Left to Die

by Gary Collins

  One of my favourite means of obtaining information before writing a story is interviewing people directly involved, or talking to those who have had the story told to them. I am not one of those who dismisses out of hand the oral, anecdotal history passed to us by generations of storytellers. Terse documented recordings often miss the human compassion relayed by the spoken word. No matter how many times the story is retold, the basic truth remains. One has only to listen.

  The story of one of the surviving sealers was told to me by his son. Jake Dalton of Catalina is the son of Jacob Dalton, whose story has been mentioned in our tale. Rose and I sat in Jake’s kitchen for hours and listened while he told us the story passed down to him from his father. Jake was very honest, direct, and sometimes emotional. From him I learned his father was easygoing and slow to anger, a powerful man with big hands. He was seldom cold and, when abroad on a winter’s day, kept flising. I learned his father was not a religious man, but he sang hymns during those bitter nights on the ice. He told his family that if he could have found young Offie he would have saved him. Jacob did marry young Theophilus Chalk’s pretty sister, Delilah. He went back to the ice for twelve more years, and until his last days he blamed “old man Kean” for the disaster. Thanks so much, Jake.

  I read forty-eight sworn statements recorded at the magisterial inquiry that was held after the disaster. They were all the fourteen-inch page lengths of the day. Some of them were as short as two pages and many were as long as twenty-five. I found many typos as well as different spellings of names (e.g. Dowding spelled as Downing, Joshua spelled as Josiah). Some of the sealers from the communities around Newtown were listed as being from Newtown and many from Little Catalina were recorded as being from Catalina. A few compass bearings were wrong. I spent many hours trying to get it all right. It wasn’t easy to do. If there are errors—and there are bound to be—I take full responsibility.

  Geography is very important to me. I always have to know my bearings, my position on the map. When I read a book there will usually be a dictionary hard by me, and always an atlas. I have taken the exact coordinates of the ship from a copy of Charles W. Green’s logbook, which I have in my possession. I wanted the reader to know exactly where this disaster took place in relation to our coast. During the months of writing the first draft of the manuscript, I asked dozens of people where they thought the event happened. Most people thought it was in Labrador. Others thought it was somewhere around the Grey Islands or off the northern tip of the Great Northern Peninsula. While I am able to follow basic compass bearings and can get my bearings from the heavens day or night, finding my direction by latitude and longitude is beyond my talents. I was aided in this venture by my nephew Tom Collins.

  Tom is not only a navigational officer who has sailed the world over but is currently chief officer on an ocean-going ship. He came to my home with a huge chart in hand. I quickly learned it is sacrilegious for seamen to call maps of the sea “maps.” They are charts! Maps are for landlubbers. With compass, dividers, slide rule, and protractor in hand, Tom made quick work of the coordinates that I had given him. It was like magic to me. Now I knew exactly where the tragic events took place. The ordeal for the swilers began on the north end of Bonavista Bay and ended outside of Baccalieu Island, on the north side of Conception Bay. I found it amazing that seventy-five per cent of the sealers died abeam of their own snug homes by the water. Those who waited at home had no idea their loved ones were dying not far across the mysterious sea. When Tom had finished his detailed work with carefully plotted lines and notes, my son, Clint, photographed it. Thanks to both of them for putting my story on the chart.

  Reading the sworn statements of the sealers and officers at the inquiry was fascinating. Abram Kean’s was the longest, stern and at times condescending:

  So far as risk is concerned there is no man that goes to the seal fishery can possibly avoid taking risks. It is a risky voyage from start to finish, and if any man makes up his mind that he is not going to take any risks, his only way is to stay at home.

  So states Abram Kean regarding the hunting of seals on the ice floes. When his judgment was questioned, he had this to say:

  I don’t think that because this bad accident has happened under very peculiar circumstances that we should allow our sympathy to get the better of our judgment and talk of things which at other times we would never think of. I do not think I did err in my judgment in not going to the Newfoundland and making certain that the crew was aboard on Tuesday night or afterwards.

  He also said about the crew of the Newfoundland:

  Now that I have looked back upon the past, and that everything is over I have concluded that there is only one action of mine would have saved them from that terrible catastrophe, and that is an action of total indifference towards the crew.

  Meaning that if he had not picked them up, they would have probably made it back to their own ship. Abram Kean was not afraid of stating his opinion publicly. He also gave credit where it was due:

  One man in particular, Collins from New Harbour, displayed some considerable courage in trying to preserve the lives of his fellow men: One man reported, that in his opinion twenty men would have died the first night if it had not been for Collins. One man said, “I am alive, Captain but I do not thank myself, I should have been dead long ago if it was not for Jesse Collins.” Tuff the second hand also in my opinion deserves great credit. I sincerely hope that a report should be made on this matter by the survivors and that we make in some substantial way, a recognition of the services rendered.

  During the many days of the inquiries, hundreds of people lined the streets of St. John’s where Abe Kean would have to walk in and out of the courts. They shouted taunts and accusations at Kean, but when the “ol’ man” stepped unafraid into the street, his back hunched against the verbal blows to come from the gauntlet he must walk, they often fell to muted rumblings. The few accusations shouted at him were silenced when the great man stopped and turned his icy stare upon the speaker. Abram Kean was under a lot of scrutiny from newspapers, sealers, and the public. The map he had drawn, which he provided to the inquiry to show the positions of the ships involved, as well as the crew of the Newfoundland on the ice, was deemed to have been contrived to vindicate himself. For the most part the sealers blamed him for the disaster.

  To quote Samuel Russell of Bonavista in his sworn statement:

  I blame Captain Abram Kean for the whole business of this transaction.

  In the eyes of the public, at least, Abe Kean’s broad shoulders carried the burden well. Some of the sealers blamed George Tuff. Thomas Dawson of Bay Roberts:

  In my opinion George Tuff was the responsible man for our crew, to look out for them. He was given charge of them. He should have informed Captain Kean that we had been five hours travelling to his ship and made arrangements with the captain to come pick us up after we had killed the seals; or not to have left the ship (Stephano) until the following morning.

  Lemuel Squires of Topsail:

  When I got overboard the Stephano, I was thunderstruck because I understood we were going to stay there the night. It was spitting snow about a half hour before we got to the Stephano. It was George Tuff’s duty to have seen that we stay aboard the Stephano for the night.

  George Tuff’s sworn statement:

  I never for one minute protested to Captain Abram Kean about my men leaving the Stephano. Not one of my master watches for one minute objected to me their leaving the Stephano; none of my master watches reported to me that any of our men did object to leaving the Stephano.

  The transcripts vary on the distance the men walked from the Newfoundland to the Stephano, but clearly Wes Kean had underestimated the distance between the two vessels; the sealers testified the Stephano was anywhere from five to seven miles away. However, the distance is probably less important than the time: no matter how far, they had walked for fo
ur and a half to five gruelling hours over some of the most formidable terrain on earth. When they reached the Stephano they were exhausted, thirsty, and hungry. The time they spent aboard her also bears noting. The testimonies vary from as short as ten minutes to no longer than twenty minutes.

  The “dinner” Abe Kean had reportedly ordered for them was bread and tea, hot or cold depending on where you stood in the lineup. It is doubtful that even today’s modern fast-food venues could serve 132 hungry men in less than twenty-five minutes. The sealers were asked at the inquiry if food was available for the taking when they were ordered to leave the Stephano, and their answers were the same: yes. This did not mean they could avail of the ship’s stores. It simply meant they could fill their pockets with cakes of hard bread. On a diet of starch, and lacking protein and suitable hydration and without rest or even dry clothes, the sealers were ordered back on the ice ill-prepared for the ordeal that awaited them.

  The manner in which the sealers of the Newfoundland disembarked from the Stephano after their short respite aboard that modern ship is also noteworthy. Far from the jubilation with which they had sprung over the sides of their own ship, now they were laggard and morose. The spirit was gone out of them. They had not felt welcome aboard the Stephano.

  Westbury Kean’s sworn statement:

  There is no special regulation or order that I know of requiring them to take food with them. They are expected to look out for themselves. I have heard a good many of the men who were lost did not have food enough to last them until they died. Many of them also carry a little can in which they put molasses and a liniment: The tins are for sale and careful men carry them. It would be extremely difficult to force the men to properly provide for themselves. They are often very careless.

  Wes Kean showed genuine remorse for the loss of so many of his men. Few of his sealers or the public at large placed any blame on him.

  Jesse Collins was also asked about their diet while aboard the SS Newfoundland. His sworn statement:

  We had extra bread served out to us once a week. I could not safely say if it was once but I think that was all it was. I can’t remember if we had any fresh meat of any kind. I can’t remember that we had any potatoes. I can’t remember if we had any fish and brewis for breakfast at any time. I don’t remember any fish and brewis. I don’t remember having any onions, potatoes, or turnips. I can’t remember any soup served to us.

  Jesse Collins never returned to the ice, though he was proud to tell his stories. They have been handed down through his extended family for 100 years. One of his granddaughters is my next-door neighbor. She is also my aunt, Pearl Collins. Aunt Pearl remembers one story in particular that her grandfather told her when she was a young girl. He had not been burned by the frost, he said, though he had a bladder on his knee, but that was “only a chill and not to be paid any mind. I wore warm wool drawers knit be your grandmother’s own nimble hands, and a thick flannel shirt—store-bought, it was. Warm, though.”

  He had his pockets stuffed with cakes of hard bread, he told Pearl. Collins also had a strong set of teeth, but many of the other sealers, especially the older ones, did not. The cakes of hard bread had to be broken into pieces against their knees, or, as was more often the case, against the ice, before it could be chewed. When some of the sealers’ hands became too “scrammed” with the cold to hold the bread with their fingers, Jesse broke it for them. And he did more than that. Collins chewed on the bread for them, crunching it between his own teeth before spitting it into the palm of his hand and handing it to them. And they took it willingly, he said. Pearl found this hard to believe and told her grandfather so.

  “Ah, ’twas a wunnerful bad time, my pretty dear,” he replied.

  Wesley Collins barely survived the ordeal. He had fallen into the icy water twice and both legs and some of his fingers became severely frostbitten. Unable to walk and suffering from hypothermia, he was carried aboard the Bellaventure. He hung between life and death in a St. John’s hospital for days, where doctors tried to save his limbs. To save his life, his right leg was amputated below the knee; surgeons also removed two fingers from his left hand. Eventually his leg was fitted with a cork prosthetic and, amazingly, Wes went back to sea. He was told the cork for his leg came from the hills of sunny Spain. Collins always boasted that his Spanish leg never, ever got cold.

  Many of the swilers carried physical scars of frostbite to their graves. Many more carried scars hidden more deeply which were seen by no one.

  All six sealers from Little Catalina who died were buried in a common grave in the Methodist Church Cemetery in that town. With rasping saw, ringing hammer, and willing hands, the people of Little Catalina had just finished building a church of their own. In the spring of 1914, the very first service held in the new church was the burial ceremony for the six sealers. The church was lacking its complement of pews and there was not enough seating room, so many of the mourners stood against the walls. There was no church bell, so a flag was raised in farewell. An organ was graciously provided for the event by a woman of the town and the funeral dirge was played. That summer, a white marble gravestone was erected over the ground where the bodies were laid. The single stone was a monument for them all. As in life, so in death: together. And it stands there still.

  The stories the sealers told while aboard the SS Newfoundland are true. The SS Harlaw is well-documented in Newfoundland history. The tale told about the trappers and the poison is one that was handed down orally. It was told to me by my friend John Lush of Gander. Thanks, John.

  The magisterial inquiry which dealt with the tragedy concluded by accusing Abram Kean, Westbury Kean, and George Tuff with negligence. No one was charged. It was said that George Tuff never had a nightmare after.

  During the research for this book, I soon discovered that the statements the sealers gave at the inquiry were different from the ones they quoted for years after. From the documents it is evident that few of them were asked directly if they blamed anyone. With the exception of those mentioned, most of them would not have blamed the ship captains publicly. My research revealed that most of the sealers feared persons of authority, especially skippers who could easily affect the sale of their fish if they so wanted. The hushed halls of justice were intimidating to men who were mostly illiterate. These men, who could face the dangers of a rolling sea of water or vast reaches of ice unafraid, were cowered by the authority all around them recording their every word. They were intimidated by the formality, the influence, and the power of it.

  But away from the lorded halls and while safe at home, they blamed the Keans for not doing something as simple as blowing the ships’ whistles. It would have saved them all, they reasoned. The first night on the ice, the assurance of the dawn bringing sure rescue kept them going. But when all three ships turned their sterns to them the next day, many of them just gave up. The most formidable foe for any man to conquer is despair. Some men have great depths of courage to draw from. Some do not. It is the way of things. We are all different.

  Maybe no one was to blame. The fact remains, though, 132 sealers were left on the ice, with a storm in the offing, and seventy-eight of them died.

  * * * * *

  Cecil Mouland never went to the ice again. He and his wife left Newfoundland to work in the United States and stayed there for years. They were lifelong professing Christians, and while in the states Cecil was an active supporter of evangelist Billy Graham. He worked at setting up the great tents used for the preacher’s venues before attending the meetings himself. Both he and his wife, Jessie, returned to Newfoundland to enjoy their retirement and to end their days where they had begun.

  After his wife died, Cecil spent his remaining years in a seniors’ home in St. John’s. There he would live quietly and cause trouble to no one until death found him in his bed on September 4, 1978, in his eighty-fourth year. As per the old gentleman’s request, his body wa
s laid beside his one true love, Jessie Collins, in a plot of ground overlooking the sea in Hare Bay.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the following people for their assistance while I wrote this book: Bronson Collins; Elizabeth Collins; Jesse “Jed” Collins III; Christopher Collins, Sr.; Marie (Pardy) White; Carl Howell; Keith Greening; John Lush; Clementine (Gill) Smith; Jacob Dalton; Wilbert R. Goodyear; Fred Keats; Katrina Pickett; and Steve Hounsell.

  Special thanks to my nephew, First Mate Tom Collins, for the navigational details.

  Also, special thanks to my son, Clint Collins, for illustrating this and all my other books.

  I wish to sincerely thank Flanker Press for entrusting this story to me.

  Bibliography

  Brown, Cassie. Death on the Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster Of 1914. Doubleday Canada, 1972.

  Bruneau, Stephen and Kevin Redmond. Iceberg Alley: A Journal of Nature’s Most Awesome Migration. Flanker Press, 2010.

  Burroughs, Polly. The Great Ice Ship Bear: Eighty-Nine Years in Polar Seas. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1970.

  Butler, Paul and Maura Hanrahan. Rogues and Heroes. Flanker Press, 2005.

  Chaulk Murray, Hilda. More Than 50%: Woman’s Life in a Newfoundland Outport, 1900-1950. Flanker Press, 2010.