Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate a sad saga in Newfoundland history, as Sunday March 30 marked the 100th anniversary of the great sealing disaster of 1914, which claimed the lives of 251 Newfoundland men and boys as they worked on the edge of dangerous ice floes to earn a living for their families.
These men and boys, some as young as 13, would travel miles to the ice front. They would hunt in treacherous ice conditions and winter snow storms in temperatures that were below -30.
A hundred years ago these men were ordered onto the ice in the middle of a storm, a vicious snow storm with drifting so bad there was no visibility and they could not make their way back to the ship.
So 78 of them perished on the ice floes of the cold Atlantic. It was that same storm that took down the sealing ship, Southern Cross, and with it the lives of another 173 men and boys of our province.
Today we remember them and their determination and the importance of the industry in which they partook.