I've heard that one too, related to a specific location on one of the points in south-east Newfoundland. Definitely not a factor in the incident Mowat describes, which involved a ship that should have been broken up for scrap years before, and occurred I believe in the Belle Isle Straits area.

As for Mowat getting barred from entering the States, has it happened again? During the Reagan era he made some joke about shooting down American bombers if they ventured over his Ontario farm enroute to test Cruise missiles--this resulted in his being barred from the U.S, which he considered hilarious as well as a badge of honour. He's not really dangerous unless you're throwing a hoity-toity literary cocktail party.

Lately the right-wing press has taken him to task for allegedly exaggerating his Arctic experience and blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction...in a book he wrote about fifty years ago, "People of the Deer". Big freakin deal.

Bill