by David Ward
Maybe I’m struggling to commit, but why would that be? I am truly convinced that almost any couple can succeed if they’re willing to do whatever work it takes. So why should I turn and run when I meet up with a winner? Perhaps, after two twelve-year relationships, I now know too much about the energy required to make one work and no longer want to do that drudgery. Yet I believe goodness is the greatest force in the world, and I see it everywhere in my isolated outport and am wanting to once again share in my blessings. So why the struggle? I think it’s because physical intimacy with a casual acquaintance is hard on me. It may not be manly to say so, but it’s accurate. I’m not relaxed sharing a bed with a near-stranger — even a wonderful one. I believe that everything is better with a familiar partner, and that that elation increases over time.
But “time” could be difficult to create from an isolated outport, because I am also having trouble imagining how a relationship will work — St. John’s is a ninety-minute boat ride and an eight-hour drive from McCallum, and that’s appearing impossible right now. Especially during lobster season. I’m a hypocrite for having suggested otherwise during my online discussions with daters. I’m feeling like a phoney, and I am experiencing enormous anxiety as a result of being so wrong. While I long to once again be intensively involved with a woman, I don’t wish to do so at the expense of my McCallum adventure or any part of it. I must get clear about what I want my Newfoundland life to look like, and what kind of price I’m willing to pay for such a journey. In the meantime, I’m telling everyone in McCallum that my helicopter ride was the highlight of my trip, but that too isn’t true.
Part Two
Seven
I want nothing more than to make the most of my experiences and opportunities. That’s why I’m here, in McCallum. I really do want to live life to its fullest and support others who wish to do the same. But most days I’m scared and lonely and unsure how to proceed. And I want to stop pretending otherwise. So it’s time I revisited some lessons I learned a long time ago, on another island — on the other side of the world.
I turned twenty-two in Australia. Getting to Oz was not easy. Travelling to Australia was harder than moving to Newfoundland. Some might think that statement obvious, but I don’t mean the purchase of an expensive plane ticket, twenty-four-hour travel of ten thousand miles, or my commitment to twelve months down under. It was the quitting of a good Canadian manufacturing job that I found most challenging. I’d been hired full-time at Labatt, bought a house, a truck . . . and everyone was saying, “You can’t quit that job.”
Brewery work was seen as good employment among the working-class crowd I’d been born into. Wages and benefits were considered exceptional, conditions above average, and in 1980, Labatt had a reputation for treating people right. Plus, my dad had been in the brewery business for decades, so there was another kind of pressure that came along with leaving. Not only was I shunning my father’s choices, I was redirecting the family dream — a path that had already experienced massive upheaval when my sister and her husband died the previous year. I’ve suffered a couple of personal blows and quit several good jobs since, but at twenty-one, that experiential pathway I chose was scary territory.
Escaping to Australia ultimately made my predicament more palatable. The flora and fauna, slower paced way of life, beaches, and, yes, “sheilas,” made it much easier to forget what some were saying about my choices. The non-threatening koalas, charismatic cockatoos, and hardy gum trees intrigued me, and the Aussies’ attitudes taught me much. Australians distrust established authority but believe in lengthy leaves of absence and the idea that everyone is entitled to “a fair go.”
The first thing I did in Australia was connect with an old friend from home. Such familiarity made my gigantic adjustment easier, as did the support group my buddy had acquired upon his arrival. My friend was playing hockey in Melbourne, where his team found me accommodation and a factory job. As usual, life would have been much more challenging if not for the kindness of others. Then my matey and I went to work reinforcing a friendship that has lasted a lifetime. We suntanned, snorkelled, boated, worked hard, walked the beach, body-surfed, made money to survive, threw a Frisbee for endless hours, missed our families and friends, drove on the wrong side of the road, attended concerts and sporting events, learned new words, ate foreign foods, sheared sheep, shared John Lennon’s death, camped extraordinary country, travelled further . . . for an entire year. Thus, the most lasting lesson of my Australian journey has been the part where I learned that calculated risk can reap great rewards, yet I still need to force myself to live that scary lesson every day.
So it is time I upped the ante, further embracing everything about this Newfoundland leg of my journey. Not that facing fear is for everyone, or that others should confront their feelings as frequently as I do. Just that, however you define safety, stepping outside your comfort zone can facilitate enormous growth and inspire considerable creativity. Looking back, quitting so-called secure work and travelling to Australia at twenty-one taught me the most indelible lessons I ever learned. Lessons without which I would never have made it to McCallum. I wouldn’t have become a writer either. In the early stages of my writing life, I felt a large lack of confidence. To this day, I don’t know an adverb from an adjective, and I often use a rural vernacular that many insist is improper and poorly suited for nonfiction. I hate being told that my emotional style makes my audience uncomfortable, and it angers me every time someone suggests I edit my anger.
Writing my first book was an act of daily desperation for me. I had to trust my previous experiences long enough to get words onto the page, but given writing is such an isolated undertaking, I found this deed difficult and lonely. Every day, I self-sabotaged in one way or another. Still do.
With an uncommon idea, a style unlike others’, a fear of failing, and an inadequate understanding of what needs to happen next, my creative efforts require as much reading as writing while I move through unfamiliar territory. But even books from the masters aren’t enough — I occasionally need to look a published author in the eye and experience others who are struggling to achieve the same goals that I am.
An education hack, I frequently take courses. Then an award-winning author tells me writing workshops are a waste of time — writers just need to write. While I understand why some say this — that time devoted to telling others that you want to write might be better spent writing, rather than trying to fight your fears by commiserating with your peers — I think the idea of connecting with people who look at writing dilemmas differently than I do is more promising than naysayers know. So I sought out the teachers at Piper’s Frith, a secluded writers’ workshop found at the top of Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula, just west of Come By Chance and south of Goobies.
As good as Piper’s leadership was, I had more in common with my classmates — everyday people feeling doubts about their dreams. My fellow students didn’t disappoint. The appetite I witnessed for genres I’d previously ridiculed was a humbling experience. Science fiction, poetry, humour, even horror. My classmates were crazy about their respective areas of expertise, and their support of my obscure interests was endearing. We laughed, critiqued, cringed — even cried — in response to each other’s priceless opinions.
My mentor — Newfoundland novelist Kevin Major — was terrific, my roommate a gentleman, and my support group second to none. The location was incredible, and we ate like royalty. The Newfoundland network I was introduced to, and have accessed since, was worth every penny of Piper’s price. I learned more about the publishing industry over coffee and cake than I ever could have on my own. I went back to McCallum believing I was a way better writer.
So think what you want about synchronicity — my life today wouldn’t look at all like it does if I hadn’t gone to Australia when I did. I would not have had the confidence to build on the successes I’ve achieved since. And I wouldn’t have seen the sights I have, sights lik
e the Sydney Opera House, the Great Barrier Reef, and the all-powerful Pissing Horse.
The Pissing Horse is an enormous waterfall on Newfoundland’s southwest coast. A couple of kilometres west of the ghost town Richard’s Harbour, Pissing Horse is seldom seen. It’s experienced by less than a dozen people per year, and the only reason I get to see this magnificent natural beauty as often as I do is because I work on a boat that puts lobster pots around its base for five weeks every spring.
Named for the way in which a steady, full-bodied stream explodes from its head, anyone who has seen a stallion discharge will understand the similarity. Except you can’t see Pissing Horse’s source — it’s almost a thousand feet high. I picture it approaching liftoff, with considerable power, along a restricted channel at a slightly upward angle. I imagine there is a strong, secure rock in place at the point of climax for the leading edge of that cliff to have remained so rigid under load for so long.
Contemplating Pissing Horse’s scale, however, is a difficult concept to consider. When the only man-made objects for miles around are you and your little boat, it is nearly impossible to grasp just how large the landscape is. There are days when this gigantic geology, made up of magnificent multi-coloured mountains and cliffs stripped of soil by a relentless flow of ice almost fifty thousand years ago, swallows me up. Measuring and banding lobsters, filling bait bags, tuning out the skipper’s abusive barking, and trying to stay standing when too much sea tries to beat us against the shore occasionally consumes me. Yet, in the brief moments when I return to the present and look at Pissing Horse after what seems like a long time, I see we have barely moved from where I thought we were thirty minutes earlier. It seems like, in reality, we have a high-powered outboard motor steadily moving us east, but in the magically huge world where I work, it looks like we’ve gotten nowhere.
Facheux Bay is another beauty that I feel blessed to know. An ancient fiord that sits four kilometres west of McCallum and runs ten kilometres inland, Facheux is the jewel in the crown called the Southwest Coast. The best way to describe Facheux is to say that it looks like Gros Morne National Park — an area that has caught the world’s attention because of all its natural beauty. Gros Morne is the landmark that the province of Newfoundland, via television, newspapers, magazines, and the internet, endlessly invites the world to visit. Yet there are a lot of landscapes on the Southwest Coast that are akin to Gros Morne. Locations like Goblin Head, Hare Bay, the Devil’s Dancing Table . . .
Facheux Bay is the most dramatic example of what the Southwest Coast has to offer when it comes to heart-stopping topography. Yet, Facheux has a fascinating human history as well. Not only did Captain James Cook tie up in Facheux Bay, many Newfoundland and native cultures used this glaciated inlet for winter sustenance.
One hundred-year-old tale occasionally told is about the trapper Henry Buffett, who died in his sleep on Facheux’s historic hills. When Henry didn’t wake, his dog, perhaps in an effort to stir his master — lick, lick, nudge, nudge, and eventually a playful bite or two — damaged Henry’s head. Or maybe the dog, after a lengthy period of loyally lying alongside its master’s remains, acted on its natural instincts instead of starving to death.
Whatever the dog’s intentions, a group of men later found Henry’s faithful four-legged friend and followed it back to Buffett’s body. Assuming the dog could not be trusted after acquiring the taste of human flesh, the men shot it before burying Buffett. Today, many believe it was unnecessary to dispose of the dog, but a century ago, we viewed such situations differently.
Another story that illustrates how insanely we’ve seen the world tells how a McCallum foursome sailed up Facheux in a dory, stumbled across an indigenous woman working alone, and promptly drowned her in a saltwater pond. Not all the detail regarding this tragic story is clear, but no one denies that native life was once horrifyingly and senselessly seen as dispensable.
Trips from McCallum to Facheux Bay today begin with fighting through the choppy seas and various tides that collect around Taylor Island. As scary as this experience can be for me, I always take a few seconds to consider how challenging life must have been for the three families that lived on Taylor Island in the late 1800s. I pay a quiet tribute to the fact that our entire crew, including me, is here because of one of those families. Carol’s grandmother Cora and her twin brother, Sandy — the late patriarch of McCallum’s Feaver family — were born on Taylor Island in a small bay called Indian Cove. The Feavers are my go-to crew for adventure.
With the sun still a long way from coming up over Canada, I start clapping my heavily gloved hands in an effort to bring life to my already chilled-to-the-bone body. Once the rugged beauty of Back Cove is behind us, I try to spot a big seal on Little Shag Rock. I love witnessing wildlife. But fishermen curse seals for their capacity to consume fish. Fishers also resent the fact that much of the world despises Newfoundland for slaughtering baby seals for their fur. Many men take this rejection personally, to the point where they try to kill the animals whenever they can. So seal sightings also sadden me, because every minute that fishermen are upset with a seal is sixty seconds when they’re not angry at a government incapable of caring for a fishery that once provided for all. As for any inconsequential seal killings committed for rage-related reasons, angrily aiming a firearm at anything is an insane thing to do.
But a trip up Facheux demands mindfulness, so I redirect my melancholy to the high country and try to imagine giant glaciers scattering multi-storey rocks on smooth summits. I concentrate on the climbing escarpment and, because I get great pleasure from watching pelagic birds, I count the number that call these cliffs home — colourful puffins, gorgeous gannets, elusive turrs, copulating cormorants . . . Then I take my turn on lookout, which, because it’s so critical to the well-being of all onboard, is a crazy place to put a come-from-away who can’t tell a sunker from a jumper. In search of sentinel assistance, I conjure up the ghost of Captain Cook, who, on June 7, 1766, after anchoring for six days in what today is called McCallum, directed his men to take the same route we are. I wonder how many magnificent mornings the crew of the Grenville witnessed and how my skipper today will find his way to the bottom of Facheux Bay through what is still largely darkness and danger. Then an awe-inspiring lip of light forms over Dragon Bay when a full moon falls into an opening between cloud cover and mountaintop, shining a gleaming stream on the water’s surface in such a way that all we have to do is find the faith to trust it.
Eight
“Your address?” she asks. We’re talking on the telephone.
“Post Office Box 3, McCallum, Newfoundland, A0H 2J0,” I reply. “Would you like me to spell McCallum for you?”
“I need your street address, sir.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have one.”
“I need the street name and number on the building you want us to send your parcel to,” she repeats in that odd way that is neither offensive nor friendly. It’s just — there. The kind of voice that sounds more like an automated answering machine than it does a breathing human being.
“Yes, I understand what you’re asking for,” I say. “It’s just that I live in an isolated Newfoundland outport, where there are no streets, resulting in no street names or house numbers. I’m a ninety-minute boat ride from the nearest road.”
“I need a street address or the courier won’t be able to find your home,” she insists.
I stifle a laugh. Sort of. “No courier will be coming here, my dear. I can guarantee you that. Plus, my neighbours and I have ordered many couriered packages previously, using nothing more than the PO Boxes that Canada Post provides, and the items we order always arrive.”
“Sir, our system only allows us to enter a street name and house number.”
“Okay, that’s another story — that’s more about insufficient software than it is your resistance to new knowledge, so I’ll give you a fake address. It will implicate us both in fe
deral mail fraud, but I’ll gladly lie to you if that’s your employer’s preference.”
Silence.
My move. “Oh, look at that! I’ve got an address right here: 23 Jas Rose Point [or 16 Long Shore Road, or . . .], McCallum, Newfoundland A0H 2J0.”
“Spell McCallum please.”
Fact is, you can send mail to “The Feller from Away, A0H 2J0,” and it will reach me. There are seventy-nine people at this postal code. None live more than a kilometre from everyone else. I’m sure our postmistress, Sharon Feaver, can figure it out.
Despite government efforts to kill us off, Canada is a big country that still contains a considerable rural population. It’s easy to forget this when you live in a large urban centre, where services are readily available and geared to meet the needs of the majority.
Try taking out home insurance when you live where I do, when the service provider needs to know if your foundation is full-height poured cement or a cinderblock crawl space. My house doesn’t have a foundation, I say. It sits on sticks. What I don’t tell them is, when my washing machine is on spin, a few of those pillars shake like loose shingles in an Ontario tornado. I don’t point out, “That’s my kettle on the stove that you hear rattling right now.”
It’s impossible to find a technician who can fix the faulty appliance that you purchased new the previous week. And good luck getting a mortgage when the lender asks how far you are from the nearest fire station. Even the federal gun registry isn’t set up to serve you, but I don’t recommend you use the word “fraud” with those guys.
