Smokeroom on the Kyle

DESCRIPTION: "Tall are the tales that fishermen tell when summer's work is done." They tell of fish, of men saved from freezing, a giant potato. Grampa Walcott tops them all with a tale of a year when the squid were hard to find -- until they came in in huge numbers
AUTHOR: Ted Russell (Source: Doyle-OldTimeSongsAndPoetryOfNewfoundland; Hanrahan)
EARLIEST DATE: 1966 (Doyle-OldTimeSongsAndPoetryOfNewfoundland, 4th edition)
KEYWORDS: talltale fishing moniker
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1967 - grounding of the SS Kyle
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Doyle-OldTimeSongsAndPoetryOfNewfoundland, "'Steamroom' on the Kyle" (1 text): pp. 81-82 in the 4th edition, pp. 60-61 in the 5th
ADDITIONAL: Maura Hanrahan, _The Alphabet Fleet_, Flanker Press Ltd., 2007, pp. 196-198 "The Smokeroom on the Kyle" (1 text)
Roud #7311
NOTES [1086 words]: This did not originate as a song, and one has to suspect that it owes its slight traditional vogue to its inclusion in the Doyle songbooks, but it is singularly fitting that this tale be set on the Kyle.
The Kyle was one of the "Alphabet Fleet" (for which see the notes to "The Wreck of the Steamship Ethie"), and was the longest-lasting of the bunch; she served a wider variety of duties than almost any ship in Newfoundland history, and became genuinely famous. Hanrahan, p. 5, says that "the SS Kyle became legendary on the [Newfoundland/Labrador] run" and was "the heroic ship that looms above even all these other great ships [of the Alphabet Fleet]."
"On her trials trip in May 1913, the Kyle did 12 knots. WIth a gross tonnage of 1,055, she was substantial for an Alphabet fleet boat and, unlike most of the other ships, she was built in Newcastle, England rather than Scotland. Destined for the Labrador run, ... [t]he Kyle was also an icebreaker, which was crucial in Newfoundland and Labrador waters" (Hanrahan, pp. 5-6). She was said to be both beautiful and luxurious (Hanrahan, pp. 58-59).
Bruce ,p. 21, says that the Kyle "was bigger and faster than the older [Alphabet Fleet] vessels. Her length was 220 feet, her gross tonnage 1,055, and her speed 13.5 knots. Her long, tough service on the Labrador shore would earn her a nickname: 'The Bulldog of the North'. She was among the first vessels the Reids [owners of the Alphabet Fleet] ordered with a modern bluff-bow." (The Kyle which initially served on the run to Sydney, Nova Scotia, was moved to the Labrador run in part to accommodate the heavy traffic on the Labrador run; the smaller Home that had been in that service earlier had been overloaded; Hanrahan, pp. 58-59, 100.)
Among other things, the Kyle was the first ship called upon to search when the Southern Cross vanished (see "The Southern Cross (I)") and was involved in other rescues as well (Hanrahan, pp. 72-77). When the Pollux and the Truxton went aground in Newfoundland in an ice storm, in 1942, the Kyle was responsible for saving most of the 186 who were rescued (Hanrahan, pp. 88-89; 203 men were lost in the wreck when no one could get to the stranded ships. Connors, p. 25, prints a formal U. S. Navy thanks from American admiral A. L. Bristol). She also transported troops during World War II.
O'Neill, p. 977, describes the end of the Alphabet Fleet. "By the 1970s the Kyle was the only one still around. She lay beached at Riverhead, Harbour Grace, where she was finally purchased by the provincial government for five thousand dollars. The Kyle was the vessel chartered by William Randolph Hearst to take part in a search of the Atlantic for the American plane Old Glory [lost in 1927 carrying tabloid editor Philip Payne] and she returned to St. John's with part of the wreckage. In this she was more successful than her search had been for the Southern Cross. In world War I (sic.) she saw service as an icebreaker in the employ of the Tzar (sic.) of Russia."
Although she was the pride of the fleet in 1913, half a century later, the papers were calling her "weather-beaten and wheezy-engined." In 1959, she suffered the fate that old steamers had been suffering for almost a century: she was sold by the Canadian National Railways (which had owned her since Confederation a decade earlier) to become a sealer. (Yes, Newfoundlanders love their sealers -- but they generally didn't use new ships for the trade, because the stink soaks into the woodwork and never comes out; making her a sealer would effectively guarantee that she could never again be a passenger ship.) She was even briefly renamed the Arctic Eagle when sold in 1959 (Hanrahan, p. 167; Cook, p. 24, who adds that she was also used for a time as a floating general store). But sealing was no longer very profitable, and she was damaged in 1965, and no one was sure whether she was worth fixing; left to rest in Harbour Grace, in 1967 she broke free of her anchors and drifted aground at Riverhead, Harbour Grace, where souvenir-hunters slowly stripped her. She was eventually given a cosmetic restoration in 1997, and is apparently still there, but her sailing days were over (Hanrahan, pp. 168-169; Connors, p. 29, has a newspaper account of her planned restoration). Ryan/Drake, plate 45 caption, says that she is "the last [surviving] representative of Newfoundland's coal-burning sealers."
She was one of the best-known and best-loved Newfoundland ships of all time; this isn't the only poem built around her; Connors and Hanrahan each has a second piece, and I seem to recall others from other sources. But Connors, p. 29, says that "The Smokeroom" is the best-known work about the Kyle.
There is a photo of the Kyle at sea on p. 102 of Hanrahan; p. 129 shows her bringing back part of "Old Glory"; p. 106 shows her aground at Harbour Grace at the end of her career. Connors, p. 26, shows her in service, while p. 30 shows her after many years aground. Ryan/Drake, plate 45, is of her; Cook has a photo on p. 25.. She also has her own web site, http://sskyle.org/ -- which features, among other things, a recitation of this piece by the son of the author.
Ted Russell, the author of this piece, was born June 27, 1904 at Coley's Point on Conception Bay, Newfoundland; he quit school at age sixteen to become a teacher (ButlerHanrahan, p. 155). He would eventually go on to earn a bachelor's degree, but it took him several stints in college; he was 61 when he finally graduated! (ButlerHanrahan, p. 158). He became a magistrate, then, after Newfoundland became part of Canada, was elected to its House of Assembly in that organization's first sitting and was made Minister of Natural Resources -- but soon quit because he disagreed with Premier Joseph Smallwood, going into the insurance business (ButlerHanrahan, p. 156).
It was after this that he began writing plays and monologues, some of which appeared on the CBC. "The Chronicles of Uncle Mose," set in a fictional outport named "Pigeon Inlet," made him a popular sensation (ButlerHanrahan, p. 157). The play "Holdin' Ground," set in Pigeon Inlet, was also very popular. This poem is one of the Pigeon Inlet pieces. Russell died on October 16, 1977 (ButlerHanrahan, p. 158). There is a biography, The Life and Times of Ted Russell, by his daughter Elizabeth Miller, which also seems to have appeared under the title Uncle Mose. Russell's own works were published in Tales from Pigeon Inlet - RBW
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