The residents of Harbour Breton, a small fishing village in Newfoundland, claimed that it rained for forty days and nights. For forty days and nights, a prevailing southwest wind off the Grand Banks brought persistent rain, drizzle, fog, and sometimes torrential downpours. Root crops rotted in the ground, paint peeled off houses and fences, brooks and rivers overflowed their banks, and ponds and lakes swelled to bursting. In the early morning of August 1, 1973, the earth could take no more...

The banking schooner Marion set sail from St. Jacques, Newfoundland, bound for St. Pierre, the home base of Captain Pierre Maurice, on June 10, 1915. The vessel and crew were never seen again. Many have speculated that the French captain had made good on his threat to end the life of Captain Ike Jones, but it was never proven. The Loss of the Marion tells the story from the point of view of Nellie Myles, whose husband and brother-in-law were lost with fifteen other men. It recreates the ev...

Among the bays, inlets, and communities of the province, author Gary Collins has earned a seat at the head of the table as Newfoundland and Labrador's favourite storyteller. Now, with six books under his belt, the “Story Man” from Hare Bay is ready to tell you a little bit about himself. The tales that make up this volume are pockets of memories taken from diary entries he recorded during the forty years he spent as a woodsman. Beginning with his childhood, Gary Collins retraces his first ...

“Because of the scarcity of cod in Conception Bay in the early 1920s, my father decided to go to the Labrador coast and try his luck as hundreds of others were doing. He went as a skipper with his own fishing crew. Mother used to go along to save the expense of a cook so, at an early age I was taken along with the family. By the time I was married, I had spent sixteen summers on the coast. Fifteen of those were spent at Batteau and the other one at Five Islands, a distance of five or six m...

Inspired by True Events “Men who weren’t hard workers didn’t last long at the lumber woods.” Most people in Newfoundland and Labrador have someone in their family who has worked “in the woods.” Some of these workers were employed seasonally—they fished in the summer and headed to the lumber camps in the winter—while others were full-time loggers who worked year-round. Stan White runs Camp 13 on the southwestern side of Gander Lake, which is a commercial operation cutting pulpwood for Bowat...

In the early 1900s, Charles Noble Lewis and his family were prominent members of St. John’s high society. A chief engineer who worked for Bowring Brothers, Charles fraternized with many of the key players who shaped Newfoundland and Labrador history as we know it today. The living room of the Lewis house served as a meeting place for many of the principals of the Newfoundland sealing industry, including William Coaker, Captain Abram Kean and his sons, Joseph and Westbury Kean, John Munn, a...

On the night of November 29, 1929, eleven schooners set sail for home from the comfort and safety of St. John’s harbour. They all headed north: directly into the teeth of a deadly hurricane. Here for the first time are the stories of the eleven schooners that were caught in the gale of 1929. Newfoundland’s favourite storyteller, Gary Collins, takes us aboard each one in turn to witness the terrifying ferocity of a storm at sea through the eyes of the schoonermen who battled it. These inter...

The Badger Redemption is the third and final instalment in J. A. Ricketts’s masterpiece series that focuses on the far-reaching consequences of a small town’s actions. As with some endings, this book also serves as the beginning of something new: a legend. Bill Hatcher’s confession has set off a chain of events that has forced the residents of Badger, Newfoundland, to re-evaluate their own lives, and to question their place in this world . . . and the next. Constable William Moss is long d...

Warning: Graphic Content and Mature Subject Matter Rosie O’Dell is a creature of beauty, brilliance . . . and unspeakable secrets. When she was young, terrible crimes had been committed against her. Tom Sharpe became Rosie O’Dell’s high school sweetheart, and in revenge for the transgressions against her, the two young lovers committed their own crime of passion together, which ultimately ripped them apart. Thirty years have now passed since Tom has seen his Rosie O’Dell, and the interveni...

An adventure story from award-winning author Gary Collins: Newfoundland’s Favourite Storyteller! “There is a feeling that comes to one who goes unafraid into the wilderness. For the very few who experience it comes a sense of belonging; of being a fragile part of the mysterious whole; of profound peace; of wanting never to leave,” says Gary Collins in describing the inspiration that overtook him when he penned the final pages in this, the biography of Mattie Mitchell, a hunter, trapper, an...

Not Too Long Ago is back by popular demand in this newly revised and expanded edition! In this volume, today's senior citizens talk about some of the more exciting and memorable moments of their lives growing up in Newfoundland and Labrador. Read these richly detailed biographies, and meet: Charlie Bown — Bell Island Miner Arthur Clarke — Ambulance Driver Howard Elliott — Big Game Outfitter Margaret Giovannini — Outport Nurse Gordon Lannon — Train Conductor Howard Lethbridge — Trapper Jack...

Inspired by True Events In 1934, North America lay stripped of its riches by a great depression. When the land refused to yield its bounty and the sea grew stingy, everyone in the Western World found it harder to survive, especially those in the isolated outports of Newfoundland. The Last Farewell tells the true story of a crew of logger-sailors who left their home port of Hare Bay aboard a two-masted schooner in early June of that year. Along her route to St. John’s, the crew of the Ethel...