The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland

by Jim DeFede

Doc Tweedie was stunned when Harris told him what was happening. On Tuesday, he had been forty miles away in Bishop Falls tending to a sick cow when he heard about the terrorist attack in the United States and learned of the diverted flights to Gander. Suspecting there might be animals on some of the planes, he asked his wife to check into it. When she called Gander’s town hall on Tuesday, she was told there were no animals on any of the flights—a message she passed on to her husband. Now he suddenly learned there were animals on those planes. And after hearing the horror stories from Harris, Tweedie leaped into action. After several phone calls to his superiors in St. John’s, a deal was reached whereby the animals could be taken off the plane and kept in a vacant hangar where the women could care for them. “Thank God,” Humby said when she heard the news from Doc Tweedie. She knew if they hadn’t received permission to remove the animals, some of them would have certainly died.