by David Ward
I’m not sure how they plan to get her into St. John’s for her fast-approaching first day. Her dad is currently catching redfish on the Grand Banks — 250 kilometres offshore — but I’m convinced that he’ll do what he can to be home before she goes. Whatever their plans, it’s not going to be easy on anyone.
One of the issues that isn’t talked about enough is how difficult it is for families in outlying areas to send their kids to college or university. Not only is it more challenging emotionally — shipping your kids off four years before townies have to — it’s crippling financially. Urban kids can go in search of post-secondary education and never have to leave their family home. Rural children, on the other hand, not only have to learn to live a new lifestyle, they need to find ways to help pay for it all. That’s no small chore in a country where politicians download all the responsibility they can regarding the cost of educating our children. Government has decided that although they and big business benefit greatly from academic advancement — in the form of increased taxes and incredible employees — parents and their children have to subsidize this economic growth. Imagine what four years of student housing costs a rural family compared to urbanites who can send their kids off to school from the familiarity of their front porch. And picture shipping out an unseasoned seventeen-year-old outport person at the end of August, knowing that you won’t see them again until Christmas.
One of my McCallum buddies loaned me a copy of Maclean’s magazine dated March 1, 1982. That periodical was the first issue of Canada’s weekly national news journal to be published after the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, Newfoundland’s ill-fated oil rig. My buddy thought I might find these articles interesting, and I did — sort of. I love Canadian history, but very little causes me to feel as much grief as stories about other people’s pain. Stories like the one about two thousand people piling into St. John’s Roman Catholic basilica for a non-denominational service while thousands watched on television, praying that they could breathe out the sorrow that the sea brings to so many Newfoundland lives.
I was twenty-three years old at the time of that tragedy, and, not entirely in tune with current events, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the Newfoundland news. Yet I know now that I was no different than the majority of men on the Ocean Ranger. I would have seen the opportunity to make $20,000 per year, at a time when magazines cost a dollar, as an incredible opportunity. Especially at an age when I saw myself as indestructible. So if my travels had taken me to the North Atlantic instead of the South Pacific, I could easily have accepted a job on the Ocean Ranger.
Initial reports suggested that the men onboard that rig included fifty-four Newfoundlanders, fourteen mainlanders, fourteen Americans, a Brit, and, when Maclean’s went to press, one undisclosed nationality. Fathers, friends, brothers, sons, husbands, uncles . . . although it was obviously a time when, unlike today, women weren’t hired to do that work, I think it’s alright to imagine that crew could have included any of us in that era. It could have been you and me facing seventy-five-knot winds and seventy-eight-foot waves from a platform only seventy feet above sea level. It could have been any of us unsure of what was happening, what to do in response, or how to do it. Especially when she began to list fifteen degrees to the port side, at which point a distress signal was sent out.
Thirty minutes later, communication fell silent. An hour after that, three emergency vessels and two Sikorsky helicopters that had launched into gale winds arrived on the scene. Upon arrival, however, search and rescue saw nothing where the world’s largest oil rig was supposed to be.
For a long time, that was all anyone could say about what had happened. All anybody knew for sure was that the Ocean Ranger had disappeared, sinking in 250 feet of water 324 kilometres east of St. John’s, taking all on board with her. It was only onshore where things played out in a predictable way. After initially refusing to issue public statements, government and the oil business quickly went to work pointing fingers at each other while insurance companies looked for a place to hide. Newfoundlanders were forced to find their own ways to reconcile the loss of loved ones. Even those who knew no one on board get teary-eyed when they talk about it today.
Eighteen
I’ve been living in McCallum for five years. It seems to me that, in that time, the speed of life on the mainland has increased. I see no indication that this nation’s need for speed won’t continue, or that anyone can do anything about it. As much as people beg for balance in their lives, governments and businesses are every day making decisions that result in life getting harder and faster for everyone except those with huge wealth.
Mainlanders are already moving as quickly as they can, to and from stores, schools, work, and all the appointments, play dates, and additional classes they’ve created for their kids. It’s a wonder they’re not all sick from a lack of real rest. Canada is copying Asian nations, so our politicians must be secretly planning on a population of at least a billion people — many of whom will work hard for almost nothing — because our current economic model is based on unlimited growth and low-cost labour. Mainlanders living in the lower ranks — the middle class no longer exists, just the filthy rich and the rest of us — don’t seem to see this trend as a loss of life. Those with the least are losing time, money, and health, yet all they want to do is spend, buy, and borrow.
When I was a child in Ontario in the sixties, adults told me that one day I would only work four days per week. It’s easy to see how such assumptions were made. That period in time saw huge attention paid to quality of life concerns. People had experienced years of sacrifice and no longer wished to do so. New technologies like fully automatic washing machines and oil-fired furnaces were increasingly providing folks with freedom from chores and responsibilities. Even governments of that era wanted to spend on services that improved people’s lives — health services for example. And education.
So why did that train come off the tracks? I’m pretty sure that the answer has to do with how humans placed the economy on a higher level of importance than everything else on earth. More important than personal well-being, family, and the environment. I think this happened for two reasons. One: we all wanted more stuff, so we set out to make extra money in order to acquire these additional objects. Two: our desire to purchase these possessions played right into the hands of elected officials whose mandate is the making of money — governments’ highest, adored, and often only priority. In other words, the more we work, and the more we spend, the more money we give to government. Politicians love this sheep-like quality about us, to a point where they prey upon it.
That’s why politicians dislike rural Newfoundlanders so much. Because not only do rural Newfoundlanders refuse to choose Canada’s economic hamster wheel ahead of a simple life they love, but they actually, on occasion, choose to access employment insurance paid into for the purpose of protecting themselves through tough times. Not only do a lot of rural Newfoundlanders not buy into the idea that making and spending money is life’s most important priority, they occasionally take a little out of the public pot, to protect their right to live peacefully. It drives politicians crazy and renders townies and mainlanders resentful, that so many Newfoundlanders have found a way to not only live a balanced life, but to do so using what so many others see as their money.
I’m not really living like a rural Newfoundlander. I’m obviously trying, and I’m getting closer, but I’m not there yet. I don’t qualify for any support, and I’m not at a point yet where I can consistently resist consuming. I am still caught in some kind of pathetic pattern where I buy things I shouldn’t when I’m experiencing emotional pain. Then I find myself reading job postings — for work I don’t want — when it’s time to pay up.
Even in an isolated outport a person can sign onto eBay anytime they’re feeling sad, low, or lonely — I think that’s why so many outport women have been buying lapdogs of late. Purchasing anything has become quite easy. Plus,
with satellite technology, outport people watch the same television — the same influential ads — as everyone else. I’m convinced that’s how I got suckered into buying a new car recently while visiting friends and family in Ontario. I live in an isolated Newfoundland community that contains no cars. Most days, I embrace that way of living — I want my lifelong love affair with the internal combustion engine to officially be over — but the minute I’m around automobiles again, the car-loving little boy in me kicks in and I go shopping.
At least this time I bought an economy car, I tell myself — an economy car with a twist. It’s a rally car. I’d tell you the manufacturer’s name, but I don’t want to advertise for the world’s wealthiest. It’s got a six-speed gearbox, and I had an exhaust specialist put an aftermarket muffler on it to give it a more masculine sound, if you can call a two-litre motor manly.
When you consider how infrequently I drive — once every three months or more — I shouldn’t own a vehicle at all. It makes no sense. But when the opportunity presents itself, I do enjoy the open road, including my three-thousand-kilometre trek from Kitchener to McCallum. Once past Montreal’s dangerous drivers and inadequate infrastructure, driving alongside the St. Lawrence River is a good way to do some serious thinking. And while New Brunswick’s unsustainable logging practices are hard to miss, and stomach, there are still some things worth pondering about that province. Like how magical that wilderness must have been before the chainsaw was invented.
Then it’s on to Nova Scotia, including Cape Breton, where not only the vistas are different, the people are too. They’re more distinctive, individually, in a subtle sort of way. After a lengthy wait in a no-longer-proud-and-productive North Sydney on a tarmac filled with idling transport trucks, I catch an overnight ferry across the Cabot Strait. Taking an overnighter saves having to spend a day in the company of a boatful of Marine Atlantic employees who give the impression that smiling is against Crown policies. It’s unbelievable how some of the friendliest people in the world — Atlantic Canadians — suddenly turn sour after they obtain employment with a federally owned agency.
The next morning, I race out of my cabin excited for an opportunity to catch a glimpse of Newfoundland’s Southwest Coast shrouded in fog. I love that look and never tire of it. It represents adventure to me. I find it exhilarating to know that that landscape doesn’t look a whole lot different today than it did when Captain Cook first saw it. But it’s not until I escape the run-down town of Port aux Basques — our re-entry point — that I feel like I’ve arrived. My feet don’t feel firmly back on Newfoundland rock until I’m travelling among mountains. So if there aren’t any 140-kilometre winds to worry about while passing through the appropriately named Wreckhouse region — where I’ve seen a fully loaded transport truck blow over — I’ll spend the next couple hours watching the sun come up over the Codroy Valley.
Knowing that no matter what time I arrive in Newfoundland, incompatible ferry schedules will not permit me to reach McCallum until the following day, I try to make this next leg of my journey joyful. I go out of my way to find curvy coastal roads, and I explore communities that I can only access by automobile. I want to experience them all. Yet, whatever route I travel, I always end that first day of Newfoundland driving at Grand Falls-Windsor — a former pulp and paper town with all the unattractive shortcomings that come with such a big-business beginning. I make Grand Falls-Windsor my last stop of the day because GFW is my last chance to purchase the consumer products that my neighbours and I will want and need upon my return to McCallum. It’s not uncommon to haul a greasy bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken for five hours for someone in need of a fix. That chicken’s stench is one of the reasons I made sure my new car had a separate trunk and not a hatchback.
An early start the next morning ensures that I can get to Hermitage in time to wash my car clean with creek water and slip it into the space that the Sandyville Inn provides me for free. As my thirty-hour drive comes to a close, I comfort myself with the thought that I’m now only a ninety-minute boat ride from home.
I’m sure it’s confusing for listeners when they hear me talk of “home.” I tell Newfoundlanders I’m going home when I intend to travel to Ontario, and I tell mainlanders I’m heading home when returning to Newfoundland. Do people who move away always have two homes and the heartache that comes with such a situation? If not, how long do you have to live in one locale before such sadness ceases? Not just that your choice of location becomes the house where you most frequently hang your hat, but the place where you feel, in your heart, is where you need to spend a lot of time if you hope to stay healthy and happy. I’ve never had that contented feeling. I’ve always felt conflicted.
I lived in Australia for more than a year but it never felt like home to me. As great as those Aussies are, I never thought of staying. Even the warm weather wasn’t appealing enough to make me want to live there long term. Yet it was Australia where the pull of the open ocean first made its mark on me, and where I began to enjoy different dialects.
I also spent nine months in Alberta, driving a snowcat for a ski resort 7,200 feet above sea level. Although the work I did, and skiing from October to June, was a joy, nothing else about Alberta made me want to stay there. So I went to Ontario cottage country, where I bought a little beach house that I later traded in for a large farm in Fenelon Falls. But even those gorgeous pieces of property just became annoying mortgages after a while, obstacles that interfered with me quitting one more good job and moving on.
I am afflicted with a feeling that wherever I am, I think I’m supposed to be somewhere else. It’s not that I don’t try to get excited at the prospect of settling down, minding my own business, making good . . . it’s just that that only increases my urge to move on. As much as I enjoyed what all those great places had to offer, I didn’t feel my heart tugging me towards permanent residence in any of them. So I shouldn’t be surprised when I can’t convince Newfoundlanders that I’m here to stay. I told a friend who lives in Gaultois that I don’t think the people in his community like me. He said, “It’s not that they don’t like you — it’s that they don’t understand why you’re here.”
The Southwest Coast isn’t the only region that finds fellers from away confusing. Many Newfoundlanders don’t trust mainlanders. I understand how this happened. Decades of neglect, mismanagement, and bad treatment by those counted on to lead can turn anyone bitter. So it doesn’t surprise me when Newfoundlanders direct their day-to-day distrust at Ontario. What I do find strange is the way so many urban Newfoundlanders are copying the mainland’s most unattractive attributes — the way Newfoundlanders are acting more and more like mainlanders. The way they flip houses, for example, after years of nurturing their home for the purpose of providing for their people. Urban Newfoundlanders today see their houses as simply something to sell. What not that long ago was a labour of love is now about making money.
And what about the distance that Newfoundland residents now travel to and from employment? There are companies flying Newfoundlanders back and forth to Alberta for six days of work wedged between four-day weekends — half of which the worker spends travelling to and fro. This kind of commute makes ninety-minute stop-and-go drives on Ontario’s 400-series highways look like a leisurely stroll.
I once took an early morning flight from Deer Lake to Toronto that was scheduled to continue on to Calgary. All of us onboard were Newfoundland residents, but I was the only passenger who didn’t know everyone else. I was also the only one excited about the trip. Window blinds were quickly closed so everyone could catch up on their shortage of shut-eye. A man wearing a camouflaged cap recognized a guy in a t-shirt celebrating the Newfoundland town of Dildo. “How’s it goin’?” he asked, before his buddy threw him a sarcastic comeback: “Oh, you know — livin’ the dream.” And what about the personal debt that so many of today’s Newfoundlanders so willingly take on? Big trucks, fancy cabins, ATVs, snowmobiles, monster hou
ses, leases, loans, mortgages . . . even the accumulation of toys is so not Newfoundland — the urge to stuff your garage with gear when, once upon a time, filling your shed with friends was seen as so much more satisfying.
Ironically, there’s change afoot elsewhere in Canada where urbanites are trying to copy Newfoundlanders of years gone by — choosing to see their homes as something other than an investment. Folks who are trying to carry less debt, buy fewer toys, keep free-range chickens, and be nicer to each other. Voters who are aligning themselves with leaders who care about the less fortunate. In places where commuters are trying to travel shorter distances, by bicycle, to and from satisfying work, while Newfoundlanders learn to live like suburban Torontonians.
Part Three
Nineteen
It was one of the few things that got more funding in last year’s budget, amid a sea of cuts, but since the government bumped up the incentive for resettlement, there haven’t been any new takers. “I would hope that more communities would explore this in the future, but there’s certainly no pressure from government for them to do so,” said Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Kent, who’s responsible for resettlement issues.
