In the nineteenth century, the Newfoundland government, under constant pressure from fish merchants, began installing lighthouses in some of the more treacherous places around the island.
In the 1950s, Cabot Island boasted a large lighthouse, with a steady, brilliant light and a bellowing foghorn to warn seafarers away from its inviting shoreline. This sentinel of the sea was manned by brothers Alex and Bertram Gill, who hailed from Newtown, a nearby community in Bonavista Bay. In November of 1954, a terrible storm darkened the skies above Cabot Island and battered its solitary lighthouse with a single-minded fury. The keepers of the Cabot Island light were no strangers to sea weather, but when tragedy struck the brothers Gill, the younger of the two was left to fend for himself amid one of the worst storms in Newfoundland’s history. This is a true story of the love between two brothers, a love that perseveres in the face of death, loss, and greatest personal challenge.

Gary Collins was born in a small, two-storey house by the sea in the town of Hare Bay, Bonavista North. He finished school at Brown Memorial High in the same town. He spent forty years in the logging and sawmilling business with his father, Theophilus, and son Clint. Gary was once Newfoundland’s youngest fisheries guardian. He managed log drives down spring rivers for years, spent seven seasons driving tractor-trailers over ice roads and the Beaufort Sea of Canada’s Western Arctic, and has been involved in the crab, lobster, and cod commercial fisheries.His writing career began when he was asked to write eulogies for deceased friends and family. He spent a full summer employed as a prospector before he wrote Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine; he liked the work so much, he went back to school to earn his prospecting certificate. A critically acclaimed author, he has written a total of eight books, including Cabot Island, The Last Farewell, Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine, Where Eagles Lie Fallen, Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman, A Day on the Ridge, and the children’s illustrated book What Colour is the Ocean?, which he co-wrote with his granddaughter, Maggie Rose Parsons. The latter won an Atlantic Book Award: The Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration.Gary Collins is Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite storyteller, and today he is known all over the province as the “Story Man.” His favourite pastimes are reading and writing, and playing guitar at his log cabin. He lives in Hare Bay, Newfoundland, with his wife, the former Rose Gill. They have three children and three grandchildren.

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