Newfoundland Longing

As I near the end of my two months in Newfoundland I am left with a sense of longing and nostalgia for past glories. As with so many Islanders who were forced to move ‘away’ to make a living and come back to visit family or retire one cannot go home. In the first place the home you left will have changed and oft-times no longer be recognizable as the place you remember, and in the second the eyes you view it with will have been altered by life experience: places seen and people met.

The crash of the cod stocks not only deprived thousands of a living but swept away an entire lifestyle. Whether or not one agrees with Joey Smallwood’s resettlement program living in remote inaccessible outports because they were close to favourite fishing grounds was no longer a viable lifestyle on many levels. On the other hand moving from the social comfort of insular communities to larger urban centres leaving behind the only world one had known, one’s dead, one’s sense of the world and one’s place in it created in many a permanent sense of dislocation. King Cod once so numerous it was said you could walk across the Grand Banks on their backs is now only a remnant.

All over the Rock young people have moved ‘away’ to find work in Ontario or the oil fields of Alberta. Communities that were once home to hundreds or even thousands are now left with small ageing populations who have no one to care for them, bury their dead, or remember their stories. In Trinity a church built to hold five hundred now serves a winter population of 45. Once thriving outports are now ghost towns where people visit only in summer.

A generation of Newfoundlanders is growing up who have no association with the sea: its tides, its seasons, its moods, its life cycle, who have never been at sea on a calm foggy day to hear a groaner twenty miles distant, a gannet dive for a fish or a whale blow or breach even though all are invisible. Who would be lost at sea if the fog rolled in without their navigational aids.

The Beothuk aborigines are an extinct race along with the Great Auk. The primeval hardwood forests have been cut and are unlikely to regrow. The Trans-Newfoundland Railway, The Newfie Bullet, now exists only as the track for the Trans Canada Trail. Because their ores are no longer viable mining communities which once employed thousands are now reduced to ghost towns or remnant bedroom communities. Once thriving mill towns languish because foreign owners no longer find their chief employers profitable. Communities that grew up around major airports dwindle because modern jets no longer have to stop here to refuel. Tourism would seem to be the wave of the future but making a living off nostalgia is demoralizing and the unpredictable and undependable Marine Atlantic Ferry System does a disservice to islanders and tourists alike.

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So why should anyone come here?

The People. Get out of the few major population centres and meet people who have time for one another, who will stop and talk not to be polite but because they genuinely enjoy human contact. No strangers to hardship they will make you welcome and go out of their way to help however they can. Per capita Newfoundlanders give more to charity than practically any other population in North America.

The Rock. The land which has formed this people is harsh and unforgiving. Stoically accepting great distances and bad weather as the way things are and getting on with life despite them is the Newfoundland way. Get out on the water with the locals. Icebergs really do float by and whales troll the coastline for capelin and shrimp. In Gros Morne 2000 ft cliffs tower vetically over 700 ft of water, in the east cliffs rise above shallow coastal waters with green meadows right to their edges.

The Wildlife. One hundred thirty thousand moose: an introduced road hazard, a viewing opportunity, or a culinary discovery. Fish, both fresh water and sea creatures. The birdlife, bald eagles abound but it is the pelagic birds that come ashore only to nest in remote colonies by the tens of thousands.

History. Haunted by it and proud of their heritage at the same time, it is expressed in yarns and song, in plays and art, music and dance, in architecture and turns of phrase. It inflects speech patterns with accents from Dorset, Ireland, and the Basque shores. At the same time it evokes sorrow, pride and joy.

The Food. Whether a Jigg’s Meal of pickled beef appeals in Newfoundland it is Sunday Dinner. Where else can one have fish that an hour ago was still swimming in the sea? Cod tongues and schruncheons, fish and chips, cod fish patties for breakfast. The berries. Miles and miles of wetlands grow cloudberries, bakeapples, crowberries, raspberries, blueberries, cranberries and this natural bounty becomes jams, jellies, cordials, pies, conserves.

Go to Newfoundland to make memories of your own.