Linden Macintyre will be at The Eden Mills Writers’ Festival on Sunday Sept 8th, reading from his new book, The Wake, a retelling of the aftermath of the terrifying tsunami In Newfoundland on Nov. 18, 1929.
Not only is this a compelling oral history but it is also the story of Linden’s family and his neighbours. He has never left his Newfoundland roots and his deep regard for them shows on every page.
The tsunami killed many people. They heard the roar before they saw it. Houses were picked up like matches and the people in them taken to their graves. It demolished boats and harbours and even decimated the fish, which never returned.
Women screamed and prayed. Men stood silent and scared. Many people had never heard the word tsunami. They stood alone in their terror for days. Communication was so bad that word of the tragedy took days to reach anyone outside the Burin Peninsula. As one person remembers feeling, “Everything we have is gone and we are ruined."
But this was just beginning of their misfortune. There was little time for grieving because with the fishery gone how were the residents of the Burin Peninsula to feed their families and purchase their few necessities?
Of course here is where capitalism saw an opportunity. An American investor, unencumbered by regulations and with Canadian banks as major investors, understood the wealth of mineral deposits under the ground. Mining became the solution to the lost fishery in the whole region. With the majority of people on the meagre dole, the men of the area were forced to work for no pay, just credit at the local stores. When the company didn’t pay the stores, the stores wouldn’t extend credit. For years this was the constant tug and pull between work and starvation.
The tsunami may have killed many people quickly, but daily work underground silently stole the breath from miner after miner. For years many worked without masks or protective material. There was no place to wash the dust from the day’s gruelling work so many took that dust into their homes and showered there.
Lung cancer was the terrible result for many. The government and mining company attributed these deaths to smoking and refused to pay compensation. The incidence of lung cancer was 29 times higher than expected in a community of its size. Many years later, bolstered by a very lackadaisical Royal Commission, it was substantiated that the vector of disease was silicosis from mine air, which causes lung cancer. Meagre compensation was finally given to the traumatized families.
I believe this book will be nominated for every non-fiction award this fall. Macintyre is one of Canada’s most admired journalists. That’s because he adheres to Hannah Arendt’s word placed on the last page. “Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs.”
