Trinity Bay Tragedy

DESCRIPTION: The small boats out sealing in Trinity Bay on February 27, 1892, are caught in wind and sleet. Some make shore at Heart's Delight the next morning but most freeze to death.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast)
KEYWORDS: death fishing sea storm
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Feb 28, 1892 - the Trinity Bay tragedy
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast 71, "Trinity Bay Tragedy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff, pp. 37-38, "Trinity Bay Tragedy" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST LLab071 (Partial)
Roud #9983
NOTES [470 words]: Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast reprints a detailed account from D. W. Prowse History of Newfoundland (London, 1896), p. 520.
Heart's Delight is on the northwest corner of the Avalon Peninsula, which is separated from the main body of Newfoundland by Trinity Bay - BS
Taking seals was one of Newfoundland's chief activities in the late winter and early spring; seals were a source of meat and skins, and their fat (oil) was . By the 1890s, most seals were killed by large steam ships that sailed with crews of hundreds of men. But when conditions were right -- that is, when the ice floes where the seals bore their pups came close enough to land, "landsmen" might set out in small boats to harvest seals on an individual basis. This was the "land hunt," and those who engaged in it were "landsmen" -- not because they took the seals on land but because they were based on land rather than ships, and went out to hunt seals during the day then returned home at night. It was landsmen who were out on the hunt in 1892.
Keir, p. 159, and Smith, pp. 46-47, agree that the day was clear and calm at first, so a great many small boats went out to take seals, but the weather suddenly turned cold and the winds grew so strong that the dories could not make it back to land.
Based on the list of towns on p. 47 of Smith (English Harbour, Port Rexton, Champney, Trinity South, and some others that seem to have disappeared), most of the places involved were on the west coast of Trinity Bay, along the northern part of the coast, between Catalina on the north and Trinity on the south.
When the government finally heard about it, they sent the sealer Labrador (for which see "Captains and Ships" and "The Sealer's Song (II)") to try to help out, but there was little she could do (Smith, p. 48).
The extent of this disaster is somewhat unclear. The Northern Shipwrecks Database says 250 men perished; I suspect this is a typo for "25." Prowse's account, as cited by Leach and also printed on p. 303 of Ryan, lists a much smaller total: 215 men out sealing, most of whom survived; 24 froze or otherwise died of exposure. Smith, p. 49, also says 49 died. This is also the figure in Keir . Ryan on p. 303 cites a newspaper calculation that 25 men died. Ryan calls it "The most terrible landsmen's catastrophe which has been recorded." Greene, p. 65, calls it a "typical example of a land fatality" in the seal fishery.
Similarly Greene, p. 66: "Thirteen men were reached when frozen to death in their punts; whilst eleven others, who had taken refuge on the Floe, were blown out to sea on the ice-pans."
There is a recent book about the event, Eldon Drodge, Peril on the Sea. But having read one of Drodge's other books, I find that he invents things and calls them history, so I have not tried to find this book. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.2
File: LLab071

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.