In Peril on the Sea: Nova Scotian Shipwrecks Pottersfield Press, Nova Scotia September 2000 187 pages

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Robert Parsons - Newfoundland Author

How It Came to Be

In June 1998 I retired from my occupation as an educator. To occupy my hours and to keep busy (and to get over the cultural shock of thirty years of reporting for duty) I searched my files to see what Nova Scotian sea stories I had collected over the years. I collated a core of about thirty pages. Thus armed with a "beginning", in September (when school was about to open) I went in search of more.

Research in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland

In mid-September I visited Halifax and successfully scoured PANS for newspaper articles, stories, clippings and photos. I had previously contacted Beaton Institute and they sent a list of Nova Scotian shipwrecks; thus I had dates of wrecks to work with. On my return drive from Halifax, I stopped in to visit the North Sydney museum obtaining more information and photos. Archival newspapers in St. John's -- the Halifax Chronicle and the Sydney Post -- provided scores of stories especially of highly publicized shipwrecks. Newfoundland papers, especially the Evening Telegram and Daily News, covered in their news the Newfoundland schooners and steamers wrecked on Nova Scotian shores.

Home Again, Home Again

I had lots of material to work with -- about fifty major shipwrecks and many minor wrecks i.e. groundings with no loss of life, abandonment at sea and so on. At home I organized, wrote and saved on computer my sea stories usually based on one or two sources. In the meantime I purchased photos. Here I was fortunate enough to know Capt. Hubert Hall (see his website at) ShipSearch MARINE who supplied several photos of wrecks, steamers and schooners. Others I purchased at PANS.

By this time the potential manuscript was getting large -- about one hundred eighty pages. I contacted one large Nova Scotian publishing house who expressed interest, but later found their slate of material to be published full. Fortunately they recommended Pottersfield Press which accepted my work of Nova Scotian Shipwrecks. Nearly a year and a half had gone by since first started researching.

Title, Index, Structure and More

As a working title this book was dubbed "Notable Nova Scotian Shipwrecks". Eventually it became "On the Stormy Ocean Tossed". Someone realized this was a bit unwieldy; thus with a final agreement between my publisher and myself In Peril on the Sea would be suitable with a sub-title Nova Scotian Shipwrecks.

In Peril (the shortened form) contains four or five appendices: lists of men saved from wrecks, survivors of wartime catastrophes, and people who helped in rescues. It has two indices: one index for the list of ships and the other towns.

In Peril is arranged chronologically beginning with a wreck of 1873 and ending with the wreck of the Arrow in 1970. In between are 180 pages of unsolved mysteries of the sea, calamities, unusual sea tales and stories of ships wrecked under all sorts of diverse circumstances.

Sub-headings break down the fourteen chapters into more manageable and readable chunks. The sub-headings highlight a town i.e. Louisbourg Whatever Happened to S.S. Morien and her Crew?

What's Unique about In Peril on the Sea?

I think it's a book most general readers of history can relate to: the stories are newsy, but full of anecdotal information, unique photos of ships. Accounts of shipwrecks contain crew lists of those lost and of those who survived; in other words In Peril is full of personal names of our forebears, the seamen who went before us and who often paid the price on the hazardous ocean.

Finally, the stories are arranged around towns: either the community where the vessel belonged or sailed out of, or the town near which the shipwreck occurred. Either way it's fascinating reading about the places we know well.