Monthly Archives: September 2010

Wreck of the Florizel

The sailors were washed about the deck, frantically clawing at anything that came to hand to keep from going overboard. Some were taken over the side. Aft of the smokestack on the port side, the steel lifeboat, still in its chocks, was torn from the deck, carried over the smokestack, and dropped athwart the deck between [...]
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Loyalists to Upper Canada

My father, Michael Grass, lived, at the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, on a farm about 30 miles above New York. He was a native of Germany, but had lived most of his time in America. When the Revolution commenced General Herkimer sent my father an invitation to join the Americans and offered him [...]
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The sinking of Empress of Ireland

The horrible fact, about which there can be no dispute, is that the Storstad crashed bow on into the side of the big Canadian liner, striking it on the starboard side about midway of its length. The steel-sheathed bow of the collier cut through the plates and shell of the Empress and penetrated the hull [...]
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By the sound of her whistle

It was noon on a hot, bright August day. A light breeze, coming up the lake from the west, sent patches of white, fluffy cloud before it, and kicked up saucy, gently curling whitecaps in the main channel beyond the point. Here, on the lee side of the island, the water was still, save for the [...]
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Keeping up with the blog

I haven’t been very faithful to you, have I? I have to admit that at the start of the year when I began writing this blog, and collecting some of my old archival items for the Solid Gold Box, I was worried about what would happen with it once summer rolled along. Summer can be crazy. [...]
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In the lumber woods

With most of this class of men, their “eve of departure” is an occasion of great jollification, and, to use the expression, they arrive at the station “loaded for moose,” and in the right mood to either fight, sing, dance or sleep, just as they may be affected, so that should the one in charge [...]
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Bruce Wishart
Whimsies. Sometimes about writing.
Sometimes about folklore. Sometimes
about the sea, or life on the coast.
And sometimes not.