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“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.

The Ryan's Commander capsized off Spillars Cove, near Bonavista, on September 19, 2004. In the tragic wreck, two brothers were lost: Dave and Joe “June” Ryan. A federal report concluded that vessel design was one of the factors causing the capsizing. The family of the Ryan brothers recently filed suit against the federal government and the makers of the vessel, arguing its design was unsafe and untrustworthy. This book is Johanna Ryan Guy's tribute, both to her brothers and to the family that still mourns their loss.

Along the eastern shores of North America, savage storms have thrust sturdy ships and small boats upon the cliffs and shores of the continent. From these events have come true stories of bravery by skippers and their sea dogs—the crews. Here are sixteen tales of salty heroism and tragedy by fourteen writers whose lives have been shaped by their experiences and knowledge of the North Atlantic Ocean.

When the crew of the fishing schooner Annie Healy left their home port of Fox Harbour, Placentia Bay, on Wednesday, August 17, 1927, no one could have imagined what fate held in store for them. Times were hard in Newfoundland that year. On shore, wives of the crew were often worked to exhaustion, even more so while their men were at sea. Most had lost parents, siblings, or children to tuberculosis. Each family had at least one tragic story.

This is a collection of true Newfoundland and Labrador stories about crime and punishment on land and sea. Included here are tales of murder, mutiny, and smuggling on the high seas, as well as riots, assaults, and frauds perpetrated in some of the strangest criminal cases this province has ever seen.

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.

In the snowy predawn of February 18, 1942, a convoy of three American ships zigzagged up the North Atlantic toward Newfoundland, heading for one of the worst disasters in naval history. The ships were under radio silence to protect their position from the threat of German U-boats. A storm was raging, visibility was zero, and the currents had turned wildly unpredictable. With only unreliable soundings to guide them across the jagged ocean floor, all three vessels ran aground on the sheer rock coast of Newfoundland.

Many people on Canada’s east coast, the maritime regions, have experienced the temperament of the North Atlantic Ocean: beautiful, moody, mysterious. The cold Atlantic has a capacity, with its tremendous force and power, to take human life seemingly at will; however, it has also spared lives and allowed miraculous escapes. Since the phenomenon of the 1997 hit movie Titanic, more people than ever have been captivated with Titanic trivia and still thirst, seemingly at an ever-increasing rate, for facts about the great ship operated by the renowned White Star Line.

The fishing industry in Atlantic Canada has gone through massive change in the last twenty years. Now, even small inshore vessels are outfitted with fishing equipment that would astound those mariners who passed on just a generation ago. But still, despite the incredible advances in technology, dozens of fishermen continue to die each year doing what they know best. Simply put, fishing is still one of the most dangerous professions in the world.