The Telegram: Review of Rig

Rig: An Oral History of the Ocean Ranger Disaster
By Mike Heffernan
Creative Publishers
$19.95; 204 pages

By Robin McGrath

“Painfully sharp to the senses, deeply moving,” is how my dictionary defines “poignant,” and poignant is the word that came to mind when I read the last page and closed the cover of “Rig,” Mike Heffernan’s sensitive and sympathetic oral history of the Ocean Ranger disaster.

Every Newfoundlander has a story about the Ocean Ranger. I was living in Ontario in 1982, and I remember numbly thinking, as I ran down the list of the dead published in the Globe and Mail, that this is how my grandparents must have felt after Beaumont Hamel—the unreality of so many familiar names, the disbelief that this could have happened.

I read “Rig” in one sitting, spellbound by the varied accounts of co-workers, family members, journalists, and clergy. That night, I slept badly, haunted by dreams of the lost men. It’s been over twenty-five years, but the Ocean Ranger still has the power to conjure up a host of unresolved feelings: not just grief, but also loss of innocence, resentment of economic circumstances, and that curious Newfoundland nationalism that has survived our relinquishment of nationhood.

Oral histories are not nearly so easy to write as most people think. First of all, getting a good interview is a far more delicate matter than it seems, even when both parties are willing. Secondly, there is a tremendous amount of work involved—it take approximately ten hours to properly transcribe one hour of tape, and most of that will be unusable. Lastly, the editorial process is as difficult an art form as writing from scratch. You have to find and recognize the poetry, not just create it yourself.

Heffernan discovered the difficulties of oral history early—his first interviewee bailed on him and he began to wonder if even after twenty-five years, the memories were still too fresh and painful for the book he was proposing to write. Fortunately, he persisted and eventually gathered fifty interviews, from which he selected thirty five extracts of about five pages each.

Every one of Heffernan’s informants brings a unique perspective to the Ocean Ranger story, yet there’s something in each of them that we can all relate to. The wife of a search and rescue pilot begins her monologue with a description of a phone ringing in “the raw hours of the morning.” One of the lasting effects of the stress of his job on her is what she calls “a gentle form of battle fatigue.” Phrases like that really stick in your head.

“Rig” isn’t about facts, although clearly Heffernan has done the groundwork, read the Royal Commission’s findings and watched all the news reports. “Rig” is about the emotion that swept over everybody in the province in the weeks and years that followed the loss of the Ranger. It’s about the moment of panic when a young wife finds herself broke and alone with three or four kids, it’s about a brief glimpse of a familiar face under a tarp, a wedding band on a dead hand, it’s about all those searing, sharp, painful moments that follow disaster.

Lisa Moore calls “Rig” a “powerful and important book.” In the publishing industry, this is known as a “puff,” inflated praise to print on the cover. However, this is no puff—it is a serious and considered assessment of one of the best books I’ve read from this province in some time. Don’t let the sadness of the subject matter stop you buying “Rig.” It is a deeply satisfying read.