Gordon Walsh - Into the Night. The Samantha Walsh Story

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank George and Millie Walsh for putting their faith in me to do this story about their daughter Samantha.

I would like to say a special thank you to my wife Clotilda and daughter Joy for their help, also my daughters Helena, Roberta, Kristie, and my son Gordon. To those who did the photocopying and offered the use of their newspaper clippings and photographs, thanks.

Thanks go to authors Carmelita McGrath for suggesting the title Into the Night , Tom Moore for referring me to Flanker Press, and Kenneth Young for reading the manuscript. At Flanker Press, thanks to editor Jerry Cranford, Margo Cranford, Vera McDonald, and publisher Garry Cranford.

Thanks go to Maura Hanrahan for writing the foreword to the book and to Paul Butler who edited the book by long-distance from Ottawa.

Foreword

A few days after the lifeless body of thirteen-year-old Samantha Walsh was found, reporter Ryan Cleary wrote in the Telegram : the Baie Verte Peninsula, like every other nook and cranny of the province, cries out in distress over the loss of Sammy B.

Cleary was not exaggerating or being sentimental; this was the truth.

I was in St. Anthony Airport on my way to coastal Labrador when word spread through the lounge that the missing girl from Fleur de Lys had been found dead. The airport terminus was eerily quiet. Such a grim discovery was expectedSam had been gone for eighteen long, cold winter daysbut everyone who heard the news was grief-stricken. People silently shed tears or tried to hold them back.

Eventually I flew farther north into the Metis community of Black Tickle to find that the high-school students there had written a letter of sympathy to Samanthas friends in Fleur de Lys. As I travelled, I made the same discovery as author Gordon Walsh as he went back and forth over the provinces roads: that ours was a collective grief.

This might seem odd, though, as most of us had not heard of Samantha until she went missing that Sunday night. Nor were her parents well known. Like hundreds of other outports, Samanthas home community was a quiet little place you did not hear much about. And she was not the first Newfoundland child to disappear in this manner; just before Christmas in 1981, fourteen-year-old Dana Bradley was abducted and murdered in St. Johns, the capital city. Newfoundlanders still remember Danas name. Well never forget Sams either.

Samantha Bertha Walsh was born on May 27, 1986in Newfoundland. Her mother Millie Lewis Walsh was nine months pregnant and living in Fort McMurray, Alberta, when her husband George bundled his family into their truck and headed straight for home. George was determined that his baby would be born a Newfoundlander. And she was.

Samantha was a proud Newfoundlander, too. In her haunting rendition of Saltwater Joys (renamed Samanthas Song after her death) she sings, I was born down by the water and its here Im going to stay, Ive searched for all the reasons why I should go away

Samantha was only five when the groundfish moratorium brought a centuries-old way of life to a halt. With no viable future in sight, thousands of families closed their homes forever and drove off to the mainland. Some of them were Sams neighbours on the Baie Verte Peninsula. Listening to Samantha sing, you sense that shes considered all the turmoil into which her island had been thrown. And shes chosen to respond with stubbornness and determination in spite of that. After all, she was Georges daughter.

Then as Samanthas picture flashed on the Newfoundland television news every night, she became everyones daughter. We grew familiar with the little round clips that held her brown hair to the side of her head, the big grin, the bright eyes, the baby fat she still carried on her cheeks. We didnt know a lot about her, though, only that she was missing and that, as the days went by unchanging, an entire community was being driven mad with frustration and grief. These people, the people of Fleur de Lys, were coping with the apparent loss of one of their children in what seemed to be the most heinous way. For them, this was the most awful in-your-face nightmare. And it was so unexpected.

Fleur de Lys is the most northerly community on the Baie Verte Peninsula on Newfoundlands northeast coast. It has a long-standing association with French fishermen who named it after a large rock in the harbour that reminded them of their national flower, the fleur-de-lys or lily. Petit Nord, a rich fishing ground, was nearby, and it kept the French coming back to this area year after year. Once part of the French Shore, Fleur de Lys welcomed French fishermen long after their presence had diminished elsewhere on the coast. For many years, the community was an important stopover for vessels en route to Labrador or France.

According to the regions oral history, the first settlers were Michael and Robert Walsh. The 1857 census reports that there were thirty people living in Fleur de Lys, all Roman Catholic. Some of the early settlers could speak French, and relations between the two ethnic groups were generally smooth. Tradition also says, though, that the settlers moved their boats and nets from certain fishing grounds in response to threats from the seasonal French fishermen. However they managed it, overt conflict was avoidedas it was many years later as the community coped with a missing child and suspicions that one among them was guilty.

Samanthas forebears, the Walshes, were of Irish descent. By 1869, they were neighbours to the Lewises, believed to be of French origins (their original name may be Louis). This is Samanthas mothers family. Shortly after the Lewises arrived, the first school was built. Its not known if the Lewises were the driving force behind the school, but their descendant Millie became a teacher.