There’s so much about writer Darrell Duke to admire. He’s passionate about nature, for one thing, and his friendship with a beluga this past fall made headlines here in The Herald and beyond. 

Duke not only adores the sea, but also its history, and can be found puttering around bays and harbours near his Placentia hometown or his Clarenville home in one of many dories he’s restored, with love, on his own time and dime. Duke is a musician too and can be heard performing at White Hills near his home. He’s a writer as well, and his literary works can be historically captivating – like An Irish Tale of Leaving or The Garden Gate – or they can be fun family reads, like The Adventures of Crunch and Munch, a book Duke penned alongside his two daughters. Duke’s latest, Swept Away, follows along the (in parts) true-to-life-yarn spun in his book The Garden Gate, but there’s so much to this tale from the cover to the concept and inspiration that deserve to be shared. 

Keeping it Local 

The cover of Swept Away features MacKenzie Reading-Wakeham, 22, a young woman from Jerseyside, Placentia. “Keep it local,” Duke opened with a laugh. Duke also keeps things, quite touchingly so, in the family. The hand holding the photo image on the cover of Swept Away is Duke’s Uncle and friend, Jack Duke, 81.

“When Dad was dying, I was at the end of his bed, sketching. Jack came over and asked what I was drawing. I showed him a pencil sketch I was working on from memory – a coping mechanism, no doubt, to distract me from the current reality,” Duke shared. The image was of Duke’s fishing stage. 

“He asked what kind of boat I had and I said ‘neither one yet.’ He asked, ‘what kind of a boat do you plan to get?’ I said ‘just something I can row, no motor, something old-fashioned.’” 

10 months after his father’s death, Uncle Jack came calling. “He showed up in Clarenville – he’s from Southeast, Placentia Bay – with the most beautiful ‘flat’ I’ve ever seen. It was October, windy and bitterly cold, but it was the best day of my life. It began my total love of old rowboats and the sea. And, of course, he would not take a cent for it. So, to say he lent me a hand is quite the understatement,” Duke said of having his Uncle’s hand on the cover of his latest novel. 

To have Loved and Lost

On the theme of Swept Away, is it really better to have loved and lost? Duke didn’t hesitate. 

“I would say absolutely. This woman that’s lost, she was the best thing that’s ever happened to this young man. For anyone who’s read The Garden Gate, there’s historic facts (like burnt out homes) there, but this woman is swept overboard from (her beau’s) dory this day and he spends every moment out looking for her.”

Because Duke has spent so much time on the sea, just rowing, meant that he could become one with the main character of his latest novel. “The sound of a splash or the sound of movement as you adjust or my feet on the bottom of the boat. Sometimes you get up and you fall. How does that feel as you land?” 

All those things he experienced, he shared. “I used to go out at night if the conditions were right. The Moon. You cannot get it out of your head once you see the moon literally painted there in strong contrast to the water. No matter where you go in that boat, you’re always in the moonlight and then stopping you hear something and it’s dark and you have no idea what that was.”

It’s just you and the sea, he added.  “You have the feeling like there is just a lot of mystery in the ocean. You only know what you see on top and you don’t see very much in comparison to what’s on the bottom.” That experience, and the mystery, he brought to Swept Away. It’s long been said to write what you know, he added.

Duke went to sea “at all hours of the day as a form of research for this book,” he shared.

“I kept challenging myself and I went out in different weather conditions –safely and not far – just to see what it was like. I had to find out how hard it was to get out of certain situations or what it felt like to be at sea alone so I could write about it.”

Duke hopes Swept Away becomes a fast fan fav, and by the look of sales so far, that seems to be happening. It’s well deserved it seems. 

“I put a lot into this one. I really lived what the character lived to the extent that I could, and I hope that shows.”

For a copy of Swept Away, visit amazon.ca

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Scrolling through Facebook can usually present opportunities for a few look-at-that pauses as posts by others capture our attention for a variety of reasons: s birthday being celebrated; an anniversary milestone; a new baby being welcomed into the family. All grand reasons to poke around for a moment and size up another’s online life and add encouragement through a ‘thumbs up,’ or my favourite social media sentiment, a heart.  One recent set of posts by friend/musician/author Darrell Duke was incredibly captivating, however, and triggered a phone call instead of simply a ‘way to go, buddy,’ thumb gesture or a ‘loves it, my son,’ bursting red heart emoji.

“It’s friendly to a fault, not knowing its own strength. So, you can’t afford to forget for a second that it’s a wild animal.”

Duke

Duke, who I’ve written about in the past for everything from his novels (1) (2) to his dedication to the craft of dory restoration (1) (2) is always ready for an enthusiastic gab session, except this time  – if possible – there was a little more joy in his jawin’.

A dark hole in Clarenville

The reason behind the percolating passion? Duke’s encounter with a resident beluga whale while out and about in his captivatingly colourful dory.

The beluga has taken up residency in an area Duke refers to as Dark Hole in Clarenville, Newfoundland Labrador.  “I’ve been hearing about (the beluga being in that area) for over two years. And I’ve heard all these wonderful stories. All kinds of people have seen it and take pictures of it and with it, those out in kayaks mostly get to interact with it but I encountered it for the first time last Sunday afternoon,” he began.

“I just had a longing to see the beluga and no sooner had I left the pier and the beluga was underneath the flat and frightened the life out of me.”

• AUDIO | Dory Ditty Die Day With Darrell Duke
• NL OUTDOORS | Darrell Duke’s Dory Dedication

“That was my initial experience with meeting the beluga and I was a little bit thrown off (by being lifted out of the water). No matter how much I read about them and have heard about how nice they are, it’s still a big scary mammal.”

Duke

The fear – but not the awe and wonder and respect – soon subsided. “I thought, ‘it’s just playing with me.’ It comes up for attention and love, I suppose. As everyone’s well aware, you’re not supposed to interact with nature, so I don’t put my hands overboard or anything. It’s just a bond that exists from observing and interacting on some human-almost level.”

Duke’s encounters over several evenings have been magical, he continued.  “You can see it on the surface, it looks like a torpedo. Like out of a movie or something, you see it coming towards the boat and you’re waiting for a knock and then it just slips gracefully underneath you until it decides to come up underneath you and lift you, which is what it did to us last night.”

The beluga pushed the dory along for maybe 20-30 feet, he added, before he was able to gain control again.  “That was my initial experience with meeting the beluga and I was a little bit thrown off (by being lifted out of the water). No matter how much I read about them and have heard about how nice they are, it’s still a big scary mammal.”

As a songwriter, performer and author, has Duke gained any inspiration from this encounter, we ask.

“Yes. It’s something so unique yet there are maybe a million children’s books written with someone’s own spin on these white magical whales but who knows? This encounter could make its way into my writing, no matter what form it takes,” he said.

A whale-sized bond

Looking through the images and videos as we speak, it’s clear this beluga bonding and whale-writer friendship has had meaning for many. “If nothing else, it’s a wonderful way to learn something. That’s what this has been for me and for my whole family. What a nice way to learn about the world, to learn how to interact with nature. I’ve learned a lot watching it and to interact in some way is just a gift.”

• NL AUTHORS | Excerpt: Darrell Duke’s ‘An Irish Tale of Leaving’

Duke, who is preparing to release his next novel, Swept Away, much of it conceptualized while out rowing in one of his treasured dories,  wondered aloud if the beluga was attracted to his curious spirit or to his colourful vessel. “That was just a theory of mine, that it was attracted to the colours, but I think what it’s doing is eating barnacles off the bottom when it comes up, goes in and under and around. I don’t think it’s ramming on purpose. I would like to think that, anyway. I think it’s more of a ‘hello,’ and ‘thank you for lunch,’ type thing,” he said with a laugh.

Duke shared that he planned on heading out again immediately following our chat. I noticed this incredible Facebook post a few hours later. “This evening I thought I’d see the whale’s reaction to music, so I played a tin whistle. At first, the whale grunted (it grunts like a bull) and bumped the boat. I stopped and played again a while later. This time it rose to greet my face, smiled its dolphin-like smile, and twirled around. Its mood went from happy to wanting to dance. Gotta love the power of music,” he wrote.

There can’t be an any better demonstration of a true friendship than sharing – with a whale-sized smile – appreciation for a good tune.

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Wander a back cove or an abandoned home anywhere and you’re likely to see one left to return its once saltwater joys back into the earth if just left in peace to fall to pieces long enough.

Paint peeling. Once bright colours long faded. If the once seaworthy vessel has sat for a decade or longer, stubborn though sturdy weeds may even be poking through some part of the hull. Rotten wood. Flakes of pine or spruce ready to hook an explorer’s clothing as well as their curiosity. Fine for a snapshot or a splinter, but not for a sail.

ABANDONED HISTORY

Author, musician and friend Darrell Duke sees things a little differently. An abandoned piece of history is what he spies when he sees a dory, and restoring these treasures to their once proud state has become his passion.

On this Sunday, he gets a chance to show off and we sail from where he grew up – Placentia, though he has a fine sea-worthy collection back home in Clarenville, too. With a crew that include Duke’s daughters, Emma and Jessie, we head out for a row and a yarn. With the magnificent Placentia lift bridge as our backdrop, Duke rows.

With make-shift oar hooks tied with twine as an almost-comforting while on the north Atlantic workaround, Duke dishes his passion for passing on the dory tradition. He picked up restoring and rowing almost by accident a few years back, he shared as the oars slapped the sea, just because he hated to see pieces of our heritage left to rot.

Rowing is not for the faint of heart. The strain of movement – forward. Dip. Strain. Lift. Water dripping. Back down they go. Lift one oar out of the water. Dip. Strain. Lift. Turn.

The sweat equity invested in order to capture a snap from the shore as we turn port side towards the wharf then starboard for that perfect lift bridge selfie is intense on this once calm day.

WALK ON WATER

Like the fisherman of yesteryear as the song Ditty Die Day by Atlantic Thunder portrays with the line, ‘a fear in their eyes as they make up their minds,’ we’ve set sail in walk-on-water calm, but quickly realize the waves and the wind are now against us. In a dory, you are truly at the mercy of the sea and can quickly become a victim to the wind.

Even the tiniest spider that decided to show itself to Emma is enough to unsettle this fine fiberglassed piece of history. Seated in the bow of the boat, Emma’s slight movements to avoid an eight-legged encounter is enough to literally rock the boat. Combined with the wake roughness in the harbour, it’s a reality check, not just for us that it’s time to head in, but to realize what our forefathers had to endure.

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FACING THE DEVIL

Not catching a fish during the recreational fishery is a bummer, but not catching a dory load back in the day was a disaster worth facing the devil to avoid. Duke rows us back. Safe upon the shore, there’s a few more snaps to capture the day. Am I disappointed we didn’t get the day we planned? Not at all. I feel blessed to have been one of that day’s dory mates as we rowed about in one of the ‘ghost skiffs of time,’ a piece of this province’s long-standing history that, thanks to Duke’s efforts, can still delight the soul of this fisherman’s daughter.

They were heavin’ their thunder before Cabot’s time,
Holy oh roly oh ditty die day;
And I know they’ll be rollin’ down long after mine,
Holy oh roly oh ditty die day.

Pam Pardy, The Herald’s Managing Editor, can be reached by emailing pghent@nfldherald.com

The Little Placentia sits on a trailer in the yard of the oldest home in Placentia, the town Darrell Duke was born and raised in. The dory’s owner seems to know everyone, and the restored fibreglass dory he salvaged and restored in Clarenville seems to feel right at home in the lupin-filled yard of a friend-of-a-friend. As we prepare to set sail, or more accurately, set row, around the harbour, Duke shares a tale of Placentia and the Royal St. John’s Regatta.

THE PLACENTIA GIANTS

In 1877, a hearty and enthusiastic crew who called themselves the Placentia Giants, carried their boat from their hometown to St. John’s to participate in the Regatta.

On the 100th anniversary of that endeavour, a few local fellas with the Placentia Lions did the same thing again; walking their boat to the event, and claiming the Triple Crown two years in a row.

HAPPY LOOKING DORY

A fitting inspirational tale for this day. The once dull-looking but now gloriously bright and happy-looking dory is ready to carry us around, though that it’s seaworthy is quite the miracle.

“It had nine holes drilled in its bottom. At some point, picnic tables were built into the dories – built initially in the late 70s for the then-annual dory races in Clarenville. The builder was Max Grandy, then of Shoal Harbour, but originally from the Burin Peninsula, and the holes were drilled to allow rainwater to drain. I restored it, and now she’s good to go. We hope,” he said with a wink.

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THE SISTER SHIP

The Little Placentia has sister ships as well. “There were four dories sitting on the ground for many years until I got permission to take one, as long as I recognized they were ‘unseaworthy,’ I was warned.” Duke wasn’t having any of that.

“Rowing is my main source of exercise, and both my youngest daughters love to row. Emma is quite adept at it while Jessie is still learning the ropes. But restoring these pieces of history has become a passion as well,” he added.

The yet-to-be-officially-named Little Placentia had its holes plugged with pine and Duke replaced the seats, though he left the bottom unpainted to help it dry out last year.

CONTINUING TRADITION

He left the ‘risin’s’ (the old boards which hold the seats) used to tie a graple (grapnel) or anchor rope on, he explained.

“The seats are also known as tauts in many areas of our province. The rope tied to the front of the boat is called the painter,” he added.

His passion for continuing tradition is obvious and he carries out his rowing missions with love. “My late Dad made the boat trailer from scratch. The boathook belonged to a good friend, Shawn O’Keefe, who died at the age of 55 almost two years ago,” he shared.

THE GARDEN GATE

The author of The Garden Gate shared what feeds his dedication.

“Rowing a dory on a calm sea is the epitome of peace. It’s something you don’t need to think about; you can row really fast, or just haul in the oars and let the send (current) carry you wherever.”

But staying put carries its own peace as well, he added. “Sometimes you manage to stay in one place. You get rare views of the varieties of wildlife, both on land and in the sea: eagles bringing rats or whatever back to their young in their nests, otters playing, mink catching fish, seals, gannets and kingfishers diving.”

PASSION FOR ROWING

Duke used his passion for rowing when it came to penning his latest, his first novel, Swept Away, which will be released soon. “My favourite time to row is at night beneath the stars and getting lost in my thoughts and drawn into the path of the moon painted across the surface of the sea. Schools of connors attack the bottom of the dory to feed on snails; that, in itself, becomes a new excitement. And the list of encounters and adventure goes on,” he added.

The Little Placentia will be featured on the cover of Swept Away, but for now we just enjoy a wee row around the harbour.
While the wind doesn’t exactly cooperate, it’s easy to see where Duke’s passion comes from, and the day in the dory is certainly one for the books.

For more, visit: darrellduke.com

Darrell Duke grew up listening to family stories.

“In 1941, the first American survey plane landed in Argentia Harbour. My grandfather told me about it and wrote about it. As we all know, this place is synonymous with fog,” he began. 

“There’s rarely a day without it. When I grew up, it was foggy all the time and it can be depressing. But that fog has advantages,” Duke added.

• AUDIO | Dory Ditty Die Day With Darrell Duke
• NL OUTDOORS | Darrell Duke’s Dory Dedication

One advantage? Fog provides a great cover. “My grandfather said, when it came to sizing up Argentia as a possible location for a strategic outlet to stop the Germans from coming across in support of Hitler’s Germany. That was the deciding factor for the Americans to build a base there as it had everything they needed. And that’s why ultimately it was so successful as a base,” he continued.

It was a crazy time in this province’s history, and much of it was captured by Duke’s grandfather in his journals. “It was a horrific time for our ancestors, the upheaval they experienced. I use my grandfather’s words that he typed in 1968  as the preface for the book. I let him have the final say too as what is in The Garden Gate is coming from someone who witnessed it.”

‘Downright horrific’

Where Duke’s great-grandparents’ home was situated was needed for the war effort. While it made sense, it was also tough. It was its own form of resettlement essentially. 

“To the people who experienced this upheaval, it was downright horrific. These people were given letters of expropriation stating that this was a wartime measure, and that the government was confiscating property and people were going to have to leave. And there was no questions allowed.” Homes were burnt to the ground, and his great-grandparent’s home was one of the first to be destroyed.

“My great-grandmother was hanging her clothes one day. Great-grandfather was away fishing, and two American servicemen pull up in a truck and they came through the gate, and they told her, ‘we’re here to take your home. Go in, take what you can as quickly as you can, and don’t ever come back.’”

Seven of her 12 children were still living at home at the time, he continued. “They were from ages 12 up. My great-grandmother took things that were her most prized possessions. She had a pump organ, which the boys managed to get out which couldn’t have been very easy. And she always said, ‘by the time I got to the garden gate, the house was up in flames.’ That’s how quick it happened.”

A tale of survival

Locals couldn’t fathom the magnitude of what was going on, he added.

“People knew about the war because their sons, like my great Uncle Joe, had been overseas fighting with the Royal British Navy. But when it came to receiving the letter of expropriation, they just lit the fire with it. They didn’t take it seriously. They didn’t understand. But they lost the home. And in the meantime, they had nowhere to go. All these people, there was almost a thousand, lost their homes. They’d been there for centuries.”

Duke says The Garden Gate, like his An Irish Tale of Leaving, tells the tale of family history. “Write what you know. So I wrote what I knew. I wrote what I was told growing up. Understanding the significance of the garden gate helped.”

The significance of the gate is powerful. “They didn’t take the fence down. The garden gate remained standing there while there was just a pile of rubble that fell down in the home as it burnt. They left great-grandfather’s store, or shed. That’s where he and his friends congregated every night to discuss the matter, what they were going to do. They were all mortified by the burning of the homes.”

The smells. The sights. It was so powerful, he continued. “People had to make do, live in a dilapidated old home. Some people had it far worse off because they were living under tarps strung between trees in meadows. There’s multiple stories of women having babies outside in the cold fall with winter coming on.” 

While it’s horrific, it’s also powerful and inspirational, he added, because these people, including his own ancestors, survived. 

“I stick to my family’s story while representing the whole community. Every family would have had different experiences. But picture the garden gate as the only thing standing as you see your home burn down, the place where you had pictured seeing your children grow up. It’s quite the tale.”  

For more information on Darrell Duke, visit darrellduke.com

An excerpt from ‘An Irish Tale of Leaving’ penned by Darrell Duke:

My Grandfather, James Houlihan, was from the community of Argentia, once known as Little Placentia, located on the western side of Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay. His father and his father were also from there. My Great, Great, Great, Grandfather was born in Ireland, but spent most of his life at Argentia, having moved there as a child. 

His father, my fourth Great Grandfather, Edward “Red” Houlihan, was from Ireland.  

An Ancient Round Tower

When I first read the line, “The musket ball hitting her sounded like a slap of a hand on the back,” I was hooked. Those were the words of Red Houlihan transcribed to paper by his great grandson, John. G. Houlihan, sometime in the late 1800s. 

Without John G.’s efforts (taking the time to jot down the oral tales of Red Houlihan), it’s highly unlikely
I would have done more than pencil a sad song from scanty stories, had they survived.  

Through much research by my cousin, Ed Ginn of New Jersey, around 1990, members of our family first received this vital ancestral history. Ed’s mother, Florence Houlihan Ginn, was my Grandfather’s sister who’d migrated to The States as a young woman. 

Red Houlihan was born on such a magnificent chunk of rock that Newfoundlanders might struggle to consider it pride-worthy to call Newfoundland The Rock. Red’s rock is called Inis Meáin, anglicized as Inishmaan or ‘Middle Island.’ It is one of the Oileáin Árann (Aran Islands), located in Galway Bay, on Ireland’s west coast. 

To the north of Inis Meáin is Árainn Mhór (mór ‘big’). It has been anglicized as Aranmore or Arranmore. The third, and smallest of the three islands, is Inis Oirthir (‘Island of the East’) and the recognized form Inis Oírr has been anglicized to Inisheer. 

In 2005, in Galway, I sat in a meadow near an ancient round tower, looking at the bay and its long slabs of rock – the Aran Islands. From that view, I couldn’t imagine anyone, or anything, for that matter, living on such windswept, water-torn, cold heaps of stone. It wasn’t until I read the information given by my aunt that I realised what I’d captured seven years earlier on camera – the birthplace of my Mother’s side of the family, the Houlihans.

• NL OUTDOORS | Darrell Duke’s Dory Dedication
• AUDIO | Dory Ditty Die Day With Darrell Duke

I ordered J.M. Synge’s The Aran Islands (1907) which paints great images of the landscape where my people once lived, worked, hid, prayed and played. To fathom they spoke another language is near impossible to grasp. 

To know I speak English because my forbearers were no longer allowed to converse in their native tongue, Gaelic, or simply Irish, can be more bitter than sweet.

Leaving the homeland

Having learned of tragedies endured by Red Houlihan, the loss of a language may seem small. But, really, it was no diminutive ingredient in forcing him from his homeland. Like multiple thousands of other young Irishmen, Red was part of a group known as Rebels who rejected the tyranny of England’s militant leaders sent to Ireland to impose strict laws over every aspect of Irish people and their lives. 

By 1778 the English had been in Ireland, in one form or another, for almost six hundred years. Red’s wife was shot in cold blood by British soldiers, or Peelers, the locals called them. Peelers called the likes of Red Houlihan and his comrades-in-arms Rebels. 

I am aware that many of today’s natives of Ireland find it absurd to speak of atrocities committed by Great Britain in Ireland so long ago and, in the name of moving forward, I respect that. 

On that note, I consider this book a form of personal closure on ancient resentments passed down through the generations.

This book is not intended as a complete history of Little Placentia/Argentia, Marquise, Newfoundland, Ireland, the American Revolution, nor England’s positions in Ireland’s past. It is a story of a man, Red Houlihan, his life in Ireland, and his departure from his homeland to Newfoundland in the 18th Century.

About the Author

Placentia author Darrell Duke writes from what he calls The Piano Shack which is an old playground playhouse he’s converted into a little get-away on the water to both write and practice music. 

His children also use it for the same reason. In memory of his father, he re-used the clapboard from his childhood home in Freshwater, Placentia Bay, and painted it the colours of the Irish flag saying it’s just another way to honour Ireland, recognizing it is where his people came from. 

As a songwriter, he attempted to try and capture the essence of An Irish Tale of Leaving in his song, Red Houlihan. 

• NL AUTHORS | Darrell Duke’s ‘The Garden Gate’

Before he even wrote a word for the book, he made up a tune on tin whistle which he says conveys the sadness and longing likely felt by, “hundreds of thousands of Irish men, women and children who had to turn their backs on their homeland in search of a morsel of peace, which, they found in Newfoundland. 

In the book, Red plays a wooden whistle which often brings him peace when he needs it most. 

Duke will perform the song he wrote for the first time in public on St. Patrick’s Day at the White Hills’ ski chalet just outside Clarenville. 

For more, visit darrellduke.com