Man on the Ice

by Rex Saunders

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Saunders, Rex, 1942-

  Man on the ice: the Rex Saunders story / Rex Saunders.

  Electronic monograph issued in multiple formats.

  Also issued in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-77117-037-6 (EPUB).--ISBN 978-1-77117-038-3 (Kindle).--

  ISBN 978-1-77117-039-0 (PDF)

  1. Saunders, Rex, 1942-. 2. Shipwreck survival--North Atlantic Ocean. 3. Survival at sea--North Atlantic Ocean. 4. Sealers (Persons)--Newfoundland and Labrador--Biography. 5. Northern Peninsula (N. L.)--Biography. I. Title.

  G530.S39 2012 910.9163’4 C2012-903293-X

  © 2012 by Rex Saunders

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed toAccess Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

  Cover Design: Adam Freake

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  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities; the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $24.3 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada; the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

  I dedicate this book to the memory of my dad. He was a great woodsman, fisherman, and sealer, and helped shape the man I am today.

  Chapter One

  Tales of a Mischievous Boy

  I AM SIXTY-NINE YEARS old, and I will be seventy on December 8 of this year. I was born in the small town of St. Leonard’s, now known as St. Lunaire, in Newfoundland, in 1942, to Fred and Olive Saunders, and I am the second-eldest of ten children, my brother Herb being the oldest, followed by me, Mary, twin sisters Gladys and Isabella, Ezra, Sherwin, Alma, Wade, Maxine, and Glenys.

  When I was about two years of age, my father moved our family to a nearby town called Main Brook, White Bay, where he worked for a woods company called Bowaters during the fall and winter seasons. I remember starting school and being taught by my very first teacher, Miss Jean Boyd. Dad would live in camp with his fellow woodsmen during the weekdays and come home on the weekends. We would return to St. Lunaire during the summer months to fish for cod and make our living off the sea.

  When we became of age, about twelve and thirteen years old, while our dad was away at work my brother Herb and I would often venture into the woods ourselves to collect firewood and bring it home to keep our family warm during the very cold winters. We made sure we kept a steady fire in the house, our water barrel full, and our five dogs taken care of.

  I have many memories of my childhood, especially the trouble Herb and I would often get ourselves into. I remember one specific time that still makes me laugh. Myself, my brother Herb, and our friends Ray and Roy Ollerhead, who were also brothers, had stolen some gunpowder from Freeman Green’s motorboat. We filled a rum bottle half full with the gunpowder and wondered what would happen if we lit a match to it. We figured we had better do a test run first, so we put a little gunpowder on an old chopping block and lit it with a match. It was fun for us to watch that bit of fire and black smoke, so we thought if we did the same with the rum bottle, it would be a little more exciting. We dug a hole in the floor of the old wood house. Actually, there wasn’t really a floor, just the bare ground. We put the rum bottle down the hole half-filled with gunpowder, leaving just enough room for the neck of the bottle to stick out of the ground. We stuffed a few wood chips and mud around the bottle and then stood there looking at one another. Who was going to be the one to light the match?

  Of course, I was known to be a little brazen, even a little “evil,” if you asked my mother, but I liked to refer to myself as the bravest, so Herb, Ray, and Roy all crowded together in the doorway as I lit the match and poked it down the neck of that rum bottle. And that’s all I remembered until the smoke had cleared. I looked around and saw that the wood house I was standing in now had only two supporting walls instead of four. I think the whole community came out to see. The wool cap I was wearing was shrivelled and burned, my face was covered in cuts and scrapes, and I had somehow lost my eyebrows. Now that was an exciting day for the small town of Main Brook!

  However, the excitement quickly shifted when my dad returned home from the woods and learned what I had done. I don’t think I was able to sit on my bottom for a week after it had met the hand of my dad! Now, I know what you may be thinking, but I don’t consider my father to be hurtful or abusive in character. In my upbringing, a stern punishment was meant to teach me a lesson, and I truly felt loved and respected by both my parents.

  My mother and father were Christian people and diligently attended a little Pentecostal church with a congregation of about thirty-five people. I remember being there with them as a young boy, Sunday after Sunday.

  On one particular Sunday morning, I was sitting there with Mom and Dad, staring out the window at six goats. Now, that brave character I spoke of earlier was definitely getting some ideas at that moment. I sneaked out the back to carry out my plan. The church was built upon wooden shores, about three or four feet off the ground. It was boarded around and contained a small hatch used to store wood for the building’s wood stove. I grabbed two fistfuls of grass, threw it in the hatch, and herded the six goats underneath the church. I quickly closed the hatch while the goats ran around aimlessly, hitting their horns and heads on the bottom of the church floor. That was probably the most noise that little church had ever heard, and I wasn’t about to stay around when someone came out to open up the hatch and let the goats free.

  I was at home when my parents arrived following the morning service. My dad walked in the door and looked straight at me and said, “You barred them goats under the church, didn’t you?”

  I denied it, of course, and, well, my behind had another brief meeting with Dad’s belt. As a young boy, attending church Sunday after Sunday wasn’t the most fun activity I could think of, so I found other ways to amuse myself.

  On another Sunday afternoon, as I sat next to Mom and Dad, watching the pastor prepare for his sermon, I decided again to sneak out, trying not to let anyone notice. I walked around the building as I planned to go home, and I came across a stick about five feet long. I could hear that the pastor had begun preaching, and the whole congregation was silent. I dragged the stick down across the clapboard of the church, just behind where the pastor was standing. BAM! BAM! BAM!

  It sounded awfully loud inside that little church, and I’m sure the whole congregation, including the pastor, had no idea what had hit them. As usual, when Dad came home he gave me that very same look.

  “What did I do now?” I asked, attempting to sound innocent.

  “You know what you did,” he replied.

  On my last attempt at denial, I responded, “No, I didn’t do anything.”

  With that, he looked at me and said, “Well, I’m still gonna give you a trimmin’ ’cause you probably did something that I don’t know about anyway!”

  By now my behind was used to a few smacks from the belt, and this one didn’t even hurt.

  My final tale of my many church adventures takes place in a small Sunday school class. Aunt Mary Simms
was my Sunday school teacher. She had a finger missing on one of her hands. Aunt Mary was telling us a story from the Bible about the giant Goliath and David with his slingshot. She began to sing a song, “Only a boy named David, only a rippling brook; Only a boy named David, but five little stones he took . . .” She held up her hand of four fingers in action to the “five little stones,” and I was thrown out of Sunday school for pointing out the difference. I had to face Dad and his belt again. It didn’t hurt, though. I think I was shaping into something tough for what was to come later in my life.

  Dad had a small sawmill where he would often take my brother Herb to help saw the logs. Every time I would go into the sawmill house while they were busy at work, he would yell at me and tell me to get out; he must have thought I was a pest or something. One day, while Dad and Herb were sawing logs, I managed to sneak in without them noticing. Dad had an old five- or six Acadia make-and-break engine, not very useful for sawing logs, but it was the best they had during that time. I remember turning the shut-off valve in the gas tank. It wasn’t long before the old engine started to sputter and backfire, and then it stopped. I watched Dad pull the rubber hose off connecting the gas line to the carburetor and suck on the end in an attempt to siphon what he thought was dirt clogging the hose. I then quickly turned the tap back on, and, well, Dad got a mouthful and was gassy for the rest of the day! He never did find out what had really happened.

  Mom could bake beans like no one else. Her baked beans were so good we just couldn’t get enough of them. I remember watching my mom open the oven door one Sunday morning and pull out a beautiful pot of baked beans, placing them on top of the stove. They look so good, nice and brown, layered with strips of salt pork, I thought to myself. Now, before Sunday breakfast, we always said a family prayer. We would all gather around in the kitchen: myself, Herb, Mary, and Ez. Gladys and Isabelle, my twin sisters, were just infants.

  Mom and Dad would alternate reading the Bible and saying a prayer. On this particular Sunday it was Mom’s turn to pray. We all bowed our heads and knelt before our chairs and benches while Mom began her prayer. I crawled over to the pot of beans and grabbed a nice piece of pork. Just as I was about to devour that delicious piece of meat, whoppo!

  I felt the back of my dad’s hand across the back of my head. It didn’t hurt, but I dropped the pork, and I had to wait until our prayers were done before we all enjoyed baked beans and fresh homemade bread.

  During that time, there were only four families of the Saunders name in Main Brook. There was Sid Saunders and his family, and Pad Saunders and his family. There was my family, and Uncle Aubrey Saunders, who was married to Jessie, who I can barely remember, as they had both died when I was quite young. Together they had three sons: Bill the eldest, George—both boys were born with developmental disabilities—and the youngest was Rube. I remember Rube Saunders was responsible for taking care of his brothers, Bill and George. Bill wasn’t much like George. He was known to be the calmer of the two, and George would often be found everywhere around town when he was supposed to be at home. It seemed that everyone in our community had taken a special liking to Bill.

  George was different. He needed to have more attention most of the time, and when Rube wanted to go out with his own friends, he would often bring George to our house. George was the kind of fellow, if he wanted something and couldn’t have it, he would fake a convulsion. We used to call it “the fits,” now referred to as a seizure in medical terms.

  One day when Rube left George with us, my brother Herb and I let George hammer nails into a large log of firewood using my dad’s hammer. We all took turns hammering four or five nails into the wood, then passing off the hammer to one another. When it was George’s turn, he wouldn’t give up the hammer to either Herb or me. I recall grabbing the hammer from George. He became upset, threw himself on the floor, and began to kick his legs and waved his arms around. My mom said, “You had better give that hammer back to George ’cause he might have a fit.”

  Just as the words came out of her mouth, George acted out a convulsion. Mom and Herb grabbed hold of his arms and legs and lifted George up onto a daybed. I threw the hammer onto the pillowcase as Mom and Herb were placing him on the bed. He hit his head on the hammer and jumped up, rubbing the spot that was hit, and walking around the house cursing and swearing. Mom got mad at me, but I knew George pretty well, and that proved that he wasn’t having a fit. That was the last time George ever had a “convulsion” at our house.

  Shortly after that incident with George, our small town of Main Brook experienced a terrible tragedy. The coastal boats used to bring freight to the local merchants. There were only three merchants in Main Brook at that time: Mr. Pad Saunders, Mr. Joe Cooper, and Mr. Don Hillier.

  During one specific delivery, the Northern Ranger arrived in the bay, but it could only reach in to about three miles from shore due to the frozen waters. The men with horses and dog teams headed out onto the ice to haul the freight in manually. In those days, everyone in town would help with the freight. George knew about the coastal boat being stuck out in the bay, and somehow he got away from home on his own and went looking for the boat. It was late in the evening, dark was beginning to fall, and the boat had already left. George was lost and it didn’t take long for the news to get around our community.

  Everyone was on the lookout, with gas lanterns, flashlights, and dog teams. The weather began to get stormy, it started to snow and drift, and it was very cold. George wasn’t found until late the next evening. He was partially covered in the drifted snow. His uncle Reuben Pilgrim found him, but it was too late for George. He had frozen to death. The poor fellow was only sixteen years old. It was a very sad day in Main Brook. With a population of less than 300 people, everyone knew one another, and George was greatly missed by our community.

  One more detail about George: he was a very smart fellow. I remember a time when George went to Mr. Cooper’s store and somehow managed to get behind the counter and steal two apples, one in each hand. Mr. Cooper grabbed hold of George’s arm in an attempt to get his apples back, but George was a bit too strong for him. He finally got an apple to his mouth and took a big bite. Mr. Cooper let go and grabbed his other arm, but George got that apple up to his mouth and took a bite of that one, too. So away goes George with two apples!

  Chapter Two

  Becoming My Own Man

  THE FINAL WINTER WE lived in Main Brook, Dad built a 35-foot longliner. His sawmill was located close to the water, where he sawed all of the planks and timbers. Herb was two years older than me. He helped Dad quite a bit with sawing the boat planks, but I did my best to help when I was allowed to come around. He had finished building the boat near the mill, and the first coastal boat that came into town in the spring was carrying Dad’s new motor, a 33-HP Kelvin diesel. The boat was tied up at the government wharf beside Dad’s 20-foot motorboat, containing a 4-HP Acadia make-and-break engine. It wasn’t fast, but it got the job done.

  The coastal boat lowered the Kelvin diesel down into the engine room of the Miss St. Lunaire, named after our new hometown. All that was left to do was couple the motor to the shaft, and connect the fuel lines and battery. Then she’d be ready to go. We loaded everything aboard the Miss St. Lunaire: dogs, hens, lumber for a new stage, wharf sticks, even the sawmill house. Everything we owned went aboard the longliner, with the exception of our home, which we had already sold. Our family headed to St. Lunaire and arrived there seven or eight hours later. We off-loaded our boat and began to build a stage and wharf. We settled in and began fishing for the summer.

  After a couple of summers, we would go to Labrador. We would travel in the Miss St. Lunaire and fish ashore. Dad had a small house in Indian Tickle, Labrador, about four miles or so south of Cartwright. It was a small fishing town of ten or twelve families: the Burdetts from Cartwright, and the Slades, Fitzgeralds, and Penneys, from Conception Bay. From Main Brook were: our family, Saunders, Powells, Roses, and Ollerheads. It was a good plac
e for fish and salmon. The Earle brothers from Carbonear had a place at Frenchman’s Island where they used to collect salmon and bring salt and gas, and whatever else was needed. In the fall of the year, the schooner would come and take the salt fish. Then it was aboard the Miss St. Lunaire and back to our hometown for the winter.

  There wasn’t much to do around St. Lunaire. Back then there weren’t any roads, and very little electricity, only kerosene oil lamps and gas lanterns. The only electric lights in town provided Mr. Fred Bussey’s small plant and four or five houses. He was the only merchant in town.

  Mr. Bussey owned his own wharf and large fish stores. These stores were storage places for the fish and would be filled to the rafters, as he would purchase all of the dried codfish brought in by the schooners. He would hire all of us young men, and with hand barrows and wheelbarrows we would take the fish from the stores to the schooners. We would dump large loads of fish down the hold, and another crowd would be there, packaging the fish. I don’t know how many quintals of fish went aboard those big old schooners, but it was a lot of fish. I remember some of the names of those schooners: the Norma & Gladys, the Gull Pond, the Mile R, the Jenny and Elizabeth, and the Dingo.

  When I was twenty-one years old, I met the love of my life, Irene Earle, the only daughter of Harvey and Levenia Earle. Together we have five children. Denley was our oldest, then Trudy, our only daughter, followed by Derrick, Darryl, and Corrie.

  In 1964, I bought my own fishing room from Mr. Jack Penney of Carbonear. I had my very own fishing place with a stage, a small house, and a 22-foot motorboat containing a 5-HP Acadia make-and-break engine. It was only a short distance from my dad’s place. Ralph Humby was my first shareman. Between the two of us we had six gillnets, two salmon nets, and of course an old-fashioned cod jigger. We didn’t have to travel very far to get to the fishing grounds, and we did quite well. We fished around the Wolf Islands and the Ferret Islands. We didn’t know anything about gurdies then, so we hauled all of our gillnets by hand.