The Ghost of Ellen Dower

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

This is a spellbinding tale of personal conflicts and supernatural
events in the outport of Conche in the 1870s. It tells the story of
Ellen and Edward Dower, who are about to lose their land to a seemingly
unscrupulous interloper, and of Ellen’s ghostly trek to the icefields
to verify the land claim in her husband’s sea-chest.

That story, engaging as it is, is only one reason to read this
wonderful novel. The politics of the early Newfoundland outport, the
religious and folkloric beliefs of its seafaring people, the intricacies
of the seal hunt, and other details invest the story with remarkable
realism. Pilgrim has an ability to see significance in the seemingly
insignificant. He knows the difference between sentiment and
sentimentality, and his characters never overstep the bounds of
believability. He also has an ear for the genuine cadence of
Newfoundland speech (“My Blessed Virgin,” said Nora. “Mother must
have gotten some fright when she met that monster out there on the
road.”), and for the colloquialisms of that time and place.

In short, The Ghost of Ellen Dower is both a genuine Newfoundland ghost
story and a splendid recreation of one segment of Newfoundland society
before the turn of the 20th century.