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National Geographic : 1974 Jan
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Sally's Cove, I found on the rocky beach the rusted hulk of the coastal steamer Ethie. Al though she foundered in a storm in 1919, she is still celebrated in song and story. When the 400-ton vessel began to break up, the cap tain drove her toward shore until the ship grounded. He threw over a lifeline attached to a breeches buoy, and a dog swam out from land and carried the line back. Everybody aboard-some 120 souls-reached shore. The Ethie is not by any means the only wreck to be seen on the island's coasts. The hulks range from fishing craft of every size to victims of Nazi U-boats. Storm's Sudden Fury Stirs Local Pride Newfoundlanders like to brag about the unpredictability of their weather. "It'll ne'er be the same twenty mile from here nor twen ty minutes from now." Shortly after I arrived on the island, a freak gale eluded the weather men and struck without warning. The New fies bragged about that, too, though it caused two large trawlers to collide and one to sink, taking five crewmen with it. When I remarked to a retired fisherman that I'd heard of six shipwrecks during just my first week on the island, he snorted, "Lard, in my time there'd've been sixty in a week!" Back in the interior I visited Buchans, a vil lage inhabited entirely by miners and their families. It grew up around the extensive mines operated by the American Smelting and Refining Company, which for more than forty years has been bringing up from two thirds of a mile below the surface some 1,300 tons of ore a day. The ore consists mainly of lead and zinc, but also contains appreciable quantities of silver and gold. There are nine other mines on the island, and they produce everything from asbestos and gypsum to iron and fluorspar. Mining is actually Newfoundland's most profitable in dustry. Although it employs far fewer people than fishing, mining earns seven times as much money for the province. "Even so," a geologist told me rather wist fully, "the people consider mining a not quite-respectable occupation. It's all right in good times, but at the slightest quiver in the
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