Ghost of a flea

"I Just Didn't Want to Die": The 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster (1991)

"In March, 1914, 132 Newfoundland sealers were stranded on the ice to endure howling winds and freezing snow. When rescue arrived three days later, 78 men were dead and nine missing."

The Newfoundland Disaster: George Humbey.

Come all ye sons of Newfoundland
And shed a tear or two,
While I relate the hardships great
Befell this steamship’s crew;
Upon the thirty-first of March,
That sad and fatal night,
The Newfoundland’s bold hardy crew
Got lost upon the ice. ...

The Sealers of Newfoundland: While aboard the Terra Nova in March 1922, George Allen England wrote the following as an ode to the sealers.

Ho! We be the Sealers of Newfoundland!
We clear from a snowy shore,
Out into the gale with our steam and sail,
Where tempest and tumult roar.
We battle the floe as we northward go,
North, from a frozen strand!
Through lead, through bay, we fight our way,
We Sealers of Newfoundland!

Yea, we be the Sealers of Newfoundland!
We laugh at the blinding dark;
We mock the wind as we fling behind
The wilderness hoar and stark.
We jest at the death, at the icy breath
Of the Pole, by the north lights spanned.
In a wild death dance we dice with chance,
We Sealers of Newfoundland! ...

Posted by Ghost of a flea at July 27, 2012 08:58 AM