[ The Dog Fancier ]
This American magazine (Battle Creek, MI) began publication in 1891.
The December, 1920, issue carried a brief note, entitled "Only a Dog," regarding an oft-cited episode in the history of the Newfoundland as a water-rescue dog: the grounding of the steamer Ethie off the coast of Newfoundland on December 11, 1919. Alas, there is considerable evidence suggesting that the involvement of a Newfoundland was after-the-fact romanticizing of the event, not historical fact.
What is known for certain is that the Ethie got caught in a much-worse-than-anticipated storm and became so top-heavy with ice that the captain decidided to intentionally ground the ship. (The remains of the shipwreck are visible today, at Martin's Point in the Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, Canada.) The crew finally succeeded in getting a rope to shore, which in some romanticized accounts was accomplished with the aid of a Newfoundland who either belonged to one of the local inhabitants and swam out to fetch the rope or was onboard the ship and lowered into the storm-tossed sea. This rope allowed the crew and the locals on shore to set up a bosun's chair, by means of which the passengers and crew (reports of the total number of people aboard vary between 54 and 96) were able to safely reach land.
Either way, this account of a Newfoundland's involvement appears to be complete fabrication. While it does appear there was a dog, belonging to one of the locals, present at the rescue attempt, the reliable accounts identify it as a collie mix which mainly got in the way of the rescue efforts. Most of the identifications of the dog as a Newfoundland came well after the event, which eventually became recorded in news reports, books, songs, and poems. The popularity of the legend even seems to have led the local owner of the collie mix to sell his dog, in an attempt to profit off the stories, and the buyer did the same thing, eventually even replacing the collie with a true Newfoundland.
At any rate, here is the article, identified as a "Press Dispatch" under the above-mentioned title, as it appeared in Dog Fancier:
(Curling, N. F.), December 167 — The passengers and crew of the coastal steamer Ethie, numbering ninety- two persons, were brought ashore on a lifeline which was run to the land from the ship by a Newfoundland dog after the vessel piled up on Martin's Point.
Boats could not make the hazardous passage from the stranded steamer. An effort to shoot the line ashore failed when it became caught Men did not dare attempt the trip through the waters, and so the dog was put overboard.
Directed by officers of the Ethie, the intelligent animal succeeded in releasing the rope and holding it tightly in his teeth, fought his way through the breakers to the shore.
With block and tackle the Ethie's crew aided by the fishermen on the shore rigged a life—saving device, using a boatswain's chair for a carrier. One by one in this chair, ninety-one of the ninety-two persons aboard were safely hauled to shore. A baby 18 months old was pulled ashore in a mail bag. (20)