Toll of the Sea: Stories from the Forgotten Coast Creative Publishers, St. John's: 1995 To Order Book (Go to site) Robert Parsons - Newfoundland Author

I realized that many unwritten folktales and stories of large and small schooners existed in their towns -- stories with elements of tragedy and mystery. A year after Wake of the Schooners, I began capsule histories of Newfoundland towns from Red Island, Placentia Bay to Port aux Basques. Local histories of forty-three communities, including towns have since been abandoned, were coupled with fascinating sea stories.

Bay L'Argent: One of this town's seamen confronts an enemy German sub while watching his schooner Robert Max being shelled.

Burgeo: Abandoning tern schooner Enid E. Legge in mid-Atlantic was no easy chore for a Burgeo crew.

Marystown: Crossing the angry seas had a double meaning for five Marystown seamen aboard the Gladys Wiscombe.

Rencontre West: A schooner disappears taking many of the town's male population with her.

Grand Bank: Several stories of shipwreck and storms including that of Alhambia, a hard-luck vessel.

Fortune: Six Fortune seamen fought the treacherous Atlantic, but without success.

Several other historic South Coast towns...such as Belleoram, Boat Harbour, Burin, English Harbour West (and East), Mose Ambrose, Flat Island, Garnish, Harbour Breton, Harbour Mille, Jersey Harbour, Rencontre East, Ramea, Rose Blanche, Red Harbour, St. Bernard's, St. Lawrence and more.

By January 1995, over forty towns -- and sixty stories -- had been researched complete with oral retellings of schooner disappearances, wreck and ruin on shores near and far. Gratefully, Creative Publishers was interested and in August, 1995, Toll of the Sea became reality.

The cover artwork, an original painting created by Jim Miles of Marystown, is outstanding...