Alphabet Fleet
These vessels became the lifeline to these communities and were depicted in many paintings and folk songs of the country, even long after it became a province of Canada.
Together with Beothic, Earl Grey and Lintrose, Bruce was sold to the Russian government in 1915 and renamed Solovey Budimirovich.
Clyde plied the waters of Notre Dame Bay from Lewisporte, delivering passengers and mail to the various communities in that area.
In 1948 she was sold to Crosbie and Company; her last duty was to provide standby power for the whaling station at Williamsport on White Bay.
She operated in the Bonavista Bay area from Port Blandford and was lost on Christmas Day, 1919 on Noggin Island, near Carmanville.
On December 11, 1919, while carrying a cargo of codfish and herring from Battle Harbour, she was wrecked at Martin's Point, about 20 miles (32 km) from Bonne Bay.
Captain Edward English saw that all passengers and crew were rescued by means of a boatswain's chair and a line sent ashore.
Sold in 1948 to the Home Steamship Company, Ltd., she was lost when she broke her moorings on 18 November 1952, stranding at Jerseyman Harbour in Fortune Bay.
Under the Alphabet Fleet she served on the Labrador service, carrying passengers and mail to remote communities.
While northbound with provisions and fishery supplies, she was lost at Brig Harbour Point, Labrador on July 10, 1914.
Driven aground by a storm while idle at Harbour Grace on 4 February 1967, the vessel was sold to Dominion Metals Salvage Company but was deemed to expensive to scrap.
Kyle is noteworthy for a number of rescues she had participated in; such as the search and recovery of the downed American plane Old Glory in 1927.
In 1915 the ship was sold to the Russian government and renamed Sadko, where she operated as an ice breaking vessel in the White Sea.
Acquired by the Reid interests in 1911 and renamed Meigle, the vessel served as a passenger and cargo ferry until going into layup in 1931.
[8] Meigle was one of the vessels that responded to the 1929 tsunami on the Burin Peninsula assisting in bringing supplies for victim relief.
The song Twenty-One years a popular Newfoundland folk ballad by Joseph Summers was written at the time the vessel served as a prison ship.
Parts of the vessel are on display at the Meigle Lounge in Seal Cove, Conception Bay South.
SS Virginia Lake was originally named Conscript and was built in 1888 by A. McMillian & Company, Dumbarton, Scotland.
A vessel of composite construction (iron frame with wood planking), she sailed from Glasgow on April 13, 1888, bound for St. John's on a charter to the Allan Line.
Badly damaged by ice, she was set on fire and abandoned to sink; 110 of her crew were picked up by the steamer Bellaventure, while another 50 walked seven miles to shore on one of the Funk Islands.
She also engaged in sealing from 1912 to 1938; during the latter part of that period, her summer service was between Bonne Bay and Battle Harbour.
While bound from Nice to Toulon, she sank on 21 November 1945 after striking a mine five miles southeast of Porquerolles Island.
