National Network for Equitable Library Service

“This is going to be a good day out in boat,” said Rex Saunders, a sixty-six-year-old sealer from St. Lunaire-Griquet, NL, before heading out to the icefields on May 4, 2009. Later that day, the cold and unforgiving waters of the Atlantic Ocean nearly claimed another victim after his boat capsized. He had phoned his wife mere moments before the mishap and told her to expect him home in an hour, but now the sealer found himself stranded and alone on an ice floe. There he spent the next two nights, miles from shore and armed only with a flotation suit, a five-gallon gas can, and his faith. Man on the Ice is the autobiography of Rex Saunders, a man of faith who grew up on the rugged shores of the Great Northern Peninsula. His battle with the elements made national headlines when this everyman-turned-hero stared death in the face while waiting for a miracle he knew would come.