Many of Kevin Major’s novels for adults and children draw on Newfoundland history, so it’s no surprise that he uses Newfoundland and Labrador’s dramatic past to its fullest in As Near to Heaven by Sea, his addition to Penguin Canada’s series of provincial histories. The book is made up of 36 easily digested chapters, each with its own catchy title (“Princess, Pirates, and Poets”; “Of Fish and Fate”) and an appropriate introductory quote (from sources as varied as native mythology and the Treaty of Utrecht). The chapters are further sub-divided into sections with several headings, and are enlivened with numerous small sketches and photographs and maps.

All the well-known events are here, including the Viking visits, the demise of the Beothuk, and the sealing disasters of 1914. There are also lesser known stories, such as the tale of Ann Harvey and her family who rescued 163 poor immigrants from the wreck of the Despatch in 1828. Leif Ericsson, Captain Cook, Marconi, and Joey Smallwood all march vividly across these pages. Major uses his fiction-writer’s techniques to bring the stories to life, presenting a personal view of historical characters and the occasional pithy aside in parenthesis: “the Spaniards (that quarrelsome and unprincipled lot).”

The book only touches on the European history that determined so much of the province’s early events – a minor flaw, but one that narrows the focus of the book. This is an acceptable trade-off given the already broad sweep covered in the book. As Near to Heaven by Sea is an accessible, readable, and entertaining introductory popular history for the general reader.