I'm so excited to start this new weekly blog. Each week I'll feature a historical fiction author or historian (if I can convince them to come play with us) to share some historical tidbits.

In case you didn't know, I have an honours BA in History with a minor in Newfoundland Studies. I'm also one thesis away from a Master's degree in History, specifically 19th century gender history with a focus on Newfoundland and England. I'm also about to jump back into finishing the Regency romance that got me blogging so very long ago. (Check out my very first blog post here!)

I thought long and hard about what topic I'd kick off this blog feature with. I mean, I could write about regency England, but I figure I'll have enough regency experts on here that I'll leave that to them. Instead, I'm going to talk about Newfoundland.

Today's topic: The Winter of the Rals, 1817-18

It being November, it's a grand time to jump back into that regency of mine, that has our heroine's father dragging her kicking and screaming out of St. John's, Newfoundland and back home to the motherland. While our dear heroine might not appreciate the forced evacuation, it was a prudent move on her father's part. For that November, in 1817, was the start of what's gone down in our history as The Winter of the Rals (rowdies!).

St. John's was a town built on the rocky slopes of the hills of Newfoundland and it has been consumed by fire many a time. In 1817 a fire swept though a large portion of the town, destroying nearly 300 homes, plus the all important merchant stores and wharves. More devastatingly, it left around 2000 people homeless for the oncoming winter. You can see from this sketch, from around 1830, that the town was made of mostly wood.