Random Passage
aka
Cape Random

Bernice Morgan

When Ned Andrews was accused of stealing from his employer, he and his family uprooted from their home in Weymouth, England, overnight. It was either that or be arrested, possibly hanged. His mother, brother, and brother's wife and children joined him, his wife and his children. Within a day they were on a ship to the New World. They had very little except the clothes on their backs and a few coins. Lavinia, the Andrews sister, left her job as a maid, and shipped with them as well.

The captain of their ship leaves them in a northern cape on the coast of Newfound Land in Canada. One other family and a bachelor store keeper live there. Winter is settled in. Jennie Andrews, Lavinia, Ned, and Ben's mother, had thought to purchase enough to keep them through the winter. Instead the Andrews family quickly learns that the coin here at Cape Random is work. The winter stores are set and little can be done to add to them now. Hopefully the Vincent family and Thomas Hutchings can make their meager supplies last throughout the winter with the extra families that also now need fed.

Once the winter ends and almost all have survived, the Andrews start working and earning their keep. Seventeen-year-old Lavinia reverts to childhood herself and takes care of all the younger children. Ned and Ben learn to fish and live off the ocean. The women take care of the homes, children, gardening, food preparation, etc. In 1810 the way to survive in the remote area is to work every day, all day. Another woman and her infant daughter are left by a different ship going through. The group forms into a small community.

Over the years they struggle to stay alive and have some happiness in theirs lives. Living on the Northern Atlantic Ocean in Canada isn't easy. The Andrews and Vincents have a strong sense of family and a stronger sense of survival.

Random Passage (aka Cape Random) is a powerful novel about a group of settlers in the early 1800's in Canada. I believe I saw somewhere that it is based on real events but it is fiction. Life isn't easy for them. Bernice Morgan is able to show the harshness of their environment yet keep the tone of the novel upbeat and hopeful.

This novel feels realistic. There are some vivid scenes that reflect the conditions that constantly existed. When the men come back from sealing one winter, there is a striking description of their condition.

"The men walking towards them wear the same jackets and pants they left in several weeks before, covered now with layers of grey slime that has hardened so the clothing seems made of dull metal that crackles with each awkward step. Their faces, too, are grey and their hair, which is crusted in dirt, spikes out from under their knitted caps."

Although Random Passage is comparatively short as compared to some sagas (less than 300 pages), it gives a dramatic portrait of life in Cape Random and for all settlers living on the coast of Canada at that time in history.

The novel is split into two stories. The first two thirds uses Lavinia's point of view although doesn't just watch her. The last third is Thomas Hutchings' first person narrative. He is the bachelor store keeper who keeps track of everyone's earnings and debts in the Cape. While her section is about the happenings, emotions, actions, and feelings of the people there, his is more of an observational tone, an overview of the same happenings. Thomas Hutchings often keeps himself aloof from the others so is usually misunderstood or misinterpreted. Even the one man who becomes a good friend, the gregarious Ned Andrews, doesn't know who Thomas Hutchings is.

Random Passage is also a good history study. The novel has been very popular in Canada and Ireland. I was introduced to it by a woman who came from Newfoundland and am glad I read it.

You think your life is rough? Check out Random Passage.

Mrs. Mike by Benedict & Nancy Freedman