As Near to Heaven by Sea: A History of Newfoundland and Labrador

Olaf Uwe Janzen is an associate professor of history at Memorial
University, reviews editor of The Northern Mariner, and the editor of
Northern Seas.

Kevin Major brings a fresh eye and a storyteller’s gifts to this
survey history of Newfoundland and Labrador. As an example of the
latter, the 16-century assumption that kidnapped Eskimos transported to
England were cannibals simply because they were thought to be cultural
inferiors is cleverly juxtaposed with an account of Richard Hore’s
1536 voyage, which actually did experience cannibalism. The author is
also to be commended for his attention to themes and areas often
previously neglected (Native, women’s, and cultural history, to name
but a few).

Yet Major’s lack of historical training is revealed by incorrect
statements of fact or interpretations, as when he attributes medieval
European consumer demand for fish on Church dietary regulations, or when
he identifies Bernard Drake as the brother of Sir Francis. And did John
F. Kennedy ever make an appearance at Argentia (where a U.S. naval base
was built in 1941), or is this an apocryphal story that Major simply
could not resist retelling? He tries hard to communicate the complexity
of a past that too often has been oversimplified, as when he cautions
that the extinction of the Beothuk “came about for an intricate
variety of reasons.” Yet such complexity is too often left unexplained
or explained inaccurately, as when Napoleon is made “the culprit”
for the decline of the migratory fishery. Such problems might have been
addressed had this otherwise engaging book been subjected to a rigorous
review by historians before it was published.