The Wake

by Linden MacIntyre

  The men were shovelling the snow not far from Aubrey Farrell’s store, on the St. Lawrence harbourfront. The corporation offices were below the store. Al stopped to talk to them. Hadn’t everybody agreed to take the day off? Well, yes, but it seemed that everyone had suffered a memory lapse. The mill was working. The men at Iron Springs were underground. Same at the Director and Blue Beach and Black Duck. Nobody could explain. Maybe it was a relapse into the soggy thinking of the early days, when they imagined they were part of a cooperative venture rather than pawns in a classic case of capitalistic exploitation.

  So were they union men or pussycats? Hadn’t they agreed that it was time to exercise collective muscle to get improvements in their pay, health and safety, holidays? The men sheepishly put their shovels on their shoulders. And resolutely followed Al towards the refining mill, which was in the general direction of Iron Springs.

  DONALD Poynter might have had a premonition on that chaotic morning, St. Patrick’s Day 1941, that something fundamental had changed in labour–management relationships in St. Lawrence while he’d been dealing with his problems back in the States. He must have seen it coming. Maybe that’s why he was hard to find that morning.

  He’d returned to St. Lawrence in March 1938, as Seibert’s troubleshooter, aware that much had changed in his absence of almost three years. Morale was worse than he could have imagined. The place was struggling. Productivity was sclerotic, and he had to admit that a large part of that problem was technological. It would not have helped that the men who had to use the obsolete equipment were feeling bullied, underpaid and generally exploited.

  The second-hand equipment Walter Seibert started with in 1933 was worn out in 1938. The physical conditions in which miners worked were beginning to make people sick. Men were passing out underground because of bad ventilation. The dust and blasting smoke were worse than ever. Iron Springs mine had turned into a replay of Black Duck. Miners were missing time because of stomach ailments that were linked to pollution, which was a result of primitive or zero sanitation.

  Nowhere in the workplace were there basic facilities to take a shit or piss, and the men were drinking the water as they found it, where they found it. Underground, water was never in short supply. But clean, drinkable water was another matter. You didn’t have to be a scientist to connect the dots.

  These were the immediate challenges Poynter saw before him, and soon after he became the boss, he started fixing them. But anyone familiar with political theory might have told him that it’s when material circumstances are improving that the social order is most vulnerable to instability—including revolution.

  THERE could be no turning back the St. Patrick’s Day rebellion. The union men were on the march and word was spreading fast. People on the east side of town could see them cresting the horizon on their way to Iron Springs.19 They didn’t even have to slow down at the mill. Workers and truck drivers were all heading out to join them even before they got there. For mid-March, the walk over fields and marshland was surprisingly easy. The snow was hard as concrete, the ground beneath still frozen. It was a perfect day for a revolt.

  Al Turpin might have suspected but could not have known that Poynter was already on the phone, alerting Iron Springs about the protesters’ imminent arrival, warning the supervisor there not to let the men who were working underground know what was happening on the surface. The warning came too late. Fred Walsh was already in the cage, heading down the shaft at Iron Springs to spread the word.

  Walsh was among the first to feel sufficiently alarmed about the dust at Iron Springs to make an issue of it.20 Working as a driller there, he would complain of long nights spent coughing for up to eight hours at a stretch, and he might even have suspected he was marked for an early death because of what was keeping him awake. He was only thirty-two, already feeling old.

  Fred got word to the men below, and as Turpin’s little army passed the headframe at Iron Springs, the miners were already straggling out to join their union brothers. What a day it was. On to the Director.

  THE people of St. Lawrence had a history of solid, stolid patience in the face of hardship. As a fishing community for generations, they were familiar with the perils of an unforgiving workplace, the unpredictability of institutions and authorities whose imperatives and whims controlled the way they lived, how well they lived. And they had the recent memory of November 1929 to remind them just how limited was the attention span of governments in times of difficulty.

  They’d been manipulated and exploited by outsiders since the area was first “discovered” by stranded English sailors in 1583. The ability to endure hardship without complaint was a mark of fortitude and a source of pride. For the previous ten years, the American accountant Walter Seibert had been building on this admirable virtue.

  St. Patrick’s Day 1941 would mark a dramatic turning point in their history. The walkout that day was four years in the making. The impact would reverberate much longer.

  DOC Smith, now the manager at the Director mine, would certainly have seen them coming. Even if he didn’t see them, it’s hard to believe that someone—Donald Poynter, maybe—didn’t call to give him a heads-up. But when Al Turpin tramped into the Newfluor office that morning, Smith was calmly waiting, a study in unsuspecting nonchalance. What was going on?

  Al Turpin was momentarily confused. No way Doc didn’t know what was going down, but Al explained the situation anyway. It was tradition. St. Patrick’s Day. A time for prayer and celebration.

  Doc Smith was listening, nodding sympathetically.

  Well, Turpin, why didn’t you tell me sooner? he asked. He seemed genuine. Had he known, he’d have given his people the day off—with pay. And he promptly instructed a supervisor to go below and release the men.21

  And then, with the Director crew in tow, it was off to Number Three Shaft at Blue Beach, another corporation mine, where they found the men already streaming out to join the march. And then it was Black Duck.

  All mining operations in the area were now idle—miners, mill workers, labourers, truck drivers all assembled on the shore at Herring Cove, where they lit a bonfire. Al had brought along old files, documents creating the union local he had just dissolved. The men cheered as he tossed the papers on the bonfire.

  It was the beginning of a new era.

  On March 18, the Director mine was back in operation. It was a different scene at the corporation mines, however. When the workers showed up two days after their St. Patrick’s celebration, Poynter sent them home again, suspended without pay for three more days.

  He then fired Aloysius Turpin.

  29.

  WHEN it came to confrontation, Al Turpin was fearless—with one exception: Father Augustine Thorne, the unofficial governor of St. Lawrence.

  The disintegration of the harmonious, if less than productive, relationship between the union and the corporation since Al Turpin rose to power was troubling to the parish priest. St. Lawrence was a small town, a tight community. The last thing the people needed was a civil war.

  The priest knew enough about Seibert’s style to understand that the friction wasn’t all Turpin’s fault. Father Thorne was sick and tired of Seibert and his high-handed manner, especially regarding money. But for the most part, he’d been on friendly terms with Donald Poynter since the American had first arrived in town in September 1933.

  Thorne was intimate with the human undercurrents causing unprecedented tensions in his town. Turpin was volatile, crude in many ways and inarticulate. He was the sort of individual Seibert would look down his nose at. Poynter was a realist. He was an American, an outsider, but he seemed to have a deeper understanding of the place than people who had been there for generations. He had been around long enough not to make the mistake of underestimating Aloysius Turpin.

  Al Turpin had guts and he had a just cause: the well-being of his people. A parish priest could relate to that, even if he didn’t sympathize with Turpin’s tactics. Father Thorne could easily ha
ve given the union man the benefit of the doubt. And he’d also have understood Poynter’s apparent intransigence as due, at least in part, to personal challenges—the dying wife, the domineering distant boss.

  St. Patrick’s Day had almost been entertaining. But it was a troubling indication that the miners had exhausted their reserves of patience with the Seibert “empire”—and specifically, with Walter Seibert. The priest was probably aware that the impromptu St. Patrick’s Day parade was only the opening skirmish in what, by summer, would be war.

  April 7, there would be a walkout for the dubious reason that someone from Lawn was given work that Turpin thought should have gone to someone from St. Lawrence. June 5, another walkout, this time over wages. Continual bickering.

  It seemed as though every time the priest looked out his window, there were clusters of men milling around the union office. Parishioners were quietly complaining about the tensions in the town. The Farrells, who were close to Poynter, were confiding in the parish priest about the manager’s frustrations.

  It was no secret that Father Thorne had a pipeline to the corporation—his cousin was married to Aubrey Farrell’s brother Howard, who was working for Poynter as a senior supervisor. Louis Etchegary was also on the Poynter team, another boss. His late wife’s brother, Rennie Slaney, was a shift boss at Iron Springs. And there was persistent gossip in the town about Poynter and Florence Etchegary, Louis’s lovely daughter. There was something going on there. Nobody knew exactly what, but she and Don were spending a lot of time together. And the Giovanninis, too, now had family working under Poynter. Even Aubrey Farrell was on the Seibert payroll.

  Father Thorne could almost sympathize with Turpin and what he was up against. In a few short years, Poynter had managed to make strong connections with almost everyone who mattered in St. Lawrence. Tangling with Donald Poynter was taking on a lot of influential people.

  THE friction and frequent work stoppages had reached a point where Walter Seibert felt obliged to come to town in early July 1941. He and Poynter were refusing to recognize the new union. On July 8, he telephoned Turpin and asked if he’d drop by the corporation office for a chat.22

  Al said no. If Seibert wanted a conversation, he could come by the union office. Take a number. Al Turpin was a busy guy. It was like that. Kind of juvenile. Of course Father Thorne heard about it. He would hear about everything that mattered.

  Two days after he’d arrived in town, Seibert met with the miners somewhere in between the two offices. There was some progress and there would be a bit more money in the pay packet afterwards. But still no recognition or prospect of a contract.

  The overriding issue now became a union demand that the government in St. John’s send in a third-party panel made up of independent outsiders to look into all the issues that were getting in the way of long-term peace and productivity in St. Lawrence. It was a reasonable request, but Seibert scuttled the proposal. The commissioners in St. John’s, it seemed, were taking their instructions from New York.

  Then someone in St. John’s came up with the idea that Seibert might go along with an inquiry if Father Thorne could serve as chairman. But before Thorne had a chance to make up his mind, Al Turpin vetoed that idea. Shot it down in flames. Basically, he didn’t trust the priest. And given all the priest’s local entanglements, who could blame him?

  In a rare gesture of conciliation, Poynter suggested that he and Turpin get together and try to agree on terms of reference that might lead to the creation of the outside mediation panel that the union wanted. Turpin seemed okay with that, until Poynter suggested that Father Thorne should sit in on their discussion, presumably to help. Turpin once again refused to approve the priest’s involvement.

  Word, of course, got back to the priest.

  Then Turpin’s mouth got the better of his brain. He met Howard Farrell on the street one day, and in a flash, years of festering animosity between Turpin and the Farrells spilled out in a tirade that included some ill-advised slanders against the parish priest, who was Howard Farrell’s relative by marriage.

  Father Thorne was obviously fuming when he heard, which he inevitably did. He was ready for a reckoning, and it wasn’t long in coming.

  The corporation workers had just staged one of their frequent work stoppages that summer. Thorne summoned Al Turpin to the rectory. There was no formal record of the encounter. Neither party would be eager for the townsfolk to hear precisely, or even anecdotally, what went on. There would have been an irresistible temptation to magnify the episode into drama—or worse, amusement, which would have caused a loss of face for both belligerents.

  Al’s eventual account was cryptic. Years later, at a time when he was obviously still feeling the sting of the priest’s fury, he’d acknowledge only that “he [Father Thorne] gave me particular hell.” And he apparently also gave Al particular instructions: to shut his mouth henceforth, and by the way, get the men back to work. Immediately.

  “He was mad about it. So, I went around the harbour . . . and told the men, for Christssake, git back to work, boys. So, they went back to work.”23

  IT WAS just a temporary lull. By mid-October, after yet another refusal by the government in St. John’s to send in an independent panel to sort out the conflict, Turpin pulled his men out on strike again. And this time, there would be no backing down. God herself could intervene, but Al Turpin was dug in. Poynter dug in. The governing commissioners in St. John’s dug in.

  Then Turpin raised the stakes. Ever since St. Patrick’s Day, the Seibert mines had been plagued by work stoppages. But the Newfluor mine had continued working. Now Turpin pulled the Alcan miners out in sympathy with the corporation men.

  The Dosco steel plant in Cape Breton, which depended entirely on St. Lawrence for its fluorspar, was already hurting and complaining to Ottawa. Ottawa had, for some time, been complaining to St. John’s. Presumably, the US State Department was now complaining too. Alcan Aluminum was complaining to everybody. And with production of aluminum and steel imperilled in the middle of a war, everyone was listening. Finally.

  30.

  ON August 10, 1941, while Donald Poynter, Father Thorne and Al Turpin were playing mind games in St. Lawrence, two of the most powerful politicians on the planet were a hundred miles away discussing how, together, they could save the world. It was that kind of a summer in Newfoundland.

  From an American perspective, the island was no longer at the edge of nowhere, but in the middle of the North Atlantic war zone and about to become a major base of military operations for the United States and Canada—a development that would create an economic boom in Newfoundland. The strategic value of the location was one of the reasons it had been approved by the US president, Franklin Roosevelt, for his summit meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Winston Churchill.24 It was also logistically convenient—approximately halfway between Washington and London. By August 10, the talks were under way, security and privacy assured by a flotilla of twenty-four American and British military ships.

  Roosevelt had fond memories of Newfoundland and salmon fishing there in his younger days. He thought highly of the place and the Newfoundlanders he’d met.25 Churchill might have had a different impression. For at least ten years, Newfoundland had been a fiscal nuisance for the British government, the Dominions Office practically managing the place, picking up the tab for interest on shocking debt and wasteful social programs like the dole.

  Beyond that, Churchill, according to those who knew him, seemed to have a soft spot for the island and “always favoured generosity” when dealing with the Newfoundlanders.26 The local hospitality during his visit in August 1941 could only have enhanced his feelings for the place. A casual reference to fresh salmon over lunch with the Newfoundland governor, Sir Humphrey Walwyn, swiftly yielded six fifteen-pound salmon packed in ice and delivered the next day to Churchill from St. John’s by private railway car.27

  The two world leaders spent four days moored just up the shore from the
town of Argentia, where construction had begun on a major American naval air station. Their ideas, fanned by summer breezes on Placentia Bay, became what history would call the Atlantic Charter and would inform the creation of the United Nations in 1945.

  The island, in addition to location, had strategically important mineral resources: iron ore, copper, fluorspar—another factor in the pressures being felt in St. John’s and St. Lawrence to find solutions for the grievances the miners there were raising with their bosses. The mines in St. Lawrence were of particular strategic importance to Washington.

  Whether or not fluorspar was specifically discussed during that meeting on Placentia Bay, it was just two months later that the leaders signed an agreement to cooperate on a highly secret scientific project: the production of a bomb that would potentially have unprecedented destructive power. Newfoundland would make a vitally important contribution to the project: fluorspar of extraordinary quality. St. Lawrence fluorspar helped make the enterprise that history would remember as the Manhattan Project a frightening reality.

  For explosive power, the atomic bomb would require uranium-235, which makes up less than 1 percent of natural uranium. St. Lawrence fluorspar became essential to the refining process that would provide U–235 in sufficient quantities to produce the bombs that would effectively end the Second World War—by devastating Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, immediately killing 120,000 people and dooming tens of thousands more to a slow death from radiation exposure.

  Despite the carnage, the end of the war was good news for the winners, and amid the victory celebrations there was, in Washington in the spring of 1946, a small social gathering of scientists and government officials who had played central roles in developing the atomic bomb. One of the invitees was Claude Howse, by then Newfoundland’s chief geologist.