As a fisherman for most of his life, Major Edward Canning remembers coming in, in the evenings, when he would be up at the bow of the boat and he would look into the sky.

“I felt that deep-down feeling,” he says. “I could identify with the disciples, when Jesus called them from their boats. I thought that God was calling me. I also felt that pull, that there was something more that God had for me.”

But when Major Canning was born, the midwife passed him to his mother, saying, “You have a boy who will never drown.” The prophecy was proven true on many occasions because he came close to drowning several times in the frigid Atlantic waters off Newfoundland and Labrador.

“I sure tried to prove that woman wrong!”

SWIMMING IN CIRCLES

“I don’t know how many times I’ve been in the water,” laughs Major Canning.

Once, he was fishing alone and was thrown out of his boat. He floundered helplessly about in his rain gear as the boat, now pilotless, circled around him. Try as he might, it stayed out of reach.

“I can’t remember taking off my rubber jacket, but I remember the taste of the saltwater when I fell in,” he says.

Major Canning had to divest himself of his gear and clothes and then swim 60 metres to land, clad only in his underwear.

“When I took my clothes off, the tide took them and shot them right to the bottom, but I stayed on the surface and I survived that day.” He swam to shore, wondering how he would get home. 

As he walked across the beach, he found that his boat had run aground a short distance away. He clambered aboard and sailed home.

But that wasn’t the only time he was in trouble in the water.

SAVED FROM THE ICE

One late spring day, Major Canning and a friend were fishing on an ice-covered pond.

“He was close to the shore and I was off a little ways. All of a sudden, the ice gave way and I fell through.”

Instinctively, Major Canning spread out his hands to keep from slipping under, and his quick-thinking friend pulled him out.

“If he hadn’t been there, I would have went under the ice.”

BABY’S DAY OUT

When Major Canning was very young, a large boat was anchored not too far out from where his family lived, tethered by a thick rope.

“At the end of this particular day, they couldn’t find me,” he says.

The family frantically searched for the boy. He was eventually found sleeping in the tiller section of the large boat’s stern.

“The only thing my family could figure was that I crawled across the rope and got up aboard the boat.

“I was four years old! I don’t remember a thing about it, but my mother used to tell that story all the time.

“People would say, ‘Well, Canning fell overboard again,’ like it had happened so many times that it was taken for granted.”

LIGHTER THAN AIR

Major Canning was a professional fisherman for about 20 years, but he had always been a person of faith.

“I was probably 14 years old when I accepted Christ. It’s an experience I will never forget,” he says.

He and his family lived in the small community of Bridgeport, N.L., when he had his moment of conversion.

“I remember going to the altar and kneeling, making a confession of my sins. 

When I stood up, it was like I was floating on air, as if I was as light as a feather.

“That experience never left me. From that moment more than 50 years ago right up until now, there has been no questioning or doubting it.”

ONE LAST RIDE

As much as he enjoyed fishing, Major Canning always felt that there was something more.

As the corps sergeant-major, he regularly attended the candidates seminar in St. John’s, N.L.

“Every time I attended, I would tie up my boat for the weekend and look back and wonder if she would be OK,” he says, “just thinking about when I would get back to the fishing.”

But in 1998, something different happened.

“I can remember that morning, I went fishing before I left for the seminar. I tied my boat up, and as I walked away from the pier, I never looked back at the boat. Other times I would, but not on this particular day. I just walked away and I went off to the seminar, and it was then that I finally made the commitment, that I was going to be a Salvation Army officer.”

YELLOW, RED AND BLUE

Now retired, Major Canning has always felt that as a Salvation Army officer, he was simply doing a different type of fishing.

“My mission statement was to meet people where they are and lead them where they ought to be,” he smiles. "I’m a Salvationist, you know: I’m yellow, red and blue. I’m born and bredS alvation Army, and it runs right through me. I respect The Salvation Army to the highest degree.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” he concludes. “At every corps where my wife and I served, we pitched our tent and rolled up our sleeves and went to work and we enjoyed it to the full. There was no place I’d rather be.”

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