Sealer's Love Letter, A

DESCRIPTION: "Dear Miss: -- I know I can't mail this; Forgive me, it's all I can do, Out here at the ice-fields in Winter... For it's Easter good wishes I'm sending." He recalls leaving her to work as a sealer, compares their lives, and sends good wishes
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1978 (Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff)
KEYWORDS: love separation nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff, p. 91, "A Sealer's Love Letter" (1 text)
Roud #V44741
NOTES [341 words]: The Terra Nova, mentioned in this song, is almost the only dating hint in the piece, but she isn't much of a hint; she first became a sealer in 1885, and, apart from breaks taken for tasks such as Antarctic exploration, remained in that role almost until she sank in 1943. So this piece could have come from any time over a span of more than fifty years! For more about the Terra Nova, see "The Terra Nova."
The song is correct in saying that many sealers spend Easter away from home, since the sealing ships almost never returned to port during a sealing voyage. And they normally sailed March 10 or slightly after (depending on the day of the week). Thus they left port before Easter. The return date is less certain, because it depends on their success, but Levi George Chafe, Chafe's Sealing Book: A History of the Newfoundland Sealfishery from the Earliest Available Records Down To and Including the Voyage of 1923, third edition, Trade Printers and Publishers, Ltd., 1923 (PDF scan available from Memorial University of Newfoundland) has a chart of when the ships returned to port. Using the data starting on p. 63, I determined the median return date for the fifteen years from 1896 to 1910. The dates:
1896: April 18
1897: April 23
1898: April 10/11
1899: April 6/7
1900: April 7
1901: April 2
1902: April 6/7
1903: April 14/15
1904: April 21
1905: April 22
1906: April 10
1907: April 18
1908: April 15
1909: April 28/29
1910: April 20
Using data from the web, I determined that the median date of Easter is April 7; the mode, according to a web source, is April 10. (These figures vary somewhat based on the range of years you use.) If we go by the median Easter date, in eleven of the fifteen years tested, the majority of ships were still in the ice on Easter Sunday; based on the mode, it's nine or ten out of fifteen. And sealers often needed a few days to get home after a seal hunt. So while some sealers made it home for Easter, in most years, especially years when Easter came early, the substantial majority did not.- RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: RySm091

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