An epic tale of war and triumph by award-winning author Gary Collins

“One of Canada’s master storytellers.” Miramichi Reader

Jake is born at the turn of the twentieth century on a small outport island on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. He is distinguished from everyone else by a full head of red hair. And to single him out further, Jake has a pronounced speech impediment. Scorned, abused physically and mentally by his father for his stuttering tongue and especially for his questionable parentage, Jake endures. Then still a boy, Jake is found alone in a punt upon an empty sea, on the fishing grounds without his father, whose fate is suspect.

Jake lies about his age and secures a berth aboard the SS Stephano, captained by the famous Old Man of the seal hunt, where he witnesses the SS Newfoundland disaster of 1914. On the ice, Jake comes face to face with one of the Newfoundland‘s sealers known as the Culler. He is a mirror image of Jake—complete with red hair. With the other sealers, the Culler is ordered to leave the Stephano despite the brewing storm. Jake doesn’t know if he survived the ensuing disaster or was among the many victims.

Returning from the seal hunt with fewer dollars than he expected, Jake learns that evidence has been hauled from the sea which could incriminate him in his father’s death. Again he lies about his age, this time to earn real money by fighting overseas in the First World War. In the diseased filth and terror of a Gallipoli trench, he learns that sometimes a salary can come the hard way. Thoughts of a girl back home keep him motivated to push on through the horrors of war.

On returning home, Jake learns the Culler had not only survived the Newfoundland disaster but is now living on his island, where the two are destined to meet again in a dramatic conclusion.

Gary Collins was born in a small, two-storey house by the sea in the town of Hare Bay, Bonavista North. He finished school at Brown Memorial High in the same town. He spent forty years in the logging and sawmilling business with his father, Theophilus, and son Clint. Gary was once Newfoundland’s youngest fisheries guardian. He managed log drives down spring rivers for years, spent seven seasons driving tractor-trailers over ice roads and the Beaufort Sea of Canada’s Western Arctic, and has been involved in the crab, lobster, and cod commercial fisheries.His writing career began when he was asked to write eulogies for deceased friends and family. He spent a full summer employed as a prospector before he wrote Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine; he liked the work so much, he went back to school to earn his prospecting certificate. A critically acclaimed author, he has written a total of eight books, including Cabot Island, The Last Farewell, Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine, Where Eagles Lie Fallen, Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman, A Day on the Ridge, and the children’s illustrated book What Colour is the Ocean?, which he co-wrote with his granddaughter, Maggie Rose Parsons. The latter won an Atlantic Book Award: The Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration.Gary Collins is Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite storyteller, and today he is known all over the province as the “Story Man.” His favourite pastimes are reading and writing, and playing guitar at his log cabin. He lives in Hare Bay, Newfoundland, with his wife, the former Rose Gill. They have three children and three grandchildren.

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