August and September gales have claimed the lives of many Placentia Bay fishermen

Environment Canada's warning about the possibility of more storms this hurricane season is a reminder of how far weather forecasting has come from years ago, when our fishermen from Placentia Bay in their small schooners would leave port to fish off Cape St. Mary's — and tragically, many, many lives would be lost.

A fierce storm — reported to have been the worst in 36 years — roared up the eastern seaboard and made landfall in southeastern Newfoundland during the afternoon of Aug. 25, 1935.

Loss estimates vary. According to an Environment Canada listing of some of the worst weather events in Canadian history, said the August storm killed at least 34 people, with another 15 unconfirmed but missing). The St. John's Daily News — one of the newspapers of the day — reported 31 people were killed in the gale that resulted in thousands of dollars of property damage.

In 2012 American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and magazine columnist Barbara Walsh published an excellent book entitled August Gale: A Father and Daughter's Journey into The Storm.

The book not only deals with the hurricane that took so many lives of Placentia Bay fishermen, but it also superbly tells the personal story of her own family — with its secrets, bitterness and, finally, personal reconciliation.

"Despite many gut-wrenching stories over my 35 plus years career, August Gale was one of the most difficult stories to report and write," Walsh, 65, told me recently.

"I was asking my father about his childhood pain of being abandoned by his father. I was interviewing my ancestors from Marystown I never knew about the killer 1935 gale that claimed 12 men and two young boys in a village of 300. Every home lost a father, an uncle, brother or son —no home was untouched by the tragedy."

Walsh told me that she's working on getting August Gale made into a movie.

"I have written a screenplay, but since scriptwriting is not my forte, I'd love to collaborate with a Canadian screenwriter/producer. It would also be terrific to film the movie or series in Newfoundland, where much of the book takes place."

In September 1970 I interviewed retired schooner captain Patrick Dober, who was 81 at the time. Despite his advanced years he vividly remembered his younger years.

In the spring of 1898, when young Patrick Dober of Beau-Bois was just nine years old, Thomas Devereaux of Mooring Cove sailed the five miles across Mortier Bay to Beau-Bois to look for "a hardy boy or girl to take care of his cows," Dober said.

Dober fit the "hardy" requirement and he wanted to go to work, so he got the job. He went to live at Mooring Cove with the Devereaux family for seven months, for which he was paid a total of $12.

Young Dober must have earned himself a reputation as a good worker, because the next year he landed a job with the Marystown firm Reddy Brothers, where he earned $40 for the seven-month working season.

Dober told me he could even remember the September gale of 1897, when many Placentia Bay fishermen lost their lives. At the time a hurricane made landfall in the area, Sept. 24-25 of that year, he would have been only eight years old.