Left to Die

by Gary Collins

  Others among them hoped to get aboard the ships by fraudulent means. They used the names of others who had obtained berths but for various reasons were not now going. This practice was so common, the merchants required the sealers to sign this statement:

  If any man should sign a false name and shall proceed in the said vessel personating or representing himself to be another, it shall be the option of the Master or suppliers to withhold from him any share of the voyage.

  In reality, the merchants were not all that concerned with the accuracy of the names in their ledgers but would take full advantage of the situation to get work done or obtain seal pelts without paying for them.

  There were others, hopefuls, who made their way into the city on pure speculation. If men failed to show up in time to sail on a vessel, these others would stand by and gladly take their places. So coveted were these seal hunting berths that every spring there were stowaways found aboard ships long after they had cleared the harbour. Those men, underage and seasoned sealers alike, were considered either good luck or jinxes, depending on the success of the vessels the stowaways had been discovered on that spring. No matter the success of the ship, the stowaway could be made to work aboard ship or hunt on the ice with no expectation of payment. A lot depended on the master’s whim. Yet it was so rare to find no stowaways that it was considered by many of the sealers to be a bad omen if one was not found.

  Having secured their berths, the sealers next had to obtain their crop. This was the term used for the hunter’s necessary gear used in the hunt. It consisted of a wooden gaff, used or new, to aid in jumping the pans but primarily to club seals. The gaff had a wooden handle several feet in length and was equipped on the business end with a steel point as well as a steel hook. Other essentials were tow ropes for hauling seals by hand, a skinning knife with a curved blade in a leather sheath, and a steel to keep the knife sharp. Some of the more seasoned sealers brought their own gaffs all the way from home and would use no other, especially the “S’n John’s–made” ones. They had made the gaffs to suit themselves with the right balance and heft. The crop could be purchased with ready cash but was almost always kept in strict account to be applied against the sealer’s share, to be counted after the vessel returned to harbour.

  The shipowners and chandlers who provided these necessities also had other items to tempt the hunters. There were fancy knives encased in tooled leather cases, sealskin boots hand-crafted by Labrador women, woollen hats, stockings, and mittens with fancy designs on them knitted by women of Newfoundland for pennies and sold for dollars. Long greatcoats were available for purchase, as well as eyeglasses and goggles to protect the hunter’s eyes from the burning pain of snow blindness; thick, rich bars of chocolate and boxes of candies guaranteed to give instant energy to a tired sealer; tins or bags of tobacco to be smoked or chewed; and pipes short-stemmed or long. One merchant sold used pipes with an advertisement scrawled above them in longhand: “Hardly fire-hardened and no teeth marks.” But aside from the cheapest tobacco available, few of the sealers could afford to buy any of it.

  In their haste to make their ship’s sail date, most of the ice hunters had arrived in the city a day or two before. So accommodations had to be found. Some of them had friends or relatives in St. John’s and made arrangement to board with them. Others knew no one in town and had to rely on other places of lodging. They could stay on their respective ships if it was convenient to do so, but they were required to work at preparing for the hunt while aboard—without pay. Or, if they wanted to, they could sleep on the floor of the shipowner’s warehouses. But even then, if they ate a few meals from the ship’s galley without working aboard, the cost was not considered to be part of the voyage and would be added to their crop.

  By day they walked around the city in groups, usually with men from their own towns or areas. They peered into shopfront windows and sometimes walked inside to look longingly over the counters at articles for sale. The smartly dressed shopkeepers, who looked at them with much anticipation when they came in, then with disdain when they walked out empty-handed, would never know the pain of men who could not afford to buy even one small toy for a waiting child.

  At night these would-be sealers slept peacefully, covered in warm blankets on feathered mattresses in the homes of friends, on the floors of cold warehouses, on relatively warmer brin-wrapped bales of cordage, or below the decks of stinking, well-worn ships. But for some of them, their first time seeing the city lights was too much to resist. For the most part the swilers were a hardened breed of men who kept to themselves. When not in groups they were usually called baymen. They bore the taunts from the townies in good fun, but they were not to be tampered with, as many of the city boys had learned.

  One cold night, a group of sealers who were waiting for their ship to leave for the ice found themselves seated at the bar in a dingy grog shop just up from the docks. Between them they found enough money for a few belts of rum. The bartender, who was also the owner of the establishment, was a big man with a beer belly and was known for his dislike of baymen.

  The sealers placed the glass to their lips and tipped back the rum, feeling it sting their throats on the way down. But after a grimace and a quick spinal shiver accompanied with a smacking of lips, they ordered another round. This one came from a different bottle the barkeep poured from beneath the bar, but the sealers appeared not to notice. The night continued and the sealers talked louder. One of the sealers was a big man who had a speech problem. He was amiable enough, a hard-working fisherman who was known around the Greenspond area for his great strength. He talked slowly and, with his outport tongue combined with an Irish and Welsh brogue, was a bit difficult for the bartender to understand.

  The big sealer walked to the bar and asked for one more round, this time from the real bottle. The bartender’s face turned red.

  “What did you say?” he roared, both of his hands under his bulging belly, which leaned half out over the bar.

  “I s’id to you, sir, to pour me an’ the b’ys ’ere a tum’ler of good black rum and no more of dat townie lassy water what’s under the bar!” the sealer said.

  “By God,” yelled the indignant bartender. “I didn’t understand half of what you said. You bloody baymen all sound dumb to me. No man accuses me of selling watered-down rum, calls me a townie, and gets away with it. I’ve a good mind to punch you in the mouth.”

  “Well, now, seein’ ’s ’ow both of we is of the same mind, in a manner of speakin’, tell you what I’ll do fer ’e. I’ll stan’ ’ere an’ allow ’e to make the first smack.”

  “Why, you’re even dumber than you look!” cried the barman.

  With that, he threw a long-handed punch over the bar at the big sealer’s head. The blow connected with the man’s left cheek, and, true to his word, he didn’t move. It drove some spittle out of the right side of his mouth and shook his head a bit, but little else. The bartender stared in disbelief that the man was still on his feet.

  “Can’t ’it no ’arder’n dat, can ’e?” asked the sealer. “Well, dat be as it may, now ’tis my turn!”

  The bartender turned to run, but he was too slow. He had mistakenly thought the big sealer’s slowness of speech was also an indicator of his wits as well as his hands. The sealer reached across the bar and grabbed the man by the throat with his right hand, twisting and pulling him halfway across the bar with a single fluid motion.

  “Dis is fer callin’ me dumb!” the sealer said, his right hand twisting tighter. His left hand, balled into a huge fist, came up and the bartender’s eyes rolled in fear of what was to come.

  “An’ dis is fer sellin’ we fellers pissy rum!”

  And with that, the big swiler’s knuckles collided with the bartender’s mouth, tearing out one of the man’s bottom teeth that was rotten and two on the top that were not. The sealer released his hold on the unconscious man, who slid behind
the bar, knocking over bottles as he fell. The man from Greenspond picked up one of the upended bottles and poured its contents over the bartender’s ashen face. He was right. It did indeed look like pissy molasses water.

  * * * * *

  All through the lengthening days, preparations to ready the ships for the seal hunt continued. The sound of men and equipment resounded around the old seaport. Windlasses gave off rusted flakes of misuse as valves were opened. Winches squealed and groaned as they wound steel cables in their grip. Derricks creaked as they swung their loads in over the steel and wooden gunnels of ships. Sometimes, daring young men took a ride aboard with them. Whistles blew and valves hissed. Items were hoisted aboard the ships while others were hoisted out of them. Everything that wasn’t necessary for the running of the ships was removed to create space for what the skippers hoped would be a bumper year at the hunt.

  The Newfoundland was stripped above and below decks of all but her bare essentials before Wes Kean ordered provisions aboard for 203 men: forty-five barrels of Royal Household and thirty barrels of Golden Glow flour, along with 2,040 pounds of butter for the bread; 344 pounds of crew tea as well as eighty pounds of cabin tea; 363 gallons of sugar molasses; two barrels of sugar; 1,568 pounds of Rangoon Beans; 150 pounds of onions; and thirty pounds of sago. Men lugged other items on their backs up over the gangway and directly into the officer’s quarters: four dozen pickles; one dozen marmalade; one case of salmon; one pail of jam; one pound of custard; eight dozen skinned rabbits; one dozen large pineapples; and fifteen pounds of coffee. And for one of the officers who liked spices, which likely included Captain Kean: one pound of assorted spices; one dozen bottles of Worcestershire sauce; three pounds of white pepper; and six bottles of curry powder.

  With the aid of the winches, twenty-five quintals of codfish made their way into the Newfoundland’s larders, along with thirty-two barrels of salt pork, ten barrels of heavily salted beef, thirty-two barrels of potatoes, and fifteen barrels of turnip. Bales of cordage and kegs of gunpowder made their way aboard as well, to be used to free the ship should it become jammed in the ice. Men hoisted aboard lumber to build partitions to hold seal pelts, and kegs of nails to fasten them. Black coal disappeared into the ship’s bunkers by the tons. Fresh water for the boilers and for drinking was carried aboard. Men yelled and laughed and cursed. Dogs ran around, barking at all the excitement. Sometimes in the evening, smartly dressed ladies walked by and smiled up at the seafarers, who were only too glad to return their admiration.

  And outside the bustling harbour filled with seal killers, the Great White Plain was bearing steadily southward.

  * * * * *

  By the late evening of March 9, 1914, the SS Newfoundland was just about ready for the hunt. The old ship would make to sea at midnight. She was one of the oldest ships of the fleet and one of the last wooden vessels to take part in the hunt. Other ships of wooden construction were also preparing for the annual seal hunt, but the old Newfoundland outstripped them all. Because she was made of wood and couldn’t batter her way through the ice, she, along with the other wooden walls, were allowed to leave port a day ahead of the steel ships. It was her only advantage. The ship had been outfitted for her forty-second year at sea and looked her age.

  It was said that every grey roller of the North Atlantic had met the hull of the old Newfoundland. Her high prow, once rising proudly above her decks, stood 212.5 feet forward of her stern and gave the vessel a settled look. The weight of years at sea had burdened her after part so that her stern dragged low in the water.

  She was a screw-driven ship, built by naval engineer Peter Baldwin for the Newfoundland Sealing Company Ltd., constructed out of Canadian hardwoods and pitch pine in the city of Quebec, Canada. Designed for a life at the seal hunt, her keel first slid into the fresh water of the St. Lawrence River in 1872. She had both an upper and a lower deck with a beam of 29.5 feet. With both a main as well as a foremast, she was classed as a brigantine: while under sail, she could carry canvas both square-rigged and schooner, or fore and aft rigged, at the same time. The new ship was also equipped with a modern, 130-horsepower, coal-fired steam engine. A single smokestack rose out of her boiler room amidships. She was registered to carry a legal weight of 567.83 net tons and at the time of her launching was owned by John Anderson. By 1893 the Newfoundland had a new owner, Captain Farquhar, with a Nova Scotia registry and continued to sail to the seal hunt. Farquhar became involved in the Spanish-American war in 1898 and he used the Newfoundland as a blockade runner to smuggle goods to Cuba. The ship was captured with her full crew, and with war contraband aboard, she was held by the Americans at Charleston, North Carolina, for six long months.

  By 1914 she had long been owned by Harvey and Company of St. John’s. A lifetime at sea, forty-two springs of punching her way through fields of ice, had taken its toll. She had been repaired many times above and below deck. Her forward hull had been strengthened from her forefoot to just above her plimsoll line. Greenheart timbers and even straps of iron had been bolted to her timbers, all designed to keep her viable for the annual seal hunt.

  Over the past four decades, in the off-seasons, the ship had brought in and carried out of St. John’s her share of cargoes, but those who sailed in her always said the smell from forty years of freighting greasy seal pelts would stay with her until she died. It had seeped into the grain of her wood so that no amount of cleaning could remove it. Deep in the crevices of her lowest bilge, where films of seal fat had disappeared into every crack, even years of sea water could not rinse away the smell of seal blubber.

  Maybe the sealers who had walked her decks were right about her smell, for on August 3, 1916, when the old sealing vessel struck a reef and sank off St. Mary’s Bay, the calm streak that came up from her watery grave for days looked like blubber stains that had finally been released from her timbers.

  7

  Harp seals are gregarious animals that live in vast herds of millions all over the North Atlantic Ocean. They range as far north as the White Sea, that huge fjord of the Barents Sea. They also breed along the coast of Greenland. But it is the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador where their numbers are the greatest.

  They can grow to a length of six feet or more and weigh as much as 400 pounds. Their courting begins on land, their mating takes place in water, and they give birth to their young on the ice. They are semi-aquatic and are capable of diving to ocean depths of 1,000 feet and staying under water up to twenty minutes without breathing.

  The Groenlandica name for them is phoca. The Inuit call the baby harp seals kotik. The Europeans called them harp seals due to the pattern on their backs that sometimes resembles a harp. The Newfoundlanders call them many names, depending on their state or age. One of the sealers’ names for the adult harp seal is saddleback. Their dense fur is very attractive to humans. When cured properly it makes the finest clothing, as well as boots and tooled wallets and personalized pocketbooks.

  The animals are protected from their harsh environment by three inches or more of fat. The boiling process of the fat gives off a stench so bad it sticks to a man’s throat, but the rendered oil burns clear and is odourless. It provides the finest lubricating oil for delicate machinery and was used extensively in the textile industry in England. British women washed their skin with fine soaps made from the oil of seals and they splashed on their faces scented perfumes rendered from seal fat. So soft and pure was the oil of the harp seal, it was even used to soothe the pain of diaper rash on the bottoms of European babies.

  But the prize of the hunt was the white skins of baby seals. Born a whitish yellow in the early days of March, in as little as three days their hides turn a soft white, hence the name whitecoat. From their mothers’ teats they suck milk that increases their weight by as much as five pounds a day, and by mid-March they have all moulted to the same wonderful colour. But in just two weeks they begin to moult again to a colour that holds
less value to humans. Newfoundlanders call the seals at this time of their life “ragged jackets.” Now their fat is the only thing of any value; their fur is worthless.

  The timing of the hunt was everything. To maximize the merchants’ yield, the sealers had to be on the ice when the hides of the young seals were white. The white fur of the seals at birth, their most vulnerable stage of life, had adapted over time to protect them from natural predators. Polar bears followed them to the fields of ice and killed them regularly; sharks swam in the open leads looking for the unwary ones; farther north, wolves, wolverines, and lynx were seen hunting them when the ice came to shore. Sometimes the ice-coloured pelts would spare the young seals, but in 1914 their snowy hides would do nothing to hide them from the greatest predator of all: man.

  * * * * *

  Two of the sealers were having second thoughts about boarding the Newfoundland on the evening of March 9. One of them was Peter Lamb. Peter was from the isolated outport of Red Island, a small island of fisher people situated on the outer edge of the eastern channel of Placentia Bay. He had crossed Placentia Bay in rowboat with his friend John Lundrigan on March 2. The inner reaches of the bay were frozen over, so the two men walked across the arm and then ashore, on to the town of Whitbourne, where they stayed the night with friends. By the early morning of March 5, they were traipsing down the streets of St. John’s. Here John said goodbye to his friend and boarded the sealing vessel Southern Cross, which had been making ready to take part in the hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Vessels taking part in “the Gulf hunt” to the west were allowed to leave port five days earlier than those hunting at “the Front,” or east side of the island of Newfoundland.