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Shipwrecks and Sailors of Prince Edward Island
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95It has been estimated that between fifteen to twenty thousand ships have meet their end along Canada’s eastern seaboard. Many of these wrecks happened between the 1800s to the mid-1900s when the season of bark, brig, brigantine and schooner came and went. This era left behind literally a vast volume – both recorded in print and preserved in local tales – of heroism and tragedy of mariners young and old.Prince Edward Island’s legacy of tales from the era of all-sail is great: from the wreck of the immigrant-laden Elizabeth at Cascumpec where the castaways were saved by a native; to the unique tale of PEI’s Jessy thrown onto St. Paul’s Island; to the strange tale of Rival caught in the “Yankee Gale” and the SS Quebec’s demise in the death-dealing tides of East Point, Shipwrecks and Sailors of Prince Edward Island, Volume I will fascinate and educate.Then again, island ships were involved with mystery, mayhem and wreck in practically all parts of the North Atlantic: gripped in sandbars of Sable Island, plundered on the rugged coasts of Newfoundland, drifting with no crew off Ireland, wrecked on Nova Scotia’s shores, stranded on the Magdalenes, and “Lost with Crew” in the vast Atlantic.Anything that could happen to a ship has happened to a Prince Edward Island hull and scores of tales within Shipwrecks and Sailors of Prince Edward Island present those weird and wonderful epics. Arranged chronologically, the stories are full of names of our seafaring ancestors, plus descriptions of the local ports that sheltered the ships.For over a hundred years the wooden sailing ship was an important and vital transportation link along the shores of Prince Edward Island. Its maritime records are full of stories in which local ships and their crews played an essential role. Self-sacrifice, daring, skill, wreck and rescue are all part of a fabric which makes up the history of the ships and the heritage of the villages that knew them. Shipwrecks and Sailors of Prince Edward Island has all this and more!
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Ocean of Storms, Sea of Disaster
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95Here are over sixty stories of piracy, fire, explosions, disappearances, rum running, shipboard mutiny and murder. There are also stories of collisions with whales, icebergs and other ships, as well as wrecks on rocks, islands and sand bars. Vessels, large and small, were struck by lightning, shelled or torpedoed by enemy vessels, crushed by Arctic ice, and even swallowed up whole by unexpected intense gales and hurricanes. These true tales of shipwrecks delve into strange and curious marine disasters. The setting, primarily the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, was the main trading route for passenger steamers and treading schooners plying their way to and from Europe and also the site of the much frequented fishing grounds. It is said to be the “stormiest ocean on earth.” The time range in Ocean of Storms, Sea of Disaster is one hundred years, between the 1850s and the 1950s but the stories themselves are timeless.
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Wrecked and Ruined
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95Robert C. Parsons was born in Grand Bank, one of the great Newfoundland seaports for sailing schooners in the salt fish, hook and line era. He attended an all-grade school in his community and later graduated from Memorial University with a master’s degree in Language. Wrecked and Ruined is Robert’s twenty-third book. He frequently contributes sea stories to magazines, journals and newspapers and has appeared on the TV series Disasters of the Century.
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Shipwrecks of New Brunswick
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95In the past 20 years, Robert Parsons has become one of Atlantic Canada’s most popular and prolific writers, specializing in the stories of shipwreck, rescue and survival. He devotes much of his time to researching, writing and promoting the sea-going history of Canada’s eastern provinces, their ships and the people who sailed them. His books include Ocean of Storms, Sea of Disaster, In Peril on the Sea and The Edge of Yesterday: Sea Disasters of Nova Scotia.
