Collected Works

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta,
co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views of
Canada, 1880-1914, and co-editor of The Collected Works of E.J. Pratt.

Ask any Canadian to begin a well-known folk song, and the result might
well be “Oh this is the place where the fishermen gather, / In
oil-skins and boots and Cape Anns battened down.” Few, however, will
know that the author of “The Squid Jiggin’ Ground” was Arthur
Scammell, and fewer still will know that this amiable
ex-Newfoundlander—who taught school in Montreal for 28 years, and who
was recently awarded the Order of Canada—wrote many other ballads and
short stories, all collected here for the first time.

It is not a vast output, but a few gems are worth more than many
stones. And there are gems here. The poetry, apart from the better-known
ballads “The Six-Horse-Power Coaker” and “Long May Your Big Jib
Draw,” is not exceptional, though it is pleasant; but the personal
sketches and short stories reveal a rare talent for storytelling. The
sketches (chiefly reminiscences of life in Newfoundland prior to 1939)
vivify the outport lifestyle with wit and clarity, bringing us face to
face with the community’s charming and eccentric old-timers. In one
piece, “The Miraculous Haul of Fishes,” Scammel offers a delightful
example of Newfoundland dialect and ingenuity, by having an old
fisherman retell the passage from St. Luke about Christ’s miracle on
the “lake of Jenny Saret.” That alone is worth this book’s price.
The short stories are a bonus. In “The Culler,” “Fish and
Brewis,” “The War Bridge,” and others, we get not only a further
glimpse of Newfoundland society, but a look into the Newfoundland soul
as well.

This collection contains wit, humor, poignancy, and pathos; all of
which make it well worth reading.