Across Canada by Story

by Douglas Gibson

  Then he’s off to “the high, rolling plateaux of the interior, darkly wooded to the north but bone-bare to the south,” and it’s clear that this superb writer really knows Newfoundland. There are splendid pieces from his books like Westviking (1965), about the early Norse explorers. Then he deals with the Outport Way, which brings him into conflict with Joey Smallwood and his policies. “Newfoundlanders were directed to reject the sea which had nurtured them for five centuries. Fishing and fishermen, ships and seamen, were deemed obsolete. Progress, so the new policy dictated, demanded the elimination of most of the thirteen hundred outport communities that encircled the island, and the transformation of their people into industrial workers.” (There was a time, James King reminds us, when Farley made friendly overtures to Joey, and they went so well that Joey suggested that Farley might write his biography. These warm approaches, which even involved Farley being flown to a dinner in a government helicopter, outraged Harold Horwood, who wrote to Farley: “Watch Joey! Watch the fucker! He has designs on you, and you’re not beyond the power of flattery any more than the rest of us.”)

  In the end, Farley’s opinion of Joey and his ruthless clearing of the outports was not charmed out of him, and came through loud and clear. Just listen. The setting here is a “snug kitchen of a fisherman’s home in the outport of Francois.”

  The father speaks to the writer from away. “It’s been fine you came to visit. I hopes you found some yarns to write, and you’ll make a good voyage out of it. But still and all, I’m wondering could you do one thing for we? Could you, do you think, say how it was with we? We wouldn’t want it thought, you understand, that we never tried the hardest as us could to make a go of things. I’d like for everyone to know we never would have left the places we was reared, but … we … was … drove!”

  In the silence that follows, he repeats, “Aye, Jesus, Jesus God, but we was drove!”

  On another occasion Farley tells of going out after cod in a fishing skiff with some local men.

  One of our number, a young man just entering his twenties, was working alongside the skiff from a pitching dory. He was having a hard time holding his position because of a big swell running in from seaward. An unexpected heave on the twine threw him off balance and his right arm slipped between the dory and the skiff just as they rolled together. The crack of breaking bones was clearly audible. He sat back heavily on the thwart of his dory and held his arm up for inspection. It was streaming with blood. A wrist-watch, just purchased and much treasured, had been completely crushed and driven into the flesh.

  In this emergency, the skiff’s master prepares to drop the net and go to rescue the injured man. “Don’t ye be so foolish!” the young man shouts, and proceeds, with one hand and his teeth, to hold his position with his oar until they take him on board. For twenty minutes he grins encouragement while they haul in every last cod.

  Farley went along with him to the doctor, “who set the bones and took sixteen stitches to close the wound.” As they leave the office the young man apologizes to Farley. “Skipper, I hopes I never spiled yer marnin!”

  “No, he had not ‘spiled’ my morning. And how was I to find words to tell him what kind of a man I knew him to be?”

  Books drawn from in this selection include This Rock within the Sea (1968), Wake of the Great Sealers (1973), Sea of Slaughter (1984), Grey Seas Under (1958, which will have you grasping the arms of your chair as Atlantic waves batter your walls), and The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float (1969). A word about that last book, which Farley’s biographer calls “magnificently exaggerated.” The joint purchase he and Jack McClelland made, on Harold Horwood’s advice, of a little Newfoundland bummer, makes for a very dangerous book. First, Harold’s Newfoundland pride was offended by the idea that he would ever actively recommend a bad boat. Second, Farley not only involved his friend and publisher Jack in the venture, he also wrote about him, and made him a figure of fun! This, I must explain, is not only dangerous conduct for any author, it is, in my opinion, simply reprehensible.

  That said, the really significant addition to the crew as they sink their way around Newfoundland is not the co-owner, Jack McClelland, but a daring young woman named Claire Wheeler. Before long she and Farley (long estranged from his first wife, Fran Thornhill) were living together in Burgeo, on the south coast of Newfoundland. In time, they drove all the way to Mexico with the faithful Harold Horwood, so that Farley’s divorce could be followed by a wedding. To this outsider’s eye, Farley and Claire were a happy couple right to the end of his life. They both were lucky.

  Things were not always easy. As Farley’s 1972 book, A Whale for the Killing, reveals, his environmental instincts conflicted with the instincts of too many of his Burgeo neighbours for their stay to be prolonged, and Claire and he left Newfoundland in 1967, to return to Ontario.

  His legacy as an author was immense. Forty-five books, in sixty countries, with about fifteen million readers across the world is Ken McGoogan’s estimate. Certainly millions of readers knew Farley Mowat’s books, whether from happy times as kids spent shivering over The Curse of the Viking Grave (1966), or as intrigued adults learning about Siberia in Sibir (1970), or laughing over Farley the wolf-watcher being watched by wolves in Never Cry Wolf (1963, inexpertly translated into Russian as Wolves, Please Don’t Cry — although it caused Russia to change its laws on the culling of wolves).

  It’s interesting to learn that his librarian father, Angus, liked to place exciting non-fiction books among the fiction titles on his shelves, to ensnare fiction-loving readers into giving them a try. In the same spirit, I think, Farley employed many of the eye-catching tricks of fiction to liven up his non-fiction books.

  In fact, his old friend Silver Donald Cameron has suggested that perhaps we should acknowledge Farley as the father of “creative non-fiction,” a style of book that is increasingly popular (leaving Myrna Kostash as perhaps the mother). Ken McGoogan, in How the Scots Invented Canada, writes perceptively about that, citing Farley’s People of the Deer (1951), a bombshell about the mistreatment of the Ihalmiut people in the North: “Years before the ‘New Journalism’ became fashionable, he created his real-life narrative by using techniques more associated with fiction — creating scenes, for example. The spectacular success of the resulting book — critically, commercially, and in effecting political change — launched Mowat on a singular career as a writer-activist.”

  Certainly, we can acknowledge Farley as one of the world’s first environmental writers, a man who was aware that our ongoing battle against Nature would in the end defeat us. No one who reads Sea of Slaughter can be in any doubt about that.

  In his personal life, Farley was such a pugnacious fellow that he seemed to be constantly feuding with someone. He and W.O. Mitchell feuded for decades about just how helpful Bill had been to him as the fiction editor of Maclean’s magazine, a quarrel you’ll find summarized in the Mitchell biographies W.O. and Mitchell. There were people in Port Hope, Farley’s final berth, who were not on speaking terms with him, and vice versa. He even had a brief feud of sorts with me, I think, though the details are long forgotten. I’m glad to be reminded by James King’s book that after Farley chose, late in his life, to leave McClelland & Stewart, I didn’t abandon him: King writes that “in subsequent years, Gibson has approached Farley and Claire several times to ask them to come back to McClelland & Stewart.” I was always glad to see him, and for a small man, he certainly knew how to fill a room. Once, when Avie Bennett and I took him to lunch in Port Hope, I noted how well the restaurant staff were treating him. “Ah, yes,” he said. “The last time I was in here I was with Sigourney Weaver” (who starred in the movie made from his book Virunga). We all will miss him.

  For a Canadian author, being invited to attend the Writers at Woody Point event in August is the equivalent of winning a major international prize. It has been running for more than ten years now, and has attracted a galaxy of literary stars
“from away,” like Michael Ondaatje, Richard Ford, Alexander McCall Smith, Linda Spalding, Elizabeth Hay, and Will Ferguson — bolstered by the major talents from Newfoundland such as Lisa Moore, Michael Crummey, Michael Winter, and others, who could fill this chapter many times over.

  It all started with Stephen Brunt, the well-known Toronto-based sportswriter and broadcaster. Steve has written a number of fine books, including one for me that took the reader behind the scenes in the NHL. Unfortunately, the terms allowed the NHL to “approve” — that is censor — the TV show and the accompanying book. This meant that I spent an unforgettable time negotiating with my friend Nancy Lee, the head of CBC Sports, over how many swear words could be quoted (“OK, we’ll drop these three ‘shits’ if we can keep this one ‘bastard’”) without tarnishing the NHL’s valuable image. The role of publisher contains many surprises, and Steve was sympathetic to my dilemma as I fought to retain his accurate reporting.

  Far from the NHL, and its coaches who exclaim “Oh, my goodness!” in moments of stress, Steve had the idea that outsiders would love to discover Woody Point, his idyllic summer home. The tiny community of about 700 lies halfway up the long west coast of Newfoundland, surrounded by Gros Morne National Park — a little like an East Coast Banff, without the fudge shops. The sort of sweeping views of fiords and mountains that you get in those clever ads from the Newfoundland Tourism folks lie all around the little town, and the open waters of the Gulf are just around the corner, as Jane and I found when we borrowed kayaks from our friends Peter and Robert early one morning.

  Gros Morne, of course, is a World Heritage Site. Its high, orange Tablelands (amazingly, derived from the ocean floor thrust upward, as tectonic plates collided) were what proved that the revolutionary continental drift theories of Toronto’s John Tuzo Wilson and Newfoundland’s own “Hank” Williams were true.

  A key moment in the history of the Woody Point writers’ festival was when Stephen Brunt’s local crew (including his wife of undetermined ethnic heritage, Jeanie MacFarlane) persuaded the marvellous Shelagh Rogers, of CBC fame, to get involved. Now she is the voice of the festival, introducing all of the main events at the grand old Heritage Theatre. She even conducts live onstage interviews for her CBC Radio show, The Next Chapter. Her talk with Greg Malone, actor, comedian, and author of Don’t Tell the Newfoundlanders, made astonishing listening for anyone who, like me, believed that Newfoundland joined Canada gratefully, after an honest vote.

  The writers’ events run morning, noon, and night. My own show began at 11 at night, followed by some more music, by Pamela Morgan and Sandy Johnston. (Later, Shelagh announced Pamela as “Pamela Anderson,” which led to many jokes busting out all over.) Often the first readings were at 9:30 in the morning, and the nature walks and other events through the day kept us hopping, and sometimes missing appealing readings that clashed with our chosen event. Saturday morning started with a church hall fundraising breakfast for the local firemen, and the Saturday and Sunday evenings ended with a big dance at the local Legion.

  We were staying within earshot of all this, at a central B&B named “Aunt Jane’s.” How could we resist? Will Ferguson was there, too, and others came and went.

  The usual unbelievable coincidences occurred. After my show a woman from the faraway Cypress Hills district in Saskatchewan shyly informed me that when she was growing up she knew my cowboy author, R.D. Symons. She was even able to tell me what happened to his son, Gerry, ranching on another frontier in Colombia in the 1970s, under siege by Native people who attacked the ranch with flaming arrows. The news was not good.

  And when we had dinner with the multi-talented Des Walsh and his lady, Ruth, he told me that he had known Harold Horwood well, even attending the rebel school called Animal Farm that Harold established, in the teeth of fierce St. John’s police pressure. The police were deeply suspicious of long-haired kids who were likely to smoke dope and use words like “pigs,” but regular raids never produced any culprits. Like all schoolboys, he could even do a fine imitation of his teacher, Harold, throwing back his long-haired head, before speaking in what Farley accurately called his “waspish” way.

  On one occasion at the Legion bar in Woody Point I ran into a sturdy barrel of a man who had enjoyed my show. His name, he said, was Young. I was off right away, talking about my father’s mother, Jessie Young, before he cut short this promising exploration. No, he told me, his family were pirates, and they had stolen the respectable name of Young.

  A key part of understanding the lure of Woody Point is realizing that you are part of the community. People who elsewhere might be strangers come up to you on the street and chat. Fishermen and carpenters (I’ll try not to be too biblical) reveal that they were at your show, and enjoyed it, but have a question about Brian Mulroney. Going out for dinner produces comments and questions from the staff, and paying your bill involves a long conversation. Village life! That’s what I grew up with in Scotland, so I loved every minute of it.

  I had been to Woody Point once before, coming in by sea. This was on an Adventure Canada Cruise, where I was a member of the staff, and Alistair MacLeod was the main onboard attraction for the 100 or so guests. We started in Ungava Bay, sailed north around Cape Chidley, then ploughed all the way south down the Labrador coast, stopping ashore in the Torngat Mountains, and at remote settlements like Hopedale. Just north of Newfoundland was where I gave my talk, above the graves of the Death on the Ice victims. Then we passed Red Bay (the old Basque whaling station) to starboard, and sailed down the Strait of Belle Isle and docked at Woody Point.

  The next day we went around Port aux Basques, en route to La Poile (accessible only by sea) but not before we had passed Stephenville, and Black Duck, the scene of Charles Ritchie’s adventures pioneering in Newfoundland. Charles Ritchie? The legendary Canadian diplomat and diarist, our ambassador to LBJ’s Washington and Edward Heath’s London, the ultimate reedy cocktail-party aesthete … a Newfoundland pioneer?

  The proof is to be found in the book of diaries that I coaxed out of him after The Siren Years (1974), his first book of diaries, had won the Governor General’s Award. An Appetite for Life: The Education of a Young Diarist (1977) takes us through his time as a languid young man in Halifax, loafing around in the Bower, and then his adventures among the upper-class twits at Oxford in the time of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. In between, however, lies a spell at Black Duck, Newfoundland, where his mother believes that a spell of manual labour, working for some English friends, the du Plat Taylors, will make a man of him. Charles, I should explain, was always built along the lines of a stick, and was physically skilled only in Halifax parlour pursuits such as handling a cigarette holder with elegance.

  The diary entries are predictable. “The men are from around here and are half French. I talked a lot with them. They are very entertaining company, but the work went rather slowly.” Soon the diaries are full of mentions of the lack of plumbing, and the abundance of flies (he even coins the word “flyey”), and before long we find:

  Spent the morning shovelling manure and then cut down trees, dragging up roots, etc. I am getting a bit handier with an axe but it rather worries me that I don’t believe Colonel du Plat Taylor thinks I am as useful about the place as he had hoped. Probably he expected me to be a Canadian woodsman, and that I am not. He never says anything critical about my work but looks at the results silently and sighs, which makes me nervous.

  In due course the du Plat Taylors (“They should have lived at the time the Empire was being founded. Mrs du Plat Taylor could run an empire single-handed.”) recall that they have other friends coming to help, and Charles (“not a Canadian woodsman”) has to leave early. But he is impressed with having got to know “the Newfoundlanders themselves. They live as they did in the eighteenth century, and have not met with democracy, compulsory education, or the motor-car. This gives the people in the fishing villages a character of their own.”

&n
bsp; I enjoyed publishing the inimitable politician John C. Crosbie, and we stay in touch. During my last visit, he told me a new story about the days when he was promoting his 1997 political memoir, No Holds Barred. Apparently he showed up at a major signing event where every entrance was plastered with posters announcing that he would be signing his new book. Unfortunately, the title of the book was given as No Holes Barred, which John thought altered the meaning in an unexpected direction.

  Although he has now retired from his post as Lieutenant Governor (“Now I have to lick me own stamps,” he lamented to me on the phone), John remains incorrigible. The main headline in the Telegram the day I left began with the words “CROSBIE RANTS …”

  Rex Murphy is another interesting case. He clearly is one of those people who has glided into prominence on good looks alone, and the world of television is predictably full of them. So I was suspicious that Rex was just a pretty face, although his defenders tried to persuade me that his Rhodes Scholarship surely meant something. In the end, impressed by what I might call the rigorous courtesy of his hosting of Cross-Country Check-Up (“And how would you go about ensuring all of these voluntary confessions that would free up our courts, sir?” — a made-up example), I arranged to publish a selection of his most opinionated pieces. The resulting collection was highly satisfactory, but when it came time for him to promote the book, Rex was missing in action. His generalized enthusiasm for the promotional task always foundered on specifics, and we had to disappoint dozens of hosts keen to have Rex come along on a particular date that proved impossible.