On June 19, 1959, they went fishing for salmon as they always had, but it was anything but an ordinary day.

A retired fisherman stood on the Escuminac breakwater on Sunday June 21, 1959. "There never was any loss of life on any of the boats since I started fishing for salmon in 1915," he told a Canadian Press reporter. He couldn't believe what had happened during the past few days. But as wrecked boats and battered bodies continued to come ashore, the truth was undeniable: The little fishing community on the northeastern coast of New Brunswick had suffered its worst disaster ever.

Escuminac, population of about 600, was originally settled by Irish and English, and by the mid-1950s its residents also included Acadians. Fishermen from the surrounding communities of Bay Du Vin, Baie-Sainte-Anne, and Hardwicke also used Escuminac's 2,000 foot, three-sided breakwater as home port. Confident in a safety record nearly 50 years long, they were unprepared for the horror that was about to unfold.

The boats, averaging 35 feet long, were powered by automobile engines bolted to the bottom of the open area behind the cuddy. None had position finders or radar. A few had battery-operated receiving-only radios. Their navigational equipment consisted of a compass and a sounding line.

When the little fleet set out from the breakwater that foggy, grey Friday afternoon, The Dominion Public Weather Office in Halifax had predicted light winds that night, with northeast winds reaching 25 knots the following morning.

But off the coast, a storm was approaching. Like a creeping dragon it slithered through the foggy night toward Miramichi Bay and the unsuspecting little fleet.

The beast had begun in the Gulf of Mexico the previous Thursday. Moving quickly over Florida it reached tropical storm then hurricane strength by Friday. As it sped northward off the Atlantic coast, it flaunted wind speeds of 80 miles per hour.

Then, abruptly, it changed tack. Instead of curving farther out to sea, it veered westward.

At 10 p.m. it opened its jaws and belched a brutal blast. By midnight, the fleet knew a storm of horrific magnitude was bearing down upon them.

One report states winds in Miramichi Bay reached 70 miles per hour that Saturday morning, producing 30 to 40 foot waves, blinding fog and spray. Michael Wardell, the editor of the Fredericton Gleaner, described Miramichi Bay as a witch's cauldron.

Some fishermen made an attempt to make port and were lost. Others stayed offshore, trying to ride it out.

Twenty-two of the 54 fishing boats didn't make back; 35 fishermen were killed, leaving 19 women widows and 76 children, fatherless.

The last surviving vessel arrived at the Escuminac breakwater at 7:30 Sunday morning.

Amid the tales of death and destruction there were stories of heroism. Bernie Jenkins rescued three members of the Doucette family-Jack and his sons Alphonse and Evy-after their boat flipped over.

"Jack's boat (the 16-ton, 45-foot Francine D, one of the largest boats in the fleet) just seemed to ride up the side of this huge wave that flipped it end to end," Theodore Williston of the Gulf Prowler later said. "It cleared the water by two or three feet, turned over and fell, mouth down, into the sea."

Williston and his crew watched as Jenkins moved his boat into position to attempt a rescue. Williston was unable to assist: he had Raymond Thibodeau's boat in tow.

After Thibodeau managed to restart his engine and cast off, Gulf Prowler crewman Aquila Manuel spotted a man clinging to the stern of a nearly submerged boat. As his vessel approached the wreck, Captain Williston recognized Walter Williston, a distant relative. Beside him was his friend Harold (Hab) Taylor. Taylor was dead.

Manuel tossed a line to the single survivor aboard the sinking vessel, and Walter Williston immediately tied it around his deceased companion.

"He goes first," he yelled and later explained, "Poor Hab knew he was going to die and was worried about what would become of his body."

Williston himself was suffering from exposure, his legs blue-black with cold as he helped get his friend's body aboard the Gulf Prowler.

The final tally in human terms was heart-wrenching. Families were devastated by the loss of husbands, fathers and sons. With the death of the family breadwinner, women like Mrs. Albert Chiasson found themselves in dire straits. She had 13 children ranging in age from seven months to 18 years. Mrs. Windsor Kingston was widowed with eight young children. Five members of the Williston family had lost their lives.

On Monday, June 22, Michael Wardell, at his editor's desk in Fredericton, received a call from London, England. It was Lord Beaverbrook.

"I'll give you $5,000 to start a fund," he said.

The financial assistance continued. The Pope donated $2,000; the Junior Red Cross from Ontario $3,000 and the New Brunswick government $25,000. Rumour had it that even the Queen and Prince Phillip broke with royal protocol, and contributed. The town of Springhill, NS, still recovering from two mining disasters, sent two tons of food to the struggling families.

Ten years later a memorial to that infamous weekend was erected beside the Escuminac breakwater.  In addition to listing the names of the men who lost their lives, the memorial also lists the names of the men who were recognized for their acts of bravery.

Some of the survivors returned to fishing after the disaster… they said it was all they knew.

Others never went back to the sea. They turned to other ways of making a living, such as carpentry and construction. The sea had issued a severe warning that awful weekend. They'd received it loud and clear, and were not about to ignore it.

Brothers in arms

The Escuminac disaster made headlines internationally, but for my father it was a very personal tragedy. As a mechanic he serviced many of the Ford and Chev engines the fishermen used to power their boats out to the salmon fishing region of the bay. I recall watching these knights of the sea laughing and joking with Dad as he worked over their motors each spring.

One misty evening as his boat headed out through the breakwater, one of them challenged my father: "Come with us, Gordon!" My father laughed and waved off his invitation. Standing like a herring gull on the gunwale of the 35-foot vessel, one hand on the cuddy for balance, he jokingly saluted us as his captain gunned the motor, and the little boat burst out of the safety of the harbour into the rolling swells of Miramichi Bay.

Clad in mackinaws, overalls and rubber boots, with weather-bronzed faces crinkled into devil-may-care grins, they were a breed apart. We could only marvel at their good-natured stoicism and courage.

No one had any idea what lay ahead the summer of 1959.

On Monday June 22, my father dropped The Moncton Daily Times on our breakfast table. Its front page listed the names of the missing and those whose bodies had been found. "They're not really gone," he said to my mother. "You couldn't drown those lads if you tried," he added, his Scottish vernacular surfacing, as it did when he got emotional.

But as the days passed and more bodies were found, I watched the optimism in my father's eyes dim, then fade and finally turn to a bottomless well of pain. He attended funeral after funeral and was, like the fishing communities themselves, diminished by their loss.

He did what he could to help. He coaxed engines battered by the sea back to life, so fishermen could go out to search for missing friends and family.

Two weeks later, a vehicle rattled into the dooryard of our cottage in Bay du Vin. A door opened, slammed shut again a few seconds later, and the engine gunned away. My father went outside just in time to see the rusty pickup scuttling off in a cloud of dust. On the grass near the door lay the biggest, fattest salmon I'd ever seen.

"I told them I didn't want to be paid," Dad said, looking down at the fish, its variegated scales glinting in the sunshine. "I told them…."