Literature:

Farley Mowat (Illustrated by David Blackwood), Wake of the Great Sealers, Toronto, 1973, pages 80-83, illustrated in colour.

Note:

Mowat writes that, “decades of hard usage had, in the words of one of [the S.S. Viking’s] last skippers, ‘fair taken the good right out of her.’ Nevertheless, she was still considered good enough to carry one hundred and fifty men into the most dangerous waters in the North Atlantic and into the violence of the pack ice.” On Saturday, March 14th, 1931, the S.S. Viking found itself jammed in ice when Captain Kean decided to settle in his cabin for the night, the ship anchored in place with an “ice claw” anchor. Due to the limited size of the ship’s magazine, cases of ammunition and blasting powder, commonly carried by sealing vessels to free the ships when jammed within the ice, were also stored “across the narrow hall in a tiny, doorless cubicle that also held the vessel’s only toilet.” When the wind changed suddenly, the S.S. Viking “lurched violently to starboard, heeling over so sharply that the bogey [stove] fell on its side, spilling burning coals all over the floor and down the alleyway.” Bursting from his cabin, Captain Kean “was just about to call the bo’s’n to put another ice claw out and make fast when the whole stern of the ship buckled beneath his feet. He was flung far out over the ice in the red glare of a tremendous explosion. The Viking’s magazine had gone up with a colossal roar...in a pillar of flame!”

This lot is accompanied by a copy of “Wake of the Great Sealers” by Farley Mowat and David Blackwood, which bears the artist’s signature on the title page.