Gerald Hallowell - The August Gales: The Tragic Loss of Fishing Schooners in the North Atlantic 1926 and 1927

The Uda R. Corkum racing in 1921. (Maritime Museum of the Atlantic)

U nder a brilliant blue Lunenburg sky, the vessels of the fleet riding calmly at anchor in the placid waters of the harbour, it was difficult to imagine the horrors the men had faced in the raging, roiling seas off Sable Island. The brutal North Atlantic storm, on August 78, 1926, had sent fifty men to a watery grave.

Some six or seven thousand people had gathered in the small town on Nova Scotias South Shore in early October to mourn the loss of two banks schooners, the Sylvia Mosher and the Sadie A. Knickle, vanished forever beneath the waves with all hands on board. Men, women, and children arrived in six hundred automobiles, and more people came by sailboat, rowboat, and motorboat from the fishing villages along the shore. The steamer O. K. Service brought a hundred relatives and friends of the fishermen who were lost from the LaHave Islands and the western part of the county.

The procession formed at the courthouse, and at half past three made its way down the steep streets to the waterfront, where businesses were flying the flag at half-mast. The First Battalion Band, which led the parade, was followed by sea captains, merchants, robed choirs of the various churches, officers of the Canadian government ships Arleux and Arras in port for the occasion, town council members, as well as clergy from the town and from neighbouring communities. The crowd marched to the wharves of Zwicker & Company, where a service was held in memory of those brave sons of Lunenburg County, who lost their lives on the great waters and in prosecuting the fishing industry.

With people crowding the wharves and the decks of schooners, with the band and the choirs now on board a newly built vessel at the head of one of the finger wharves, Mayor Arthur W. Schwartz conducted the proceedings that opened with a well-known hymn:

O Holy Spirit, Who didst brood,

Upon the waters dark and rude,

And bid their angry tumult cease,

And give for wild confusion, peace;

O hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea.

Ministers of the various town churches said prayers and read scripture. Rev. R. J. M. Park of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church remembered seeing the vessels of the fleet gliding out of the harbour and disappearing on the bosom of the Atlantic; prayers had been said then, he recalled, for their safe return, and all looked bright until the storm off Sable Island carried the captains and the crews to their death. Why death took our young, strong men, we cannot understand, but bow our heads to Gods will.

After the hymn Lead Kindly Light, Rev. W. E. Ryder of St. Johns Anglican Church read the names of the men who did not return: Lunenburg County names like Captain John D. Mosher, Captain Charles Corkum, Warren Wagner, Parker Wamback, Basil Shankle, Ladonia Whynacht, Caleb Baker, Rounsfell Greek, Hastings Himmelman, James Tanner.

Following the committal a large floral anchor and wreaths were cast on the waters by Mayor Schwartz. A volley was fired from the government ships in the port, the band played a march of the dead, the hymn Jesus, Lover of My Soul, and Canon Harris, Anglican rector of Mahone Bay, offered a benediction.

The Lunenburg Argus described the service as impressive throughout. The ceremony that mourned the finest and best in the county, declared the Lunenburg Progress-Enterprise on October 6, was the most touching and soul stirring ever witnessed in the town.

Unbelievably, sadly, the ceremony was repeated a year later, for a terrific storm on August 24, 1927, took many more lives at Sable Island. This time four schooners of the Lunenburg fishing fleet sank beneath the tumultuous wavesthe Joyce M. Smith, the Mahala, the Clayton W. Walters, and the Uda R. Corkum. Over eighty more men were lost off the graveyard of the Atlantic.

Once again, on Sunday, October 9, thousands of people poured into town, by car and by boat, to pay their respects to the fishermen who had left their homes that summer to win their livelihood and failed to return.

Never in its history had the County of Lunenburg known such widespread sorrow, declared the local press. Flags all over town flew at half-mast. The Progress-Enterprise commented that the previous years disaster was seen at the time as the greatest tragedy that could befall the hamlets and villages of Lunenburg County; but, now, the loss of four vessels and their crews led to a sadness beyond the depth of human ken.

A service was held in the square surrounding the bandstand, a fitting place, it was said, for there stood the monument erected in memory of the gallant young men of the town who had made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War. Once more the ceremony was presided over by Mayor Schwartz. The battalion band and the massed choirs of the town led the singing of hymns.

Jesus, Saviour, pilot me

Over lifes tempestuous sea;

Unknown waves before me roll,

Hiding rock and treacherous shoal;

Chart and compass come from Thee,