The Wake: The Deadly Legacy of a Newfoundland Tsunami tells the true story of the 1929 tsunami that devastated Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula and the long chain of tragedies that followed.
On November 18, 1929, an undersea earthquake sent walls of water racing toward the coast. Waves as high as three storeys smashed into isolated fishing communities, sweeping houses out to sea and leaving twenty-eight people dead and hundreds homeless. Cut off from the rest of the country, survivors waited days before the scale of the catastrophe was even known.
Born near St. Lawrence, one of the hardest-hit villages, Linden MacIntyre connects the immediate destruction of the tsunami to the slower, hidden disasters that reshaped the region. As the cod fishery collapsed, St. Lawrence turned to underground mining that later proved radioactive, leading to widespread lung disease, cancer, and early deaths among miners and their families.
Blending history, reportage, and personal connection, MacIntyre explores how a single natural disaster echoed across decades—through environmental collapse, economic upheaval, and ongoing loss—while also highlighting the resilience of outport communities.
Key themes
- 1929 Newfoundland tsunami and its impact on the Burin Peninsula
- Disaster survival, loss, and long-term trauma
- Mining hazards, occupational disease, and environmental risk
- Collapse of the cod fishery and rural Atlantic life
