Futility Closet

In 1914, 132 sealers found themselves stranded on a North Atlantic icefield as a bitter blizzard approached. Thinly dressed and with little food, they faced a harrowing night on the ice. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the Newfoundland sealing disaster, one of the most dramatic chapters in Canadian maritime history. We'll also meet another battlefield dog and puzzle over a rejected necklace. Intro: England has seen some curious cricket matches. In 1940 two Australian planes collided in midair and landed as one. Above: Crewmembers carry bodies aboard the Bellaventure. Sources for our feature on the 1914 sealing disaster: Cassie Brown, Death on the Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914, 2015. Melvin Baker, "The Struggle for Influence and Power: William Coaker, Abram Kean, and the Newfoundland Sealing Industry, 1908–1915," Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 28:1 (2013). Willeen Keough, "(Re-) Telling Newfoundland Sealing Masculinity: Narrative and Co