The Badger Riot.

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British
Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and author of The Salvation Army and the
Public.

Between January and March 1959, Newfoundland experienced one of the fiercest labour disputes in its history when Newfoundland loggers struck against the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company for better wages and working conditions. When the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) came in to organize the loggers and take over from their old union, all hell broke loose. Premier Joey Smallwood, a long-time union supporter, intervened and decertified the IWA, thus precipitating a conflict between loggers and police at Badger, during which a policeman was killed. The IWA union was broken, driven from the island; a new union was established and little was resolved, leaving only bitterness, a trail of bloodshed, and a town shattered by divided loyalties and long visited by dreadful memories of unnecessary hatred and violence. It is these memories that Judy Ricketts so vividly recalls in this novel (or, more accurately, fictionalized history) of the Badger riot. She does so skilfully, introducing us to the milieu (the beautiful peaceful place that prehistoric Badger once was), then to the people who came to make their living there, the working conditions in the lumber woods, and finally, through the eyes of those participants, the scenes of the riot itself.

Although the novel sometimes reads too much like history, Ricketts nevertheless invests her story with convincing personality and a real sense of poignancy in the sad conflicts between friends and families; the motives are complex and sometimes difficult to understand, the matter of blame not easily assigned, and this, too, she handles with true compassion. All in all, though recounting many painful moments, The Badger Riot is a pleasure to read and a valuable contribution to our understanding of those few months that traumatized the province.