The Crackie

An epic tale of war and triumph by award-winning author Gary Collins "One of Canada's master storytellers."Miramichi Reader Jake is born at the turn of the twentieth century on a small outport island on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. He is distinguished from everyone else by a full head of red hair. And to single him out further, Jake has a pronounced speech impediment. Scorned, abused physically and mentally by his father for his stuttering tongue and especially for his questionable parentage, Jake endures. Then still a boy, Jake is found alone in a punt upon an empty sea, on the fishing grounds without his father, whose fate is suspect. Jake lies about his age and secures a berth aboard the SS Stephano, captained by the famous Old Man of the seal hunt, where he witnesses the SS Newfoundland disaster of 1914. On the ice, Jake comes face to face with one of the Newfoundland's sealers known as the Culler. He is a mirror image of Jake—complete with red hair. With the...