Soviet postage stamp, 1977. Ice-breaker steamship “G. Sedov”. She was originally the Newfoundland sealing steamer Beothic.

Archival Moment

November 19, 1915

On November 20, 1915 The St. John’s newspaper The Evening Telegram reported:

“Another member of our steel sealing fleet the Beothic went out through the narrows last evening (November 19, 1915) never to return again. She proceeds via New York to Archangel, (Arkhangelsk) Russia. The purchase price of the ship was $210,000.”

The 240.4 foot  Beothic was well known and loved in Newfoundland , built by D & W Henderson Limited Glasgow, Scotland and launched in 1909 she was the property of the Job Brothers of St. John’s.

Steel steamers were introduced to the seal fishery in 1906; by 1914, Newfoundland had “the finest fleet of Sealers and Ice-Breakers in the World.” The annual four to six-week hunt could not support such expensive steamers.

The original scale model (approximately 7 feet) of the Beothic that was built for the Job Family of St. John’s is held in a private collection.

With the outbreak of war in 1914 Russia was desperate for steel hull l ships to use as icebreakers to keep White Sea and other Russian ports open for munition ships from Britain. In addition to negotiating for the purchase of the Beothic the Russians were also negotiating with other merchant families in St. John’s for the purchase of other steel hull sealing vessels.

The first ships sold were Reid Newfoundland Company’s freight and passenger steamers Lintrose and Bruce, both of which had been employed on the run between North Sydney and Port aux Basques. By the spring of 1916, five other vessels had been sold to the Russian Admiralty: A.J. Harvey’s icebreakers Bellaventure, Bonaventure, and Adventure; and Baine Johnson’s he Clyde.

On arrival in Russia, the Newfoundland sealing steamer the Beothic was fitted with steam engines and was renamed after Russian Captain and Polar explorer Georgy Yakovlevich Sedov.

This icebreaker became famous as the first Soviet drifting ice station.

In the summer of 1937 the Beothic (renamed the Sedov) and the Bruce (renamed the Malygin) while researching the ice conditions, became trapped by sea ice and drifted helplessly.

Owing to persistent bad weather conditions, part of the stranded crew and some of the scientists could only be rescued in April 1938. The Sedov, had to be left to drift in the ice and was transformed into a scientific polar station.

The Sedov kept drifting northwards in the ice towards the Pole. The scientists aboard took astronomical measurements, made electromagnetic observations, as well as depth measurements by drilling the thick polar ice during their 812-day stay aboard the Sedov.

Eventually, in January 1940, she was rescued and brought into the harbour at Murmansk, Russia.

The former Newfoundland sealing vessel was immortalized by the Russian government in 1977 with the creation of a postage stamp to celebrate the work on the first scientific polar station.

The ship was scrapped at Hamburg, Germany in 1968.

The Newfoundland  icebreaking steamer Bruce (Malygin) is also celebrated on a Russian postage stamp. She was the first Soviet tourist cruise to the Arctic but that is a story for another day.

Recommended Archival Collection: At the Rooms Provincial Archives, VA 44: The   James St. Pierre Knight fonds. This photograph album documents a trip by James St. P. Knight as medical officer on board the Job Brothers sealing steamer Beothic under Master George Barbour. The album is comprised of 41 photographs (b&w) depicting the activities of the sealers on board the SS Beothic and at the ice fields in 1911. The album also includes Knight’s berth ticket to the sealing hunt.

Recommended Reading: Chafe, Levi George. Chafe’s Sealing Book: A History of the Newfoundland Sealfishery from the Earliest Available Records Down to and Including the Voyage of 1923. Ed. H. M. Mosdell. St. John’s: The Trade Printers and Publishers Ltd., 1923.

Recommended Reading: Mike O’Brien, “Producers versus Profiteers: The Politics of Class in Newfoundland during the First World War,” Acadiensis XXXX, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2011): 45-69.

NOTE: Not to be confused with The steamship “Beothic,” formerly named the “Lake Como”, built in Lorain, Ohio, USA in 1918 . The Neptune Steamship Co., Ltd. acquired the vessel and registered it at St. John’s, Newfoundland in 1925. The vessel was re-registered the following year to the Job’s Seal Fishery Co., Ltd., also of St. John’s. The vessel is also well known for its role in the rescue of survivors from the S.S. “Viking” which exploded off Horse Islands, Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland, March 16, 1931. The “Beothic” was first on the scene, and helped to transfer surviving crew members to other ships

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

November 10, 1940

Bell Island Tragedy, November 10, 1940

On Sunday, November 17, 1940  Archbishop Edward Patrick Roche of St. John’s, accompanied by Rev. R. McDermott Murphy, visited the Parish of Portugal Cove for the administration of the sacrament of Confirmation. By the express wish of the Archbishop, all signs of greeting and rejoicing, usually associated with visits of this kind, were omitted, because of the many families in the settlement who lost relatives and friends in the disaster of November 10^th.

Addressing the  parish priest of Holy Rosary Church in Portugal Cove  Archbishop Roche said:

“after the dreadful tragedy which had occurred so near them a week ago, he felt that at the earliest possible moment he would like to tender the heartfelt sympathy of the Church to those who had been bereaved by this terrible disaster.’

There were many sad homes in that section of Conception Bay, many who were mourning their friends and loved ones who had been taken from them with such tragic and appalling suddenness.  The Archbishop said

“To one and all, deepest and most heart-felt sympathy went out.”

The tragedy was the collision of the M.Y.W. Garland, and the little Golden Dawn. Two ferries that were serving the Bell Island. 26 souls who had sailed on the ferry the Garland from Portugal Cove were drowned.

There were only four survivors.  The four survivors were Norman Ash, owner of the Garland, Harbour Grace, Gerald Tucker of St. Philips and two brothers, John and James Quilty of St. Thomas’.

Do you know where I could locate the names of the 26 that died?

Recommended Archival Collection:  At the Rooms Provincial Archives explore GN 13: Dept. of Justice (1934-1949). Drowning Tragedy, Bell Island Tickle: motor boats “Golden Dawn” and “Garland”: 10 Nov. 1940 Description number file 10 Box number Box 215

Recommended Reading: THE MINERS OF WABANA by Gail Weir,St. John’s (Nfld.), Breakwater Press, 1989. (Canada’s Atlantic Folklore and Folklife series).

Archivists are called on to work on projects that are often profoundly emotional.

We have at The Rooms Provincial Archives thousands of stories about the young men and women that served in the First World War. We have thousands of stories about their loved ones who were at home on the ‘home front’.

Archivists at The Rooms Provincial Archives were called on to work on this multimedia project, to help tell one of our many stories.

Take five minutes; look at what archivists can do working with curators, artists and musicians. We have many stories in our archives that have not been told. Archivists want to tell these and other stories.

Watch and listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JeuCgA0rFI

Archival Moment

October 21, 1851

On  October 21, 1851 St.  John’s residents welcomed the first edition of a new newspaper to the streets of the town, The Newfoundland Express.  

In the first editorial in the paper, the Editor, James Seaton wrote that he was confident that his new paper would be successful. He stated that because “the colony is being opened up by means of roads”  a new audience outside of the city was being created.  Seaton, who two years earlier had been the Editor of another St. John’s paper, The Courier also argued that with the establishment of a new inland postal system and that the legislature had passed a new law that newspapers could be sent free of charge, would benefit his new venture. The printer and publisher of the paper was John Thomas Burton.

Establishing a new newspaper in 1850 was a very bold step, the market was very crowded, and there were already nine established newspapers in the St. John’s. They included Courier (1850-1873): Morning Post and Shipping Gazette, (1850-1862);  Newfoundland Express, (1851- 1859);  Newfoundlander, (1851-1879) Patriot and Terra-Nova Herald, (1850-18900,  Pilot (1852-1853):  Public Ledger, (1850-1879); and the Royal Gazette, (1850-1909).

The estimated population of Newfoundland in 1851 was 100,000, the population of St. John’s approximately 31,000.

The Newfoundland Express published foreign and local news, legislative proceedings, shipping news, and advertisements.  It also boasted a poet’s corner. The paper was Conservative in editorial policy and one of two Wesleyan newspapers in St. John’s.  At this time in the history of the country (now province) most of the newspapers had a denominational attachment.

Initially the new paper published semiweekly eventually becoming a daily. In 1866 the formal title of the paper changed from Newfoundland Express to Express. The last known issue published was in July 1876.

Recommended Archival Collection:  At The Rooms Provincial Archives take some time to  read  copies of  The Newfoundland Express (The Express) that can be found on microfilm. The editions available at the Rooms Provincial Archives are 1862-[1863]-1864, [1866-1870]-1872.

Recommended Website:  For an Historical Directory of all Newfoundlandand Labrador Newspapers go to:  http://www.library.mun.ca/qeii/newspapers/index.php

Recommended Activity:  Find the date of birth of your grandfather, grandmother  or your parents  find a newspaper for that date and read about the world that he or she were born into.