Arrival of the "Grand Lake" and "Virginia Lake" With Bumper Trips

DESCRIPTION: "The Grand Lake, boys, is coming in, With bunting grand, Manned by a crew of hardy lads Who belong to Newfoundland." The Grand Lake and the Virginia both return to port with large hauls of seal pelts and fat
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1904 (Old Home Week Songster)
KEYWORDS: hunting ship
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff, p. 71, "Arrival of the 'Grand Lake' and 'Virginia Lake' With Bumper Trips" (1 text)
Roud #V44600
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "First Arrival -- 'Aurora' and 'Walrus' Full" (ships, theme)
cf. "Arrival of 'Aurora,' Diana,' 'Virginia Lake' and 'Vanguard,' Loaded" (theme, ships)
cf. "The Sealer's Song (II)" (ships)
NOTES [1082 words]: The Virginia Lake and Grand Lake were sisters (O'Neill, p 972; Winsor, p. 44, mentions a third, Winsor Lake, but it lasted only three years, 1894-1896, so it was never active as a sealer at the same time as the other two). Virginia Lake was originally built as the Conscript in 1882, and was a coastal steamer (Hanrahan, p. 200, although Connors, p. 38, says she was built in 1888 and Bruce, p. 24, says that her exact age was unknown); she was renamed in 1892 (Greene, pp. 276-277). She ran many different routes while in the coastal service -- going from Newfoundland to Labrador, and Newfoundland to Canada, as well as traveling between various of Newfoundland's outports. Bruce, p. 24, reports that she was 180 feet long, 760 gross tons, and had a speed of ten knots.
She first served as a sealer in 1901, and from that time on served every year until her loss in 1909 (Chafe, p. 104). She continued her coastal work in the off season, however; when the "Alphabet Fleet" (for which see "The Wreck of the Steamship Ethie") lost its Labrador steamer Fife in 1900, the Virginia Lake replaced her (Bruce, p. 20. This implies to me that the Labrador ferry was expected to carry more freight than passengers, since the Alphabet ships were generally more elegant than an old coastal/sealing steamer). Bruce, pp. 24-25, records the complaints of a passenger about how she had been extremely over-booked in 1905. Connors, p. 37, records a similar (the same?) complaint: "The accommodations on the Virginia Lake were quite inadequate for the number of passengers she carried. The stuffy little saloon was so crowded that comfort was out of the question. I had to use some rather impressive language to the steward to induce him to assign me a stateroom.... The ventilation was poor and the atmosphere vile.... Our fellow-passengers were all either prospectors or owners of fishing schooners."
The Grand Lake too was a coastal steamer which had a short career as a sealer; she went to the ice under Henry Dawe 1903-1905, then under Job Knee 1906-1908. In 1903, she took 25,688 seals, and 30,171 in 1904, but only 11,164 in 1905 (Chafe, pp. 90, 100). She sank suddenly on April 4, 1908 (Greene, p. 277), but her crew of 203 were rescued by the I (O'Neill, p. 972). It wasn't due to accident or weather; she was one of the few ships that had not been damaged in a year noted for bad weather. Apparently it was the result of an engineering problem that caused an injection pipe to burst, opening up the ship to flooding (FelthamNortheast, pp. 74-75; Winsor, p. 44; Ryan, p. 309; although Ryan, p. 191 says that she was merely crushed).
The Virginia Lake also had a difficult 1908 (the conditions were said to be incredibly bad, with many ships damaged; FelthamNortheast, p. 74), having her bow stove in, but survived (O'Neill, p. 972) -- only to be lost in 1909. The Vanguard, which a year earlier had rescued the Grand Lake's crew, followed the Virginia Lake to the bottom a week later (Feltham, p. 151).
The Virginia Lake first went to the ice under Job Knee in 1901, and sailed under him in 1902 as well. William Winsor (Jr.) commanded her in 1903 and 1904, and she took 22,677 and 26,379 seals in those years. She served under Samuel Blandford 1905-1906 and Jacob Kean 1907-1909, when she was lost. In none of those years did she match her totals under Winsor (Chafe, p. 104).
She doesn't seem to have been a lucky ship, having had a collision with the Florizel in 1907 and suffering severe ice damage to her bow in 1908 (Winsor, p. 68).
Her loss was apparently pretty spectacular. Bruce, p. 30, says that she was trapped by ice for sixteen days in March 1909 near Change Islands. The ice also broke her main shaft (Butler, p. 30; Ryan, p. 309; Connors, p. 37, prints a small part of her captain's report). The Bellaventure at one time was close enough to pass a line -- but she broke four different lines before they gave up (Butler, p. 30). Still trapped, a very severe blizzard came up, and without motive power and trapped in the ice, she had no way to fight it. Her rudder wrenched was off and her stern wrecked, (Butler, p. 30; Ryan, p. 309) so that she took on water too fast to stay afloat. The men finally abandoned her; the Bellaventure took 110 on board while 50 walked across seven mile of ice to land. The ship itself then burned for four hours and sank (Butler, p. 30; Hanrahan, p. 200).
Since Henry Dawe commanded the Grand Lake only in 1903-1905 (Chafe, p. 90) and William Winsor commanded the Virginia Lake only in 1903 and 1904 (Chafe, p. 96), this song must from one of those years. Since the song refers to Virginia Lake taking twenty thousand seals, that again points us to 1903 or 1904, since her total was too small in 1905. Of the two years, 1904 is the better bet, since the Grand Lake took more than 30,000 seals in that year, its highest total under Dawe, plus the Virginia Lake is said to have taken more than 25,000 seals, which was true only in 1904.
Interestingly, in neither year did the two ships arrive on the same day. But in 1904 Grand Lake was the fourth ship to reach St. John's, on April 1, and Virginia Lake the fifth on April 2 (Chafe, p. 71), so though they didn't arrive at the same time, they arrived one after another. In 1903, Virginia Lake was the first to make it home, on March 28, and the Grand Lake only the fifth, on April 1 (Chafe, p. 70). So it would make a lot more sense to refer to them arriving together in 1904.
The Virginia Lake is also mentioned in "Arrival of the 'Grand Lake' and 'Virginia Lake' With Bumper Trips," "Arrival of 'Aurora,' 'Diana,' 'Virginia Lake,' and 'Vanguard,' Loaded" and "The Sealer's Song (II)." The Grand Lake is also mentioned in "The Sealer's Song (II)." William Winsor Jr. is also mentioned "First Arrival from the Sea Fishery S. S. Fogota, 1912." Henry Dawe is mentioned in "The Sealing Trip of the S. S. Greenland 1891," "The Bully Crew," and "I Am a Newfoundlander," as well as in "The Sealer's Song (II), which see.
There is a photo on the Virginia Lake on p. 38 of Connors, and a small photo of the Grand Lake as she was sinking on p. 81 of Ryan/Drake. Winsor, p. 44, has a photo of the Grand Lake with her sealers out on the ice; p. 68 has a very poor photo of the Virginia Lake which at least shows clearly that she was a pure steamer; her masts could not take sails. Higgins, p. 17, has an (unlabeled) photo of the Grand Lake. - RBW
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