Perished

Perished, The 1914 Newfoundland And Sealing Disaster

Jenny Higgins

Boulder Publications

The tragedy and bravery of the SS Newfoundland

“Now it was after sunset . . . Everyone as far as I could learn was waiting their end.”

-- Sealer George Tuff, Newfoundland survivor

On March 31, 1914, 132 men from the SS Newfoundland jumped onto the North Atlantic ice floes to hunt seals. Only 55 made it back alive. Lost in a sudden blizzard, the sealers wandered for two days and nights before rescue arrived, victims of the weather, miscommunication, and their employer’s negligence.

The 1914 Newfoundland sealing disaster had a deep and lasting effect on the colony. One hundred years later, the story still resonates.

Perished traces the days before, during, and after the tragedy, revisiting the horrors of those days and nights on the ice and examining its long-term ramificationos. It is also one-of-a-kind backgrounder on the seal hunt, exploring the roots of the industry, the conditions on board the sealing vessels, the cutthroat competitiveness of sealing captains and merchant firms, and the determination of sealers, who risked their lives every spring as they set out for the ice.

Also inside:

. Politician and Fishermen’s Protective Union founder William Coaker’s eyewitness account of the

1914 hunt

. Dozens of archival photographs and documents

. Pullout facsimile documents, including maps, logbook entries, telegrams, and a sealer’s

ticket for the SS Newfoundland