St. John’s Daily Star, 1917

Punt found Drifting Without Occupants but with Clothes on Board.

Light-keeper Cram, of Perlican Island, went ashore to Old Perlican Wednesday and telegraphed Grates Cove that he had seen a punt drifting down outside of the Island and asked the people of the cove to look out for her.
The Grates Cove men went out and picked up the boat on which all sails were set. There were three seals on board all freshly killed but one of which had not been sculped.
There was also in the bottom of the boat a gaff and the coats of a man and two boys evidently left behind. The people of the place could not account for where the boat belonged or the fate of its occupants.
It is possible that they might have gone astray in ice which suddenly opened and the affair is a mystery which it is hard to solve.
There was also in the bottom of the [boat] oars, a kettle, bread box, partly filled, an axe and she was pcked up by Joshua Stansford. It is thought by some that the men were sealing in Trinity Bay and might have reached the shore.