows and orphans of fishermen, and through her own unceasing hard work cleaning houses and doing laundry.

  She outlived Richard by almost fifty years and died at ninety-four.

  Richard’s sister Rachel spent her whole life in Little Bay and died at age ninety-six.

  Glossary of Newfoundland, Fishery,

  and Other Terms

  Angelus: Catholic prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

  Arctic Screamer: Strong cold winds from the north or northwest, often following cold front.

  Blackbacks: Greater black-backed seagulls, the largest gull of them all.

  Chock: A large puncheon or cask to be used for fish processing (eg. As a liver butt) on board schooners.

  Dory: A small flat-bottomed boat with flared sides and a sharp bow and stern. Dories were used extensively in both the shore and Banks fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador.

  Dory skipper: The man who owned the dory.

  Fish: Cod; all other species of fish, such as salmon, were known by their proper names.

  Flake: A platform built on poles and spread with boughs for drying fish.

  Gale: A strong, forceful wind.

  Ganger: A line spliced into a trawl. Steel hooks to catch fish were attached to the gangers.

  Gurry: Fish offal, waste, usually fish innards. Banks fishermen never threw gurry back into the sea, which they regarded as a food basket.

  Gurry kid: A large wooden pound that held the gurry.

  Hagdown: Shearwater, a large bird frequently sighted at sea.

  Lady Day: The fifteenth of August, the Feast of the Assumption. In some regions, the catch of cod brought in at the end of the summer was called the lady day fish.

  Liver butt: A container used to render cod liver oil.

  Micmac: This is the old-fashioned term for the indigenous people of Eastern Canada and the United States. It is derived from the term kin-friends. I use it here rather than the more current Mi’kmaq because it would have been used in the early 1900s.

  Mizzling: This term is believed to have been coined by the naturalist Henry David Thoreau to describe the combination of thick mist and drizzle, a combination not unknown on the Banks. Its usage became common in New England and may have been picked up by Newfoundland fishermen who fished with Banks fishermen out of Gloucester, Massachusetts.

  Mother Carey’s chicks: Storm petrels, small dark-coloured seabirds, usually seen only at night.

  Poultice: A soft moist mixture of meal, herbs, etc. spread on cloth and then applied to the body to bring about healing.

  Pound: Types of enclosures used for the temporary holding of fish for or during fish processing.

  Premises: Waterfront property, especially stores, wharves, and the flakes of merchants and fishermen.

  Quintal: A hundredweight (112 lbs.), used as a measure for dried salt cod.

  Rosary: Catholic prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

  Sails: The sails of a schooner included the mainsail, the largest, which weighed approximately 600 lbs.; the foresails – the balloon and jumbo – positioned ahead of the mainsail; and the staysail and foresail, positioned midships (in the centre of the ship) like the mainsail.

  Schooner: A large fishing vessel, from twenty tons to over 200 tons, associated with the Banks fishery, that travelled under sail.

  Snow squall: A short, intense snowfall featuring strong winds.

  Sou’wester: Waterproof fisherman’s hat, broad-rimmed with side flaps, tied under the chin.

  Squall: A sudden strong wind that disappears as quickly as it comes. Often it is a local storm.

  Stage: An onshore platform which held working tables and sheds, etc. where women and men throated, gutted, salted, and otherwise prepared fish for drying.

  Sunker: A submerged rock over which the sea breaks; they are sometimes difficult to see and therefore may be hazards to navigation.

  Thwart: A seat across a boat, especially one used by an oarsman.

  Tickle-ace: Black-legged kittiwake, a small but plentiful bird at Cape St. Mary’s.

  Tidal wave: The common name for the tsunami that hit the Burin Peninsula in 1929.

  Token: A death omen, an apparition. Newfoundlanders believed that seeing a token of a loved one foretold the loved one’s death within a year.

  Trap skiff: A large fishing boat with no deck, propelled by oar, sail or small engine. Trap skiffs were used in the shore fishery, especially to haul cod traps.

  Trawl: A buoyed line with baited hooks.

  Tsunami: The Japanese name for harbour wave. A subterranean earthquake, causing tidal action like that witnessed on Newfoundland’s South Coast on November 18, 1929.

  Turr: Common murre, hunted at sea. Also called the Baccalieu bird.

  Water pups: Blisters caused by contact with salt water. One of the many occupational hazards of fishing, they usually develop on the wrist.

  Western boat: A schooner-rigged fishing vessel between fifteen and thirty tons. Also called a Cape Boa
t. Western boats were usually away from port no more than a few days at a time.

  List of Ships in The Doryman

  Annie Anita: Built on the west coast of the island, a new schooner when she was lost, with her crew of seven, in the August Gale of 1935. Captained by Paddy Walsh of Little Bay.

  Annie Healey: Nicknamed Big Annie, she was lost in the August Gale of 1927 just outside her home port of Fox Harbour. She had a crew of seven men.

  Annie Jane: A western boat from Isle aux Morts on the island’s Southwest Coast. She was lost in the 1927 August Gale and her crew of four died.

  SS Argyle: A coastal boat. She did relief work on the Burin Peninsula after the 1929 tsunami. The Newfoundland Government also sent her to the Virgin Rocks to investigate reports of wrecks there after the August Gale of 1935.

  Beatrice Beck: Samuel Frank of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia was swept overboard from this vessel during the August Gale of 1935.

  Bella Blanche: Owned by the Brown family of Placentia Bay, she was damaged in Renews during the 1935 August Gale.

  Bluenose: Famous Nova Scotia schooner constructed with steamed timber.

  Bridget: Captain Paddy Manning’s (the author’s great grandfather’s) schooner. The name of the actual vessel is lost to time, and Bridget being the name of the Captain’s wife, it seemed a logical choice.

  Cape Race: Fictional schooner trying to make port (Trepassey) during the August Gale of 1927.

  Carrie Evelyn: A forty-ton schooner, captained by Fred Mansfield, that ran aground during the 1935 August Gale; her crew of four were lost.

  SS Daisy: A revenue cutter. She did relief work on the Burin Peninsula after the 1929 tsunami.

  Delight: The first recorded shipwreck off North America, at Sable Island, Nova Scotia in 1583.