Trinity

June 15, 2010

Left Grand Falls and set out in driving rain for Gander. The ruts in the pavement of the travelled lane were ponded with water and the crosswind tugged at my home as I drove making the drive an ugly experience. I was more than thankful I had only 90 km to go. Stopped at the grandiosely named North American Aviation Museum because it had been commended to my attention and was disappointed. Aircraft including a water-bomber were anchored to the ground outside and inside most things were labelled “do not touch”. What’s the point of a simulator if you can’t even see inside? What was on display seemed to a large degree to be castoffs from the airport bequeathed the museum when the equipment was upgraded but there didn’t seem to be a lot of thought given to how it might be made interesting to a non professional public. The Arrow Crash may have been the worst Newfoundland air disaster but surely the crash at Peggys Cove and the Air India Flight were bigger. Maybe I was just in a sour mood that day.

It wasn’t improved when a couple with a large cart of groceries jumped my place in the line-up when I ran to replace a torn bag of sugar. Enjoyed my talk with the guys at the Newfoundland Liquor Store. I’ve never had rum with a cork before. It is good. Spent two days in rain driven by gusting winds at a spartan campground amid large puddles walking up to the motel dining room to use the Internet. After hearing others discuss the road to Twillingate I decided to pass on the experience. Thursday morning drove in sunlight down to Terra Nova to find the Visitors Centre closed until 10. Went for a hike along the inlet and admired the wildflowers. This East Coast park lacks the dramatic scenery of Gros Morne but makes up for it in plant life and trees. Back at the centre watched the introductory movie just ahead of a bus-load of kids, toured the marine exhibit and got up close and personal with a cod and less handsome looking fishes, toured the gift shop and went on my way. There are no guides to the park and the yearly newsletter and other programs were not out yet. Drove into East Port along a highway that fronted the sea and even crossed one inlet. The Shriner’s Park was basic and the Internet worked on and off. I’d had my exercise for the day.

On Friday discovered there are multiple Trinity’s in Newfoundland and worse, that my GPS had no idea where the one I wanted was to. The road in comes out occasionally on water but for much of the trip crosses hills filled with birch, balsam fir and black spruce. Many times I hoped I wasn’t about to drop off the end of the world. At a so-called visitors trail centre I was told, Oh you can’t miss Rising Tide Theatre, just follow the signs. There were no signs. The road into Trinity Bight is posted at 30 kilometres and this isn’t solely to give the local RCMP a chance to catch up on their speeding ticket quota; there’s a reason outports were only accessible by boat until recent decades.

Trinity Harbour was discovered by Captain Cook on Trinity Sunday and the original hand-drawn chart is remarkably accurate. Once a bustling fishing port shipping barrels of salt cod to Europe the community has suffered major setbacks with the cod moratorium and a severely dwindling population. Nowhere is that more evident than at St Paul’s Anglican Church which has a hymn in the Anglican Hymn Book that was written specifically for this congregation. The church, built to hold 500, serves a community that in winter barely has 50 residents. The Catholic Church has two aged members, the United Church is no more.

Today tourism is the mainstay of the community. The Trinity Experience Historical Society not only sells tours of the community but also uses its funds to restore and maintain significant structures. Rising Tide Theatre draws theatre goers such as myself and helps fill restaurants, inns, and B&Bs. The scenery doesn’t hurt either. And I found the theatre mistakenly walking into the Artistic Directors Office and mentioning that they might want to let their audience know where they were. Two days later the sign was up.

Faced with a performance that could be in a backyard or upstairs at the parish hall a quarter mile distant in a strange town I demurred learning later the show was cancelled due to lack of ticket sales. It came off Sunday night outdoors for an audience of seven fending off blackflies while a kitten mewed in the background. My campground proved to be a hollow beside the highway down the road from Trinity Cabins Office which started business in 1948.

On Saturday I got lucky with the weather and went for a hike around gun hill that started at the Anglican Cemetery and Mortuary Chapel used for services in winter. To see the harbour today it’s hard to picture it in the days when the town merchant had a fleet of 200 ships moored there. Like so many other places I’ve visited in Newfoundland the talk is of former glory days and the present struggle to find work to encourage the young people to stay on. Not that the average working man got rich on his labour making the merchant owners rich on his toil--but at least he had employment. My host pointed out the fate of his 18-year-old son who went to rough-neck in the oil fields of Northern Alberta and met his death there. Life at sea may have been equally treacherous but it was work a Newfoundlander could understand.

Spent an hour at the Dockside dissecting two snow-crab legs determined to get my moneys-worth before walking over to catch an evening performance. Sunday I drove in early, parked in general parking and wandered around town in earnest. When the belfry of Saint Paul's began insistently calling the faithful to worship with a non-stop 15 minute peal I wandered over to find a phalanx of Mason’s lined up in the narthex in full regalia. An ageing organist played the church’s pipe organ assisted by a gentlemen who laboured in obscurity to work its hand-pumped bellows. I did my best to make sure the singing didn’t drag. I did not expect to hear jokes from the pulpit.

Spent my afternoon wandering around town inspecting the historical buildings and the wares of the various craft and gift shops then dropped into the box office to find where the evening performance was to. Saltwater Moon is a two-hander here performed in a backyard with two rows of lawn chairs, a bench, rocking chair, amber spyglass and Jacob Mercer’s hemp-roped suitcase. He’s fresh off the boat from Port-Aux-Basques to see the girl he left behind him. Lee Fowlow’s performance was the highlight of my visit. Only in a place like this would one run into an actor after the show and be thanked for being such a good audience.