National Network for Equitable Library Service

Children in their formative years often learned secrets and gained an understanding of a wider world through the hole in the ceiling. Now as adults, they share for the first time their cherished memories of overheard conversations that have shaped their lives—stories of humour, heartache, and joy—from friends, relatives, and visitors to their childhood homes.

Ever since their early twentieth-century “Golden Age,” postcards on both sides of the Atlantic have recorded popular culture. Through humour, views of urban and rural places, photographs of individuals, fantasy, advertising, and succinct messages, they have documented art and entertainment, social events, commercial practices, reform movements, political propaganda, and countless byways of society.

The fishermen who ply their trade on the Atlantic Ocean can tell thousands of tales of daring rescue and tragic loss of life. In The Trawlermen, Clarence Vautier explores the lives of some of Atlantic Canada’s best-known sea captains. He traces the history of these men and their stalwart vessels while highlighting their more heroic—and dangerous—exploits on the high seas.

“Some day the sun will shine and have not will be no more.” These are the immortal words of Brian Peckford, who served as the third premier of Newfoundland, and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party from 1979 until his retirement in 1989. As one of Newfoundland’s most committed and combative leaders, Mr. Peckford’s clashes with the federal government—to wrest control of the province’s natural resources—resulted in the groundbreaking Atlantic Accord of 1985, his greatest political triumph during the province’s struggle for self-reliance in a post-Confederation era.

“It was the wild west, as all fished in a totally unregulated way in a free-for-all.” For centuries, fishermen the world over have been prosecuting the waters teeming with cod from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Labrador. The growing demand for fish in world markets, the inexorable march of technology, and the failure of international governments to limit the harvest from the sea have each played a part in turning this industry into a thin shadow of its once great majesty.

This book relates to the two principal themes of the Cupids 400 Celebrations — the settlement of Cupids in 1610 and the origins of English settlement in Newfoundland and Canada. John Guy was an influential merchant and civic figure in Bristol and West of England history and an important figure in the early history of settlement in Newfoundland through his association with the London and Bristol Company and the colonization of Cupers Cove (Cupids). This book is the biography of one of the province’s and country’s most significant historical figures.

The Portuguese White Fleet, whose name derived from its vessels’ white hulls, is an important part of Newfoundland and Labrador history. Gaspar Corte-Real’s followers had been fishing off the Grand Banks for more than 400 years, but it was not until the 1900s that Portuguese fishermen began persecuting the North American cod fishery in force. When these ships made calls to St. John’s, the sailors and fishermen became a prominent part of the city’s way of life.

From bestselling author Clarence Vautier comes more stories of unsung heroes: the fishermen who made a living off the sea in Atlantic Canada. These stories are the biographies, family histories, and photograph collections of twenty-two highliners. During the twentieth century, these were the elite fishermen who consistently sailed home with the largest catches taken from the waters off Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick.

Fishing is the most dangerous occupation in the world: in Atlantic Canada, an average of one person dies every month while working at sea. The Deadly Sea by bestselling author Jim Wellman contains twenty-five stories about men and women who work in the Atlantic Canadian fishing industry, ranging from biographies of professionals to tales of tragedy at sea. In Atlantic Canada, the sea has given generously of its riches. Tens of thousands of men and women make a living from its resources.

Like other children of the 1930s, I read about the adventures of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who worked among fishermen in a very cold, icy place way up north called Newfoundland and Labrador . . . It was many years later, during my student-nursing days at Columbia-Presbyterian, that I really learned what the Grenfell Mission was all about. I was intrigued at the thought of, someday, using my nursing skills there. After graduating in 1951, I remained at the medical centre for another year of nursing experience.