Of ships and sails and …
Sheilah Mackinnon Drover brings Ted Drover’s sketches to print in ‘Ted Drover: Ships Artist’
TED DROVER: SHIPS ARTIST BY SHEILAH MACKINNON DROVER WITH A FOREWORD BY GERALD SQUIRES FLANKER PRESS $21.95 188 PAGES
Ted Drover (b. 1907) was not a fisherman nor a seaman (although as a young man he did sign on as a sealer); his father ran a lumber business and Drover must have been one of the first Newfoundlanders to ever attend the Ontario College of Art. He did some sketching for “The Book of Newfoundland,” but his later, steadier work was in bureaucracy, curator of the Maritime Museum. But boats were part of his life from childhood, and at one point he ran a charter boat business. And he always drew, with sure, rapid flair.
When Drover died in 1980, Sheilah Mackinnon Drover, his daughter-in-law, notes “his personal papers indicate that it had been his intention to publish a book ‘of seagoing crafts engaged in the fishery and general commerce of the island of Newfoundland and Labrador’ ... starting with wind-powered ships and developing though sailing ships with auxiliary power to ships powered with steam and internal combustion.”
Sorted by class
The works within are sorted by class: Ancient Ships, Sailing Vessels, Motor Vessels, and Steamships, and further
subdivided into Ferries or the Alphabet Fleet.
“Ships Artist” is much more than a volume of pictures. “In the words of E. Keble Chatterton in 1909, quoting the curator of a naval museum who had just completely, accurately, and painstakingly restored a ship’s model, ‘Now it will be possible for those who come after us to tell exactly how a sailing ship was rigged; in a few years’ time there won’t be a man alive who will know how to do it.’”
The monochromatic, articulate drawings are buttressed with lots of context. “Ancient Ships,” for example, delves into the Babylonian and Phoenician boats of centuries BC, invoking a description from “Ezekiel”: “They took a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for you. They made your oars of oaks from Bashan.” It also explains how “Historians believe that it is possible by reading the “Acts of the Apostles” in the Bible to trace the route which the Roman grain and merchant ships took” as Paul sailed “... from Reggio an Puteoli (now Pozzuoli), which was the main harbour for the city of Rome.”
“Sailing Vessels” opens with the ships sailing through The Narrows; since the early 16th -century impressions of such arrivals have been recorded. John Rut of the Royal Navy categorized for King Henry VIII which ships from where were docked in the harbour. Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle and d’iberville both recognized the military importance of the restricted opening.
Of course, fishing activities branched widely from there, and by the 1800s “it was not unusual to see 1,000 schooners from Newfoundland anchored on the Labrador Coast.”
Material rich and varied
The book integrates much rich and varied material, including “a brief, and by no means complete account” of the work girls and women contributed through the 19th- to mid-20th-century fishery. As attributed to an old Twillingate saying, “The men catch it and the women make it.” For example, there’s a memoir from Grandmother Cranford, who “was 14 [and 98 pounds] when I went down on the Labrador, to cook for six men,” leaving June 1 and returning late October. “When I went there, what a state the house was in! I started to cry. There I was, nothing to do nothing with, in a place like that, and the men comin’ in and nothing clean. I felt some bad.”
Another section covers “Fisheries Research in Newfoundland in the 1930s ... In 1925, an event occurred which had a ripple effect in the fishery, when Memorial College was created with John Lewis Paton as its president. He had a keen interest in fisheries research, and in 1926, he set up a Department of Biology, making fisheries its main focus.” Students could only study biology for two years, and had to enrol elsewhere for all or part of their undergraduate years to complete a degree. Among the first who did so were Wilfred Templeton, George Whitely, and Nancy Frost, who was also renowned as an artist and helped build the Newfoundland research station at Bay Bulls into an institution of international reputation.
“Ships Artist” is packed with such fascinating research and excerpts — but at its core this book exists because of Drover’s affinity for and fascination with ships. From dories, tugs, and wooden-hulled barques to sister coastal service ships and banking schooners and tern schooners, he rendered them again and again and again, always in their environment, their element, the sea and sky and weather.
There are glitches — for example one sentence gives Drover’s birthplace as Green’s Harbour, the next as St. John’s. The latter seems like a correction or edit but it could easily have been formatted better.
But most of the content has been well-handled, and there’s a complete list of works, including vessel dimensions and tonnage, and thorough references with a glossary, notes, and a bibliography.
“Ships Artist” is much more than a volume of pictures. “In the words of E. Keble Chatterton in 1909, quoting the curator of a naval museum who had just completely, accurately, and painstakingly restored a ship’s model, ‘Now it will be possible for those who come after us to tell exactly how a sailing ship was rigged; in a few years’ time there won’t be a man alive who will know how to do it.’”
… At its core this book exists because of Drover’s affinity for and fascination with ships. From dories, tugs, and wooden-hulled barques to sister coastal service ships and banking schooners and tern schooners, he rendered them again and again and again, always in their environment, their element, the sea and sky and weather.