SS Newfoundland was a sealing ship which lost 78 sealers on the ice during extreme weather conditions in March 1914 which claimed lives from three sealing ships in an event known as the 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster.
On March 30, 1914 the SS Newfoundland was "jammed" in the ice. The Captain, Wes Kean, could see signals from his father's ship, the SS Stephano, indicating that there were seals several miles away, and sent his crew in that direction to begin killing seals, under command of his first mate. As a storm began that afternoon, both the captain of the Newfoundland and the captain of the nearby Stephano thought that their respective crews were safely aboard the other man's vessel. Newfoundland's captain, believing that the men were aboard Stephano, did not blow the ship's whistle to signal his location which would have allowed his men to find the ship in the darkness and rain. The sealers endured two nights without shelter on the ice, first in a freezing rain storm and then in a snow storm. The dead and survivors alike were picked up approximately 48 hours later by another ship in the fleet, the SS Bellaventure, under Captain R. Isaac. Of the 132 men aboard the SS Newfoundland, 78 died, and many more were seriously injured.[1]
This disaster occurred during the same storm in which the SS Southern Cross sank with all hands. The total loss from all three sealing ships totaled over 250 lives and the collective tragedy became known as the 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster.
Another Newfoundland vessel carried the name "SS Newfoundland" for many years after the disaster. This steel steam-liner was mobilized as part of the merchant navy and during peace time acted as a passenger liner, usually pointing her bow towards Boston or Liverpool.[2][3]
This event was the subject of the book Death on the Ice by Cassie Brown,[4] and a 1991 National Film Board of Canada documentary I Just Didn't Want to Die": The 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster.[5]