Category Archives: History

So what? Big deal.

28 Thursday Feb 2013

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So the fish are gone in Newfoundland. So what? Big deal. Right? Wrong. So very wrong!

After more than twenty years, our species, the virus known as man, hasn’t learned a blasted thing. We are still fishing carelessly and without regard to the outcome and the future. Gotta have our sushi. Kitty has to have it’s food too. And what lunchbox would be complete without the prerequisite tuna fish sandwich, smell and all? Yet, what is the result of this? Here’s one example.

Resettlement is not a happy word in Newfoundland. In my travels, I visited several sites where once there had been outports (fishing villages) and now there was nothing; plowed under and grown over. People used to live and work there. Now, nothing to even mark their past. Get ready; it’ll happen in more places than we’d like. This is an article from the National Post illustrating what’s at stake.

‘Our little community’s dying’: Isolation prompts Newfoundland town to ask province for ‘resettlement’

Tristin Hopper | Feb 27, 2013 8:31 PM ET
Lockes' Stage on Little Bay Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Adam Norman/Wikipedia Lockes’ Stage on Little Bay Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Little Bay Islands used to be just another prosperous settlement on the Newfoundland coast: Ample jobs at the local crab processing plant, streets jammed with children, dances at the Orange Hall — and all of it within surroundings befitting a tourism ad: Cosy wood houses facing onto an iceberg-dotted Atlantic.

Now, the crab plant is long gone, every shop in town is shuttered and the population has plummeted to 72 from a one-time high of almost 800. Aside from a toddler and a pair of young teenagers, virtually the only islanders left are a few dozen widows and seniors, many of whom don’t have the money to leave.

“We all know our little community’s dying,” said one Little Bay Islands resident who preferred to remain anonymous.

Now, you can’t even get a soft drink

“One time, I’d say there was probably seven or eight stores here; you could go and buy whatever you wanted. Now, you can’t even get a soft drink.”

It is why, earlier this month, the nearly 200-year-old community applied for “resettlement,” a 60-year-old program in which the province issues everyone a cheque to leave town before cutting the power, suspending the ferry service and leaving nature to take its course.

“Since the crab plant closed down there’s no work here whatsoever … and nobody wants to be on EI if they can get away with it,” said Dennis Budgell, a Little Bay Islands town councillor who raised the issue with the province’s Department of Municipal Affairs.

Under the resettlement deal available to Little Bay Islands, if 90% of the community votes in favour, every household will stand to receive between $80,000 and $100,000.

So what, you ask? Big deal. Yeah, it is a big deal.

Enough is enough.

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Commentary, Fish, History

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Twenty-one years ago, when the Canadian government enacted a moratorium to cease cod fishing, an entire industry and way of life was wiped out. 40,000 jobs gone, just like that. In that first ten year period of the moratorium which is still in effect eleven years later after the original cutoff date, 20% of the population left the island never to return.

17-1737-6JI3D00Z A way of life no more.

The catches had been getting smaller and then were legislated into nothingness. There were several theories as to why this decline had happened: natural predation by other species, pollution, climate change, and overfishing. It’s pretty clear now what has happened, with overfishing if you will, claiming the title of winner. Government mismanagement and greed literally took the livelihood of out of the Newfoundlander‘s hands. But it is now apparent that climate change has a contributing hand in this. A paper published a couple of months ago stated that fish all over the world are becoming smaller because of the warmer waters. This precludes them from reaching full maturity and breeding normally. That is now leading to a further decline in viable fish which will lead to a larger cascading effect on the rest of the global fish population, Newfoundland included. There’s a one-two punch that would be hard for anyone from which to recover.

Now, whatever little remains of Newfoundland’s fishing stocks is under further assault. And assault is the operable word. In 2007, the southern coast of Newfoundland was seeing infestations of a new species, heretofore unknown of in that province, called the green crab. It has since grown more serious. The introduction of them is not necessarily a problem introduced by man, but it is likely to be an element of it. Even unknowingly, we are adept at mucking things up.

The green crab is a voracious predator eating anything and everything, size be damned. Lobsters? Tasty. Shrimp? Oh, yeah. Cod? What do you think? And currently there is no known remedy for them. They affect the ecological biodiversity wherever they settle. Whatever small chance there might have been for a return of the cod is threatened by this non-native species. What is next? A land to live on which is as hard as its rocks once again is getting hammered. And it appears to be a helpless situation.

One has to believe there are Newfoundlanders saying to themselves and each other, “Enough is enough.” Yes. Yes, indeed.

Once more into the breach dear friends, once more!

23 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in History, Newfoundland, Travel

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We make our plans to head once more into the… yeah, right. (celluloidheroesreviews.com)

Rested, fed, and eager to get going, we head out of St. John’s to the Burin Peninsula. This is the only place we go that I haven’t been to, so it will be a new adventure for me as well. This will take the better part of the day as it’s on the southern most tip of the larger Avalon Peninsula, right off of the Grand Banks.

The Grand Banks in happier days had some of the best cod fishing in Newfoundland. So, when we arrive, we see many of the same scenes I witnessed in my earlier trips. But it was new to Carla and my photos while accurate, could not prepare anyone for the stark reality of the moratorium’s effect. Fishing like everywhere else in the province was non-existent. It was the same story told over again.

Marystown (on the Burin), a formerly active shipbuilding community, had not had any new contracts for quite some time and was suffering because of that as well. There was some hope of a couple of government contracts, but they had yet to be decided upon. If they were to happen, it would be a godsend for that community.

Still, with all the hardship these people have endured, the Newfoundland spirit of generosity, friendliness, and hospitality was always there, ready without any need of encouragement. It really is who they are.

So we arrived to our, I think, beautiful, little cottage right on the bay. I could have moved in and stayed forever right then. I could have. Unfortunately, Carla was not as impressed as I was. It was to be a rather quiet night.

This is it. Oh, yeah, I could stay here. (trails.com)

Before I write any more, let me recap our trip thus far: we arrive very late or very early depending on your POV and get a foul-mouthed but entertaining, cab driver to take us hastily to our first night’s stay; our B&B has locked us out of our room and we can’t reach the owners; there aren’t any rooms at any inns that night in St. John’s; we dozed in the lobby of a hotel; and now this, all in two days. Not exactly the auspicious beginning I had hoped for. I’m wondering how soon can I book us a flight out of there. This is not good. All the points I had scored at the airport were now gone like wasted political capital. Re-election didn’t look so good right now.

But to paraphrase a Cat Stevens song, “Morning had broken”, and so did her mood. It was in fact quite different. She was starting to really like our little house on the water. We had stopped at a market for provisions on our way in so I set about to making some coffee, sitting out on the front porch, looking at the fog over the water, and thinking, yes, I could very easily stay here. Oh, if only. Maybe one day.

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Mummer Dearest. (Don’t worry about the wire hangers.)

18 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by in Culture, History, Local Art

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For a lot of people, the idea of mummers is garishly dressed men in otherworldly and fanciful, often feathered outfits marching in a parade. Almost as if RuPaul had been on a bad acid trip. Making it worse is that it was usually held on New Year’s Day morning in Philadelphia. As if a hangover weren’t enough!

Not from Philadelphia.

But as in Star Wars, these are not the Mummers you’re looking for. As opposed to the Mos Eisley of the aforementioned parade, the mummers I’m talking about are of a traditional kind. This mummer tradition dates back to the mid 1800′s originating mostly in Northern Europe. Since the book “Arn? Narn.” is about Newfoundland, let’s talk about their mummering tradition. It’s a hell of lot more entertaining.

The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

In Newfoundland, locals would dress up, (a slight overstatement as anything that would fit on one’s person or over other garments would constitute a “costume”) and visit, well rather prey on other people’s houses. Once admitted in, they would generally carouse and torment (all in good fun of course), causing minor and sometimes major damages to that particular abode, usually drink all the legal adult spirits, and not leave until the hosts (read this as hostages) identified who the invaders were. Once that was accomplished, the mummers would then move on to yet another house and repeat their holiday mayhem. Sounds like fun doesn’t it? Unless yours was the next house to host such “festivities.”

The mummering tradition is immortalized in all sorts of folk art: from statues to drawings and paintings to song and story.Singer Loreena McKennit also sang about it in her haunting song “The Mummer’s Dance.”

In my travels while photographing Newfoundland, I became interested in the Mummer tradition. Not so much as to participate (the opportunity never presented itself and more’s the pity!), but as something I would like to remember as part of the Newfoundland experience. The closest I was able to get was in local art. One in particular caught my eye. The photo below are Mummer figurines produced by Pam and Cara in Newfoundland. They issue one new Mummer each year and they sell out pretty fast.

True confession: I even have a few of these. Does anyone know where I can get a curio cabinet cheap?

And in atypical fashion, as I am loathe to like anything that falls into a category loosely defined as tschotckes, I found myself charmed by these. The good news is that if you invite these guys into your home, they won’t cause any damage. And better yet, they’ll leave your liquor stash alone! That alone makes them better than most guests, right?

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“Oil is strong and fish is weak!”…Tert Card.

31 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in History, Photography

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So where is Newfoundland today in regards to where it was 20 years ago?; 10 years ago? Now? Changes have been occurring with breathtaking speed and with consequences unforeseen, almost.

         An incredibly beautiful place beset by the loss of fish and the discovery of oil.

I’ve written and photographed about the back story in my upcoming book “Arn? Narn.” throughout this blog. But to recap, 20 years ago Newfoundland was about to crash and sink much as the Titanic did 375 miles off its shore 100 years ago. After independently supporting itself on cod fishing for over five centuries, the fish were gone. The Canadian government (Ottawa) enacted a 10 year moratorium on cod fishing in the expectation that in 5-6 years, the cod stocks would return to normal levels and fishing could resume. That was the plan at least. In the past, that had worked and there was no reason to believe otherwise.

After the 10 year period, the stocks were in worse shape and the moratorium was left on indefinitely. In that same 10 year period, Newfoundland lost 20% of its population to out-migration. Simply stated: no fish meant no jobs. People left in droves. Rural Newfoundland was on the ropes then and largely still is. Unless the fish return (doubtful), it will most likely remain so. As the island was settled based on how quickly one could get to sea, there are beautiful, picture-perfect, small fishing villages all over the coast. There is very little settlement in the interior. Consequently, it will be hard to sustain that culture as people continue to leave.

I returned to one village 3 years after my first visit. While it was not thriving during that initial visit, the town was active, the general store was doing business, and people were there. Jump ahead those 3 years: the store is closed and boarded up; houses are abandoned; and there are weeds growing in the road. That is the fate of almost all of rural Newfoundland. That’s the bad news.

For the entire province, the news is a bit better. St. John’s, the capital, is doing very well. Some outports quickly pivoted to tourism and are holding their own. The province of Newfoundland is rich in minerals and has a growing off-shore oil industry.

One of the several oil rigs off the coast of Newfoundland. In some places, one can see them from land. (heritage.nf.ca)

It will survive, maybe even thrive as a whole. But with a handful of exceptions, the heart and soul of this province, rural Newfoundland, may not.

  There’s a line from Annie Proulx‘s wonderful book “The Shipping News“: Tert Card, the editor of the local newspaper The Gammy Bird and a very distasteful character declares: “Like I say, the hope of this place is oil.”

Other characters within the book go on to dispute the benefits of that and what would occur if the oil boom were to happen. Crime, prostitution, vandalism – Tert Card wants to hear none of this. His bellicose response: “Oil is strong and fish is weak!”

Quoyle, the protagonist in the book, then writes a column for The Gammy Bird entitled: “Nobody hangs a picture of an oil tanker on their wall.” That exchange largely summed up that particular issue. The tanker is not a thing of beauty even if it were a solution. The fish were disappearing and oil riches were on the horizon. But at what cost? The fish were not to return – but the oil was there.

Proulx was completely accurate and prescient in her description of both sides. Oil will be a boon to the province; it will also mean the further deterioration of the cultural side of Newfoundland. It is not an object lesson of one over another; it is that survival depends on what kind of hand you’ve been dealt and how you play it. In this case, the oil will allow the province to survive – only not as it once did. Arn? Narn.

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The Queen’s Laundry Inspector and High Seas Confessional…

30 Monday Apr 2012

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My time photographing on Ramea has come to an end and I’m boarding the ferry Gallipoli back to the mainland of Newfoundland. It’ll be a couple of hours on the boat, disembark in Burgeo, then across the whole island once again to St. John’s. Gonna have to stop and get some chocolate covered crackers to sustain me on the trip back.

There’s not much to do on the ferry except sit and sleep, sit and watch the scenery and/or people, sit and eat, or sit and confess to the minister sitting next to me. This is the very same minister I met in church on Sunday on Ramea! She recognizes me immediately. Busted!

High seas confessional booth; doubles as a life raft… not really.

In all fairness, she’s a very nice person and from my point of view not a bad minister either. But, I was really hoping to be gently rocked to sleep by the boat’s motions, not get engaged in some ecumenical discussion of Goethe, Schleiermacher or the manichean view of right and wrong, darkness and light. (Just showing off here.) Thankfully, that is not what we talked about.

Instead, we talked about the plight of rural Newfoundland and the questionable future of communities such as Ramea. It confronts the same fishless future as all of the other outports with the added element of being an island dependent on sustenance and other commodities from the mainland. It is not a hopeful outlook. I agreed and told her that was what “Arn? Narn.” was to be about. She seemed to like the idea that this story would be told outside of Canada.

The Rev told me of some very small outports barely hanging on by their fingernails. How small? Try 8-10 people. Way too small for the government to provide services so eventually the fate awaiting them is of choice: the first is to resettle elsewhere; the other – die. Quite a template for survival and very depressing.

By and by, she told me I had created quite a stir on the island. It seems that within hours of my arrival, people were all abuzz of some guy wandering around taking pictures of laundry lines and things. (“Yes, ma’am, I’m from the Queen’s Laundry Quality Inspector’s office and your whites are quite nice really, but your colors…”).

The Queen’s Laundry Quality inspector.

It is after all a very small island. Everyone wanted to know who I was and what was I doing there. I’m sure that after my initial visit to Red’s Lounge, most fears were put aside by Gerard. Probably not yet by Jimmy.

So, when I showed up in church, they certainly wanted to know who I was and why I was there and what I was doing and where I was from and how I found out about Ramea. You know, the basic Journalism 101 questions: who, what, where, why, when, and how stuff. Now, when my new minister friend would report back to them at their next service, she could answer all their questions and confirm that she had dispatched me back to from where I’d come. Good minister!

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Abducted by sea turtles AND the talk of the town.

19 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in Culture, Geography, History, Humor, Observations, Photography, Travel

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With all apologies to the bard (Ramea, O’ Ramea, where art thou O’ Ramea?), Ramea is a small island off the southern coast of Newfoundland and I arrived safely on the good ship (well, ferry) Gallipoli. For those who may be history minded, Gallipoli is the name of a horrible battle in World War I in which allied soldiers were brutally massacred because of an incredibly dumb decision. It was also a movie starring the then uncontroversial and better-looking actor Mel Gibson. And Gallipoli was the boat of which I just got off! Should I have read something into that? Time enough to ponder as I’ll be getting back on it to return to the Newfoundland mainland in a few days.

Approaching Ramea, one travels though a beautiful though unexpected archipelago. It was a wonderful greeting. The only thing missing were giant sea turtles, but for all I knew they may have been laying in wait to ambush me and make mock-Bruce soup. Hey, it could happen.

This was going to be very cool. Ramea is a very small island, populated by about 600 people. At it’s peak in the early 1970′s, it had about double that, but when the fish were gone, half the populace followed. Yet, it holds on. There is a music festival, like so many other Newfoundland outports, in August. And there are a number of outdoor activities in which one can indulge. The electricity is furnished by a small wind turbine farm. OK, so much for the Chamber of Commerce business.

As I’ve come to learn and appreciate and obsessively seek out, the best activity of all in Newfoundland is talking and partying with Newfoundlanders, everywhere! And that more than anything would define this part of the journey. Oh, the photographs would be taken. And with the certainty of only those of the pure of heart and who sleep like babies, I knew they would be good. I didn’t really, I hoped they would be good. But I’m rambling. The beer would be drunk, but not I, oh, no! Moose what would be eaten. Sorry, Squirrel. More on that later,

I checked into the B&B on Ramea, unpacked, and then started out on which was to be my newest adventure. Without giving too much away, must be frugal with my words here, I was to see clothes-lines, coffins, windmills, hand-painted signs, a bar, so much more and unbeknownst to me at the time, become the talk of the island.

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Canary in the global coal mine.

05 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in Discovery, Fish, Food, History, Newfoundland

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Currently indigenous to Newfoundland are moose, caribou, salmon, and some remaining cod. There are no naturally residing canaries on the island. However, in this case, the island itself was the canary.

Why is Newfoundland important? In much the same way the canary in a coal mine is important. That bird is an early warning of impending trouble. Ignore it at your own peril. In 1992, that is what happened in Newfoundland. Heard, seen, and ignored – just the opposite of the military phrase HUA(!) – Heard, Understood and Acknowledged. They (the government) heard the canary, saw it laying there, and essentially said, “Don’t pay that any attention” until it was too late. It was mismanagement writ large.

So, what was this canary? It was the disappearance of cod stocks. Stocks that had been fished for over 500 years and sustained Newfoundland throughout that time. Then in 1992, the government realized that the cod stocks had plummeted to perilously low levels and imposed a 10 year moratorium on cod fishing. Historically, they knew if left alone for 5-6 years, the stocks should return to previous levels. They didn’t. In actuality, they were in worse shape than before.

In those first 10 years, because there was no fishing, 20% of Newfoundland’s population left the island. It was an out-migration the likes of which had never been seen. And the lack of fishing created much hardship throughout the province. Newfoundlanders continue leaving the island in search of work returning occasionally for vacation. The Newfoundland musical group Ennis addresses this beautifully in their song, “Fortunate Ones.”

Now 20 years later, the moratorium is still in place. But then in 2006, 14 years after the original moratorium was put in place, Professor Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia published a paper that received world-wide notice. In this paper he predicted that by the middle of this century, the entire global stock of wild fish will be in total collapse. This is certainly the result of over-fishing; there is also growing evidence that ocean acidification may be contributing to this as well. Either way one looks at it, both of those causes are man-made.

The “canary” was laying there, gasping for breath and people essentially just walked on by. It has taken too long to realize what this means.

In the short term, forget about your seafood dinner, that isn’t going to happen unless you’ll be willing to take out a mortgage on it. Any fish we’ll have will come from farmed stocks and their purity is suspect.

In the long term, your guess is as good as anyone’s. No one knows what will happen to the seas themselves because of this shock to its eco-system.

So much for Red Lobster!

It’s hard out there for a…fisherman.

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in Culture, Discovery, Fish, History, Observations

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OK, if I was to start a new career, I don’t think it would be as a fisherman. No, that requires real work, long hours, danger, a tremendous amount of uncertainty, harsh weather, roiling seas, low wages, and oh, did I mention danger?

In a line from the film “The Shipping News”, Billy Pretty explains to the film’s protagonist Quoyle, “…there’s more people down under these waters than are killed on the roads.” True that! The life of a fisherman is dangerous. There are monuments to those lost at sea and they number quite a few. And their families left behind are sometimes not mute testimony to this. But still, when they can, they fish. There’s very little in commercial cod fishing, but in appropriate season, crabbing, lobstering, and shrimping have filled some of the void.

Still, trying to make such a living is difficult. In an interview I conducted with a fishing fleet owner, he described the hardships faced each year, getting harder with every passing year. For him, that life was more in the past than in the future. He did not feel hopeful of the future in the least and wondered how his grandchildren would get along were they to stay.

Yet, their culture, their love for their home and the life that went before them, holds them in an almost magical way. Many people with whom I spoke, had left Newfoundland for work or school only to come back as soon as they could. All too often, wherever I’ve traveled, people talk about getting out, to somewhere else, somewhere better; no saying home for me, nossir! Grass is always greener I guess. Not in Newfoundland. they know just how green their grass is and they like it just fine, thank you very much.

But they know they’re coming back to a different land. One where the fish are gone and where their culture is disappearing if they don’t act to preserve it: that culture that has been so informed by fishing for over five centuries.

“Arn? Narn.” Any fish? No fish. It is hard out there for a fisherman.

How did I get here?

17 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Discovery, History, Humor, Newfoundland, Photography

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Sometime during this, my second trip to Newfoundland, I mused upon the events that led me there. Having previously written about how this whole idea came about, this is not to be a rehashing of that. I’ll probably indulge myself to do so though at some future time begging one’s patience. It’s also not how I physically got here – wrote about that as well in length. No, this is about a seminal event that did ultimately lead to this point in time.

A long time ago, (in a part of the country far, far away), I was sharing drinks with some college friends up in Boston. We were talking about careers and what we wanted to do with our lives. You know, the typical 3:00 AM college discussion. I was also trying to impress a young woman, Darla D., with what I thought was cool. I was an art major which is really, when you think of it, pretty cool, if not a non-starter on the economic scale. I wanted to paint. The underlying problem with that was I wasn’t very good. Being young and full of myself, I wasn’t about to admit it. What to do?

I blurted out, “I’m thinking of getting into photography.” Whoa! Where did that come from? Yes, I was trying to impress Darla D. and that did do it, but I had never thought of photography before. I would look at my fellow students with their cameras going around taking pictures of nothing and think, “Glad I’m not them, what dorks.” Truth is that as a teenage art major (Hmmm, that might be a good idea for a B-movie), we were all dorks already, but the photographers didn’t seem to care and were cool with that.

The more I thought about it, the more attractive the idea became. I have to believe my painting professor was relieved about the decision. So, I took some classes, worked with a photographer to learn more, and then courageously set out to wow the world. Uh huh, yeah, right. It wasn’t at all different from any other artistic discipline or business for that matter. Ya gotta pay yer dues.

So many years later, with any number of missteps and mistakes behind me and yet to come, I found myself in Newfoundland photographing this book. The big difference is that I’m that dork now, taking pictures of “nothing.”

Bruce meets Bruce.

10 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Discovery, History, Newfoundland, Observations, Sea

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The Town Manager

Newfoundland is the kind of place that one can walk into the Town Manager’s office and ask to see him/her…and get an audience. And that’s just what I did based on the suggestion of my photographer friend Randy. Since I was going to be hanging around the town and the island of Fogo, I was told it would be a good idea to let the constabulary know what I was up to.

So, into the town hall I went and asked if I might meet the manager. “Why, yes. of course. One minute, he’ll be very happy to meet you. Let me tell him you’re here. Where did you say you were from?” No red tape, no bureaucracy, and no surly DMV types, just a warm, welcome. Wow.

I am then introduced to Bruce Pomeroy, the Fogo Town Manager. No pretense, frills, or trappings of office – just a Newfoundlander doing his job and part of that job was to deal with people like me. I expected a brief but friendly hi, hello, how are you. What I received was far beyond that. I got a tour of the office, a brief history of the town and island, a copy of that history and an island map, and a commemorative pin. Yet, we were not done, not by a long shot. I was then to be given a walking tour of the town by Bruce.

I was introduced to several people on our tour including the owner of a fishing fleet of which I will write soon. On this walk, by one of the coves on the island, I looked out and saw an amazing panorama. The sky was this rich and varied grey; the sea was a fluid and darker grey; and separating them was this brilliant white line. It glowed. I asked Bruce what was that. He replied that it was part of the arctic ice pack that breaks off every year and travels down to Newfoundland. Based on where it was, he thought that if the winds were right, it would surround the island by the next afternoon. That would be enough time for the few fisherman to get their boats safely to where they would not become ice-locked. Once there, the pack ice had to melt before any boats would break free.

By 2:30 that afternoon, the pack ice was already coming in and fast. The winds were so much stronger than originally thought. And with the winds came a large drop in temperature as they crossed over the ice. I was to spend the next four hours watching and photographing several fisherman attempting to get their boats free. It was incredible to see. There will be a series of photos in the book depicting this. It is a hard life.

I go, you go, Fogo!

31 Tuesday Jan 2012

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                                                                     From a more hopeful time.

Pardon the silliness of the title, but I’ll be off to Fogo Island on the north coast of Newfoundland. It, after arriving in St. John’s, will be the first stop in my second trip up there. It is there where I hope to find and start to photograph the newly realized core of my book, “Arn? Narn.”

Just what is that core? It’s what I had already known but not realized; then realized but didn’t understand; and now it was a growing awareness of the impact of the fishing moratorium and it’s subsequent long-term effects. It was as my Fogo Island innkeeper was to tell me, “What you see now will not be here in 10-12 years.” That wasn’t prescient; it was fact: one I was still to discover first hand.

Fogo Island is so uniquely Newfoundland. (Where else could you be greeted by The Mouse?) The name was originally Y del Fogo, meaning island of fire. There is speculation as to the origin of the name: perhaps it was the native Beothuk’s (now extinct) campfires or multiple forest fires, but no one is certain.

The island supported itself solely on fishing as had the entire province. Now it was suffering the same fate as that of the larger “mainland” island. True, it had the annual Brimstone Head Folk festival each summer on Brimstone Head, (reputed by the Flat Earth Society to be one of the four corners of the earth!) but that was in early August for only a few days. A week before that is the Ethridge Point Seaside Festival in Joe Batt’s Arm. These bring some tourists in but for a short time, not enough to make much of a difference.

I was to be here for nearly a week in which I would be able to roam and photograph across the island, talk with people directly, and get a better feel for this environment. I would learn that Fogo was the main outport/town on Fogo Island – do not confuse the two. Fogo (the town) is joined by the communities of Joe Batt’s Arm, Seldom, Little Seldom, Tilting, Barr’d Islands, and Stag Harbour. In 2006 they all came together to form the Town of Fogo, while retaining their individual personalities. More to come on Fogo soon.

Launching a…house?

13 Friday Jan 2012

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House launching scene from the film “The Shipping News”

Moves are never fun in spite of what it might say on your U-Haul rental – “Adventures in Moving.” Hah! It doesn’t say what kind of adventures though. Broken china, strained backs and relationships, and an absolute, total lack of energy or enthusiasm for anything to do with the new home…at least for the next few days.

When you’re young, you move yourself and all your belongings because you can and probably can’t afford to hire someone to do it. When you get older, you hire someone to do it for you because you can now afford it and you probably can’t or least don’t want to do it.

Now imagine this: you’re a Newfoundlander and you want to move to a different part of the island. But you really, really, love the house you’re in. You know you’ll never find another like it and you do own it (that’s a plus.) And it’s winter. Geez. The trifecta of moving.

Do you call Allied Van Lines? Or do you call some friends with a truck? Ehh, yeah, sort of. What you do is what is commonly and historically known in Newfoundland as launching the house. (Since you don’t own the land, you’re not liable for leaving it behind. It’s the Crown’s land anyway.) Yes, pack up the house(!), lift it up and put it on a large purpose-built wood sled, hook up the men or horses or both, and pull that sucker across the ice in the harbor. Of course, if it’s not winter, you could float it across the harbor pulled by a boat. Get it to the new site and congratulations, you have now successfully launched a house. Think how good that will look on your resume.

It does pose some questions though: What schools do the kids go to? Are we still in the same time zone? Where’s the liquor store? These are all important questions that should be answered before one launches their home. Adventures in moving indeed.

The 50,000 year old Rice Krispy or Snap, Crackle, Pop, (and Hiss).

12 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Discovery, Geography, History, Newfoundland, Observations, Sea, Uncategorized

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Who would have thought that a popular breakfast cereal had anything in common with the Titanic? After all, even a floating case of Rice Krispies would not even be noticed by the mammoth ship as it steamed blissfully and ignorantly by the hapless krispies. It’s not like it was an iceberg or something …right?

One thing Newfoundland and the Titanic have in common though is icebergs – much to the horror of the passengers on the Titanic, but not so much for Leonardo DeCaprio. Newfoundland finds itself smack in the middle of Iceberg Alley. You’re not likely to get mugged in this alley, but the slow moving bergs can do a hell of a lot of damage if you’re not careful. Keep in mind that the pretty part of the iceberg is only 10% of the entire mass. The other 90% lurks silently, waiting to wreak havoc – or to just ground itself in a cove where it melts mostly harmlessly away and its remains wash up on shore.

In season, tourists flock to the area to be see the oftentimes staggering number of bergs making their way down from the Arctic Circle. But for some locals, watching the bergs is not what they’re waiting for. Oh no. They’re waiting to harvest the shards of this frozen flotsam.

Why? Because after the shards are washed off, they remain as frozen pieces of 10,000 to 50,000 year old unbelievably pure water and air. No pollution or industrial waste captured in these. They keep your drinks, soft and adult, really cold and pure. And the prehistoric goodness doesn’t stop there. They entertain. Oh, yeah. As they melt, (very, very slowly), they make sounds – sometimes startlingly loud. They snap, pop, and hiss, releasing age-old air into your drink. (OK, so I lied about the crackle!) And they keep for a long time. One woman who was gathering the ice told me this was the first time in four years she went out to get more. Being so dense, it doesn’t melt quickly. Wash it off, put back in your freezer and use again when ready.

The ultimate recycling effort. Yes, b’y.

Free Newfoundland!

02 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Culture, Fish, History, Newfoundland, Observations, Uncategorized

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from Living Planet, St. John’s, Nfld.

“Free Newfoundland” is not a coupon or a buy one, get one free deal. It was a light-hearted marketing piece that touched a few nerves. The “Free Newfoundland” (my quotation marks) movement isn’t a movement per se like the the very real separatist group in Quebec. Rather it is more of an attitude. Yes, there are those who still believe confederation should have never happened. And of course there are opposing views. The slogan itself was penned by Wallace Ryan in 1982 to promote and encourage Newfoundland nationalism. It is however currently seen on t-shirts, bumper stickers, and more around the island.

That the slogan has endured some thirty years is an indication of some still simmering dissatisfaction with confederation. It might just as well speak of a free Newfoundland or a freeing of Newfoundland from confederation.

In its history, Newfoundland has been an independent country and a colony of Great Britain. In 1949, Newfoundland voted to enter into confederation with Canada by a 51-49 vote. And culturally, it was probably closer than that. (Sort of like Gore-Bush.) Obviously, the suitors in this merger (not quite a blind date) hadn’t sought out the wisdom of a counselor – marriage or otherwise. This was the brainchild (hare-brained for some) of then Premier Joey Smallwood. Since then, it has been a source of friction between the parties – sometimes humorous, other times, ehhh, not so much.

Newfoundlanders believe that some of the source of their problems with the disappearance of fish is due to government meddling and mismanagement. Government is always an easy target and oftentimes correctly so. Being a fiercely independent people, there is an inherent skepticism about government and its efficacy. Funny how most people feel their country has a lock on those things. When things are beyond one’s control, it’s easy to see why the government is blamed – sometimes rightly, other times wrongly so.

But this is not really about government or blame, it’s about a Free Newfoundland.

Yes b’y!

Ghosts of the Battery.

26 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by in Discovery, Geography, History, Newfoundland, Observations, Sea, Uncategorized, Weather

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During my research, I learned about Cape Spear being the eastern-most part of the North American continent. It’s actually closer to Ireland than to other parts of Canada. I think there is a certain Newfoundland pride in that fact.

This is where the sun shines first, (remember 2.5 hours ahead of Central Time), on the continent each day. When it shines. It gets a jump on the day before most of us are even considering getting out of bed. On the other hand, some of us might just be getting in. After all, the night life goes on long and strong in St. John’s. The day I visited was socked in pretty good with fog. Have I mentioned I really love the fog? (11.14.11 post). Down in St. John’s that morning, it was sunny and pleasant. The drive up to Cape Spear (only 9 miles) was different: very foggy and a good deal colder. Arriving, there was a real visual sense of foreboding. The fog changed everything.

It was much colder because of the fog. The sea roar sounded a lot louder as well. And the wind was anything but gentle. But the piece-de-resistance was the optical illusion the fog created. Getting out of the car and approaching the cliff, the sea appeared to rise vertically behind the lighthouse. It was as an actual seawall was towering before me. Coupled with the amplified sound of the sea, a buffeting wind, and the colder temperatures, this was an incredibly sensual yet disconcerting experience.

Sharing geography on Cape Spear is an old World War Two artillery battery housing two ten inch guns constructed to protect St. John’s harbor. The guns have been neutered but still, silently, are on eternal watch duty. Connected by underground tunnels it would be easy to imagine the soldiers huddled against the cold at their posts. The tunnels show the wear and tear of time and weather and are just waiting to be used in the next M. Night Shyamalan film. In the mercurial light and patterns of the fog, one can almost see the ghosts waiting, listening, ready. What tricks of the eye did the fog play then?

Do you have a flag?

21 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in Culture, Discovery, History, Humor, Newfoundland

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The very funny, British comedian Eddie Izzard does a wonderful bit about imperialism. In it, he talks about invading countries taking over foreign lands. It seems that if the occupied country has no flag, then it is fair game for the invaders.

Thankfully for Newfoundland, it has a flag and a unique one it is. Designed by Christopher Pratt and adopted by the province in 1980, all the colors and shapes have a significant meaning. White represents the snow and the ice, of which there can be a lot of in winter; blue equals the sea which completely informs the culture; red is for human efforts; gold speaks to the “confidence in ourselves”; blue is their Commonwealth heritage (the Union Jack); and the red and gold section signifies their future.

The two triangles outlined in red show the mainland and island reaching forward together; and the golden arrow points to a bright future.

The design of the flag is also symbolic. Featured in this design is the Christian Cross; the Beothuk and Naskapi ornamentation (vanished native North American tribes); the outline of the maple leaf (really!) in the center of the flag; a triumphant figure and their place in the space age. Also, the image of the trident is evident. This underscores their dependence on the sea’s resources (read this as fish). When it is hung as a banner, the shape of a sword is obvious as a remembrance of war veterans. It is a flag laden with complex meanings. But a handsome one. My thanks to worldflags101.com for the complete story.

What? You say you’ve never seen one before? Look for the bicyclist wearing a jersey with the flag as the main artwork on it. Be careful though and don’t get too close to Flags, look it, that’s me on the bike.