The Last Farewell: The Loss of the Collette

By Gary Collins

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 Collett tell each other stories of life and death on the sea. They relive some of Newfoundland’s richest historical moments, from shipwrecks and sealing disasters to political strife and financial ruin. But little do they know that they are heading toward one of the most astonishing tales of them all: their own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flanker Press
• Release date: Feb 26, 2008
• ISBN: 9781771172523

Gary Collins

Gary Collins was born in Hare Bay, Bonavista North. He spent fifty years in the logging and sawmilling business with his father, Theophilus, and son, Clint. Gary was once Newfoundland’s youngest fisheries guardian. He managed log drives down spring rivers for years, spent seven seasons driving tractor-trailers over ice roads and the Beaufort Sea of Canada’s Western Arctic, and has been involved in the crab, lobster, and cod commercial fisheries. In 2016, he joined the Canadian Rangers. Gary has written fifteen books, including the children’s illustrated book What Colour is the Ocean?, which he co-wrote with his granddaughter, Maggie Rose Parsons. That book won an Atlantic Book Award: The Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration. His book Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman has been adapted for film. Gary’s first novel, The Last Beothuk, won the inaugural NL Reads literary competition, administered by the CBC, and was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. Gary Collins is Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite storyteller, and today he is known all over the province as the Story Man. He lives in Hare Bay with his wife, the former Rose Gill. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

Book preview

flanker press limited

st. john’s

2008

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Collins, Gary, 1949-

The last farewell : the loss of the Collett / Gary Collins.

ISBN 978-1-897317-24-2 (print), 978-1-77117-252-3 (epub), 978-1-77117-252-0 (kindle)

1. Ethel Collett (Schooner) 2. Shipwrecks--Newfoundland and

Labrador. I. Title.

G530.C65C65 2008 910.9163’448 C2008-900703-4

————————————————————————————————————

© 2008 by Gary Collins

All rights reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

Printed in Canada

Flanker Press

PO Box 2522, Station C

St. John’s, NL, Canada

Toll-Free: 1-866-739-4420

www.flankerpress.com

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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities; the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $24.3 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada; the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

Dedication

I dedicate this book and the memories contained within to the heirs and successors of the five crewmen of the Ethel Collett: Martin Ford; John Curtis; Marshall Wells; Walter Collins; and Michael Bridgeman, whose pleading eyes compelled me to tell his story.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

Crossing the Bar

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Photos

Glossary

Bibliography

About the Author

Also by Gary Collins

Introduction

For telling the story of the Ethel Collett and her crew I make no apology; it is written as it was told to me, boy and man, as I listened spellbound in my aunt Pearl’s always warm and ever-welcoming kitchen while my uncle Louie—my favourite storyteller of them all—spun his yarn.

I fully realize there is another story in need of telling, for like countless other ships that have sailed Newfoundland’s untold stretches of coastline, the Silver City and her crew have a story of their own. But that is for another time and a different page.

* * *

The Ethel Collett was built by Peter E. Young of Lunenburg, from native Nova Scotian oak, in the year 1892. She proudly displayed the name Pandora across her rakish bows and sweeping stern when she slipped down the greasy ways to the murky, work-stained harbour. The name had come from the mists of ancient Greek mythology. Zeus himself had created the very first mortal maiden, Pandora, and had sent her to Earth along with a box which she was supposed to guard and not open. Unable to resist, Pandora opened the lid for a peek, only to release untold evils upon the world. Luckily, she managed to slam the lid closed before Hope could escape.

The schooner’s next owner, in 1915, was another chandler and fish merchant. Ernest Collett hailed from Harbour Buffett, on the southeast side of Long Island in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. He commissioned the vessel’s refitting in Saint Pierre, one of the islands just off the south coast of Newfoundland; the cluster of islands was so close to the prolific cod-spawning Grand Banks, France had wisely refused to relinquish its hold on them for hundreds of years. It was considered unlucky to change the maiden name of a vessel, but Ernest wanted a name of his own and so gave the schooner the first name of his sister and the last name of his family.

Next she came into the possession of Samuel Collins, carrying the same name her previous owner had given her; Skipper Sam wouldn’t tempt the gods of luck. The Ethel Collett headed out the bay once again, a floating workhorse adrift on yet another voyage. Over the years, the jaunty little schooner grew accustomed to these waters. Skipper James Cooze dipped the vessel’s bows into the coastal trade all along the east coast of Newfoundland, as well as north to the shores of Labrador.

In 1933, only a year before Martin Ford and his crew sailed her, Skipper Sam’s own son, Martin Collins, captained the Collett. He took her north, to the near end of the island and beyond, carrying families to the promise of better fishing. The government had prompted this venture, which was known as the guarantee. It took entire households north to the fish, where their provisions would be supplied by the local merchants, who were guaranteed to be paid, fish or no fish.

Chapter 1

The year was 1934, and the black schooner came in under an early-June sun. The morning tide had gone from Lockers Bay, and the shallow, rocky cove outside the sawmill lay bare of water a full 200 feet from the mill’s jackladder. The sails luffed a bit when her captain weathered the two-masted schooner and she came into the wind. On his shouted order, the heavy maul slammed against the rusted steel wedge to release the main anchor, and the three-inch chain links rattled through the hawse pipe.

The sound startled a pair of black ducks into rapid flight from the muddy shallows of the cove. The 700-pound best bower settled on the bottom, a scant ten feet beneath the keel of the Ethel Collett. The slack mainsail, then the foresail, released from their halyards and shuffled onto the deck, and the schooner began to veer away from the land as the freshening day breeze caught her broadside.

Watch ’er, Curtis! Give the bower lots of scoop, yelled Captain Martin Ford, his voice carrying up the deck from his place at the helm. Make sure she’s settled before you chocks the chain. Furl the sails, Collins!

John Curtis, the ship’s mate, bunched his muscles and hefted the heavy maul as he waited for the schooner to swing about. His reddish hair, still showing no signs of greying, looked like fire in the morning sun. At 61 years, he was the oldest man aboard. He watched until the schooner lost her headway. She swung away from the land at an alarming rate, and the big chain straightened up from the black depths, each link glistening with new water, before he slammed the maul home on the stop wedge. His crewmate, Walter Collins, worked deftly with the worn manila lanyards and tied off the fluttering sea cloth of the downed sails to the booms.

As the Collett took the strain from the anchor, she slowed and levelled her bow toward the forested land. Her rounded stern fell in line with the stretching chain and settled like a dog on an iron leash. She dragged the bower a few feet, then came to heel obediently at the western end of Lockers Bay.

She’s hooked, Skipper, Curtis shouted from the starboard bow rail. She niver dragged but a foot or so, an’ she’s got good ’old now, seems like. We’re a long ways from the shore, though.

The captain nodded. Yes, we’re a ways from the land, a’right, but you an’ me an’ Collins will scun ashore now while the cook gets dinner ready fer us and the mill crew.

Strolling forward along the freshly painted deck of the vessel, Skipper Ford stopped at the white dormer of the forecastle doors. He peered down into the shadowed cabin and yelled, Me an’ the b’ys are goan ashore now. I’ll tell the b’ys in the mill yer cookin’ fer all ’ands fer dinner. ’Twill be a treat fer everyone, fer sure.

Good nuff, Skipper, the cook responded. Tell the b’ys there’s a bit of brewis, an’ there’ll be lots of pork fat an’ scruncheons an’ plenty of spuds—small ones, though—to go along wit’ the fish we caught this marning.

I’ll do that, Jack Sydney. In the meantime, now, keep an eye on the schooner. The wind kin pitch pretty bad out of this long valley sometimes.

Oh, she’ll be a’right. The tide will soon be back, an’ be dinnertime we will have the first load of lumber ’longside.

With that, Ford and his crewmen pulled their narrow punt, which had been towed astern, up to the waist of the schooner. They climbed down aboard and headed to shore. John Curtis pulled on the oars while Walter Collins steered with the long sculling oar protruding from the heart-shaped hole in the stern of the punt.

* * *

The entire mill site was a bustle of men working hard. They yelled over the din and dodged around saws and fast-turning belts. The saws spat sawdust beneath the floor, and a man with a wooden wheelbarrow stooped and ducked his head to avoid the screeching saws and whipping belts as he conveyed this steady supply to a pile on the shoreline. The ebb tide flushed it out the long bay with the rest of the cove issue.

The mill floor shook and thrummed to the tune of the many pulleys and slapping belts. The four-foot-diameter main saw shrieked its way through the heavy logs, dropping slabs and lumber from the big carriage moving to and fro. The sawyer and his tail sawyer worked like machines, their hands blackened with myrrh, continuously handling and moving the logs in a rhythm all their own.

The building that housed the sawmill stood about eight feet from the ground. Wooden shores supported the whole structure, and the basement stood open to view, exposing the workings of the mill itself. The wide leather belts that ran the different saws slapped over several round wooden pulleys beneath the floor. There, a steel lining shaft laden with pulleys that ran the breadth of the building distributed power to the various saws. This power came through a long, wide belt which ran from the huge pulley driven by the steam boiler.

This monstrosity, complete with a red-glowing, wood-eating firebox underneath, belched puffs of white steam from its position at the east end of the mill. When the saws ripped through the larger logs, or when the haul-up man needed to get an especially large load of timber up the jackladder, the steam came in great puffs. At times like these, the steam boiler lived up to its coming-around-the-mountain fame and drove six white horses of white vapour into the sky. More than eight feet in diameter and 12 feet long, this 1,000-pound steel cylinder was peppered with dozens of holes to allow the steam to escape. It had been brought to this site by one of Samuel Collins’s seven schooners. The crew had plugged the holes with wooden dowels on the deck and, at high tide, pushed the boiler over the side to float it to shore.

On the same floor, a tub saw cut short staves for the cooper’s trade. One man busied himself with the task of flinching roof shakes, and used the shorter ends of lumber for fence palings. Another man trimmed the ends into various lengths and marked the pieces with a heavy black crayon. They were all destined for the merchants of Conception Bay.

The man on the jackladder worked like a slave. He scurried down the slick, steep-angled ladder, which ended at a narrow