Excerpt: Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, installment #8

The following excerpt is from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. A true account of Grenfell's near death experience, the story was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

The unabridged audiobook edition narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence is available as a digital download from rattlingbooks.com.  You can mail order the audiobook CD or just walk in to Fred's Records on Duckworth Street in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador and pick up a copy.

Excerpt

Meanwhile I had frayed out a small piece of rope into oakum, and mixed it with fat from the intestines of my dogs. Alas, my match-box, which was always chained to me, had leaked, and my matches were in pulp. Had I been able to make a light, it would have looked so unearthly out there on the sea that I felt sure they would see me. But that chance was now cut off. However, I kept the matches, hoping that I might dry them if I lived through the night. While working at the dogs, about every five minutes I would stand up and wave my hands toward the land. I had no flag, and I could not spare my shirt, for, wet as it was, it was better than nothing in that freezing wind, and, anyhow, it was already nearly dark.

Unfortunately, the coves in among the cliffs are so placed that only for a very narrow space can the people in any house see the sea. Indeed, most of them cannot see it at all, so that I could not in the least expect any one to see me, even supposing it had been daylight.

Not daring to take any snow from the surface of my pan to break the wind with, I piled up the carcasses of my dogs. With my skin rug I could now sit down without getting soaked. During these hours I had continually taken off all my clothes, wrung them out, swung them one by one in the wind, and put on first one and then the other inside, hoping that what heat there was in my body would thus serve to dry them. In this I had been fairly successful.

To be continued.

Audiobook sale in celebration of International Migratory Bird Day

From now 

through May 13

 in celebration of 

International Migratory Bird Day

save 30%  

when you purchase the digitally downloadable poetry audiobook
Songs for the Songs of Birds
poems for and about birds written and read
by Don McKay
for
Rattling Books

Globe and Mail chats with Joel Thomas Hynes on songwriting

Between the Acts: Joel Thomas Hynes on the agony and ease of songwriting The Globe and Mail In Between the Acts, The Globe and Mail takes a look at how artists manage their time before and after a creative endeavour. Joel Thomas Hynes's ... Joel Thomas Hynes has written and narrated several works of fiction, a couple recorded by Rattling Books which you can buy as digital download audiobooks or as MP3 CDs. Down to the Dirt by Joel Thomas Hynes the unabridged audiobook purchase the digital download audiobook order the MP3 audiobook CD  Say Nothing Saw Wood by Joel Thomas Hynes purchase the digital download audiobook order the MP3 audiobook CD EarLit Shorts 1 on which Say Nothing Saw Wood appears

Excerpt: Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, installment #7

The following excerpt is from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. A true account of Grenfell's near death experience, the story was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

The unabridged audiobook edition of Adrift on an Ice-Pan narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence is available from rattlingbooks.com as a digital download or mail order CD. Or you can walk in to Fred's Records in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador and buy one off the shelf.

Excerpt

In spite of my care the struggling dog bit me rather badly in the leg. I suppose my numb hands prevented my holding his throat as I could ordinarily do. Moreover, I must hold the knife in the wound to the end, as blood on the fur would freeze solid and make the skin useless. In this way I sacrificed two more large dogs, receiving only one more bite, though I fully expected that the pan I was on would break up in the struggle. The other dogs, who were licking their coats and trying to get dry, apparently took no notice of the fate of their comrades, but I was very careful to prevent the dying dogs crying out, for the noise of fighting would probably have been followed by the rest attacking the down dog, and that was too close to me to be pleasant. A short shrift seemed to me better than a long one, nd I envied the dead dogs whose troubles were over so quickly. Indeed, I came to balance in my mind whether, if once I passed into the open sea, it would not be better by far to use my faithful knife on myself than to die by inches. There seemed no hardship in the thought. I seemed fully to sympathize with the Japanese view of hara-kiri.

Working, however, saved me from philosophizing. By the time I had skinned these dogs, and with my knife and some of the harness had strung the skins together, I was ten miles on my way, and it was getting dark.

Away to the northward I could see a single light in the little village where I had slept the night before, where I had received the kindly hospitality of the simple fishermen in whose comfortable homes I have spent many a night. I could not help but think of them sitting down to tea, with no idea that there was any one watching them, for I had told them not to expect me back for three days.

To be continued.

Physical Location of John Steffler's audiobook "The Grey Islands"

The Columbia Gazetteer of North America. 2000

Grey Islands

Grey Islands, group of 2 islands off NE N.F., Canada, in the Atlantic. Largest isl. is Bell Isl. or Grey Isl. South (34 sq mi/88 sq km), 50 mi/80 km N of Cape St. John; 10 mi/16 km long, 7 mi/11 km wide; 50°44'N 55°35°W. Site of lighthouse (SW) and radio station. N of Bell Isl., 7 mi/11 km, is Groais Isl. or Grey Isl. North (16 sq mi/41 sq km); 7 mi/11 km long, 4 mi/6 km wide. Both isls. are hilly, rising to over 500 ft/152 m. Village of Grey Islands Harbour at Rocky Bay, S end of Bell Isl.

The Grey Islands are the main setting for John Steffler's Canadian poetry classic The Grey Islands.  The unabridged audiobook edition is brought to you by Rattling Books.

The Grey Islands audiobook is available as a digital download online or as a mail order audio CD from Rattling Books on ABEbooks.com.

The Grey Islands audiobook CD is also available online from Fred's Records or by walking in to Fred's Records store on Duckworth Street, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Helen Porter's new book reviewed in Telegram by Joan Sullivan

Joan Sullivan: Helen Fogwill Porter comes full circle

Helen Fogwill Porter’s debut novel, “January, February, June or July,” (1988) won the Young Adult Canadian Book Award from the Canadian Library Association.

She’s published two other novels, most recently “Finishing School” (2007) as well as a (exceptional) memoir, “Below the Bridge” (1980), and written plays and poetry.

Despite this output, Porter is almost as well known for her championship of social causes.

On behalf of artists, she has been deeply involved with both the Writer’s Guild and Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador

On broader issues, Porter is a founding member of the Newfoundland Status of Women Council, and has run for the NDP; a fund named for her and aiding women running in politics was established in 2003. She still advocates on matters important to her and not too long ago could be found outside city hall protesting on behalf of low-income single parents.

In 2015 she received the Order of Canada.

Porter writes with authenticity and wit. No one chronicles working class women as she does. She draws from her own life, with generosity, openness, and no pretense.

 “Full Circle” is an autobiographical collection.

Usually fairly short, these pieces are capsules, portraits of moments. Often these are painful.

Just as often they are funny. The poems are divided into three sections: “Before The Fall,” “A Woman’s Work,” and “Full Circle.”

They are formatted with textual breath and line breaks, rather than formal rhyme beats or schemes.

The effect is conversational.

Part 1 includes “Orange Papers”: “thin and delicate / they survived a long sea voyage / to reach my open hands / I liked to touch them / flatten them with my fingers / smooth them out one by one / and store them in the sideboard / to sniff and handle / on all the days when there’d be / no oranges”

Along with such a delicate and tactile memory comes something much sharper, if in a sense less tangible: “Shock Treatment”: “The orderly unlocked the door / to let us in / and then locked it again / behind us.”

She discusses religion, or more properly faith. The need for compassion. Not taking things on assumption: “Mea Culpa”: He talked with authority / about the proper use of stress / suggesting that one way to combat it / was to hire a cleaning woman / (he didn’t mention the cleaning woman’s stress).

Read the whole article at the Telegram.

Rattling Books audiobook CDs available at Freds Records and on ABEBooks

Rattling Books is a Canadian audiobook publisher in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Rattling Books is a small independent audiobook publisher in Newfoundland and Labrador.




We like to say we're so small, we're fine.

Our catalogue of audiobooks that are available as physical CDs and MP3 CDs are available for mail order from two sources:

ABEBooks.com

and

Freds Records where if you are lucky enough to find yourself in St. John's, Newfoundland you can walk right in to their store and buy Rattling Books off the shelf.

Excerpt: Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, installment #6

The following excerpt is from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. A true account of Grenfell's near death experience, the story was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

The downloadable unabridged audiobook edition of Adrift on an Ice-Pan narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence is available from Rattling Books.  The audiobook CD is available from abebooks
or Freds Records in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Excerpt

I had not drifted more than half a mile before I saw my poor komatik disappear through the ice, which was every minute loosening up into the small pans that it consisted of, and it seemed like a friend gone and one more tie with home and safety lost. To the northward, about a mile distant, lay the mainland along which I had passed so merrily in the morning, - only, it seemed, a few moments before.

By mid-day I had passed the island to which I had crossed on the ice bridge. I could see that the bridge was gone now. If I could reach the island I should only be marooned and destined to die of starvation. But there was little chance of that, for I was rapidly driving into the ever widening bay.

It was scarcely safe to move on my small ice raft, for fear of breaking it. Yet I saw I must have the skins of some of my dogs, of which I had eight on the pan, if I was to live the night out. There was now some three to five miles between me and the north side of the bay. There, immense pans of Arctic ice, surging to and fro on the heavy ground seas, were thundering into the cliffs like medieval battering-rams. It was evident that, even if seen, I could hope for no help from that quarter before night. No boat could live through the surf.

Unwinding the sealskin traces from my waist, round which I had wound them to keep the dogs from eating them, I made a slip-knot, passed it over the first dog's head, tied it round my foot close to his neck, threw him on his back, and stabbed him in the heart. Poor beast! I loved him like a friend, a beautiful dog, but we could not all hope to live. In fact, I had no hope any of us would, at that time, but it seemed better to die fighting.To be continued.

Excerpt: Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, installment #5

The following excerpt is from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. A true account of Grenfell's near death experience, the story was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company. The unabridged audiobook edition narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence is available as a digital download from rattlingbooks.com or in physical CD form from Freds Records.

Excerpt

I had decided I would rather stake my chances on a long swim even than perish by inches on the floe, as there was no likelihood whatever of being seen and rescued. But, keenly though I watched, not a streak even of clear water appeared, the interminable sish rising from below and filling every gap as it appeared. We were now resting on a piece of ice about ten by twelve feet, which, as I found when I came to examine it, was not ice at all, but simply snow-covered slob frozen into a mass, and I feared it would very soon break up in the general turmoil of the heavy sea, which was increasing as the ice drove off shore before the wind.

At first we drifted in the direction of a rocky point on which a heavy surf was breaking. Here I thought once again to swim ashore. But suddenly we struck a rock. A large piece broke off the already small pan, and what was left swung round in the backwash, and started right out to sea.

There was nothing for it now but to hope for a rescue. Alas! There was little possibility of being seen. As I have already mentioned, no one lives around this big bay. My only hope was that the other komatik, knowing I was alone and had failed to keep my tryst, would perhaps come back to look for me. This, however, as it proved, they did not do.

The westerly wind was rising all the time, our coldest wind at this time of the year, coming as it does over the Gulf ice. It was tantalizing, as I stood with next to nothing on, the wind going through me and every stitch soaked in ice-water, to see my well-stocked komatik some fifty yards away. It was still above water, with food, hot tea in a thermos bottle, dry clothing, matches, wood, and everything on it for making a fire to attract attention.

It is easy to see a dark object on the ice in the daytime, for the gorgeous whiteness shows off the least thing. But the tops of bushes and large pieces of kelp have often deceived those looking out. Moreover, within our memory no man has been thus adrift on the bay ice. The chances were about one in a thousand that I should be seen at all, and if I were seen, I should probably be mistaken for some piece of refuse.

To keep from freezing, I cut off my long moccasins down to the feet, strung out some line, split the legs, and made a kind of jacket, which protected my back from the wind down as far as the waist. I have this jacket still, and my friends assure me it would make a good Sunday garment.
To be continued.