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So I’m going to Newfoundland for my friends’ wedding on August 14, 2004. My itinerary seems simple enough:

1. Go to Newfoundland on Thursday.
2. Help my friends Carla and Scott get married on Saturday (I am the stand-in Best Man, as the real Best Man couldn’t come).
3. Return to Ontario on Wednesday.

Beyond that, there are no concrete plans at all. Basically let the chips fall where they may. Let myself relax and experience Newfoundland time. I don’t even have any arrangements for accommodations!

Before I left someone asked if I was driving down to Newfoundland. This is, of course, crazy talk as the island of Newfoundland is over 2200 kilometres and one long ferry ride from Stratford. No, I flew down on a plane. This only took four hours or so, including a layover in Moncton, NB. “Flying’s the only way to go,” said the two young guys behind me on the plane as they ordered more beer. “That way you start your drinking early!” This turned out to be truer than I thought at first.

For those who don’t know, Newfoundland is properly called Newfoundland and Labrador and includes both the island (Newfoundland), and a large section of land to the north of Quebec (Labrador). We’ll be spending all our time in the most Eastern portions of the island known as the Avalon and Bonavista peninsulas. I have it on good authority that “Newfoundland”, should always be pronounced New-fin-land, even if you don’t live there. Its provincial bird is the Atlantic Puffin (saw a bunch of that), its flower the pitcher plant (didn’t see any). The people of the island are called Newfoundlanders. The word Newfie is considered derogatory by many in Canada, though I’ve heard numerous locals refer each other as Newfies. Perhaps you have to be a Newfie to call someone a Newfie.

There is a reason why they call Newfoundland “The Rock”. The terrain throughout the island is rugged, full of pine trees, scrubby bushes, lakes, cliffs, rock promontories, boulders, stones, rocks, more rocks, and even more rocks. Unlike Southwestern Ontario, Newfoundland was never heavily glaciated, so the rock features of the land are very pronounced and keen. You don’t come here for the beaches. Most of the areas around the water are filled with stones, coarse sand and the shells of millions of dead sea creatures. The beaches are pretty brutal and the amount of natural junk on them is astounding. Newfoundland is also surrounded by the North Atlantic which is, even in August, pretty damn cold. You don’t swim in it for any length of time.

Newfoundland has a North Atlantic Maritime climate. According to Environment Canada, this means that the daytime temperature in August gets just above 20 degrees Celsius, with a nighttime low of around 10, with the days being divided evenly between rainy and sunny. This sounds like a refreshing break from the heat and humidity of Southwestern Ontario in the summer. Yeah right. Maybe it’s just me (or because of me!), but since I’ve been here, there hasn’t been any rain to speak of, it’s been sunny every day, and the daytime high on Friday was about 30. People are freaking out and there are watering bans in St. John’s. As for me, I’m going to come back from the Rock with a tan, lol.

The government, in their incredible wisdom, decided that Newfoundland time should be GMT -3:30, possibly because Newfoundland is so far east, or maybe because they figured the Newfoundlanders wouldn’t care. Interestingly, and not entirely unrelated to this, is that Newfoundland has excellent digital cell phone service. When I turned on my phone in St. John’s it synced up right away and properly reported the local time. I figured this would last right up until we got out of the city, but I was totally wrong. I haven’t yet been to a place (in the Avalon and Bonavista peninsulas, anyway) where I didn’t have a strong digital signal, even in cute little backwaters like Summerville where Carla’s grandma lives.

Dispite the cute, rural nature of the settlements, computer technology and the Internet has penetrated to every place on the island with telephone service (which is most places). The local telephone and cable companies (Aliant and Rogers) have also been moving to get high-speed Internet to as many locales as they can. I’m not sure what technologies are being used, but high-speed Internet services are available in far-off little places like the Bonavista Cape for around $30 per month. Now that’s impressive. I talked for a while to a guy who recognised my Megatokyo shirt, and he said that they’ve had high-speed Internet since last year. He noted this was good thing too since there really isn’t much for a young guy to do around here except drink. I find all of this amusing since there are places around Stratford that still don’t have high-speed, and there really isn’t all that much to do either.

People use old computers though. Everywhere I asked, people proudly showed me their bad-ass Pentium and Pentium 2 systems. There may not be a single comp on this island that will be able to play Half-life 2 when it finally ships. Apparently performance is secondary to simply getting on the Net. But St. John’s has has a Linux Users Group! It’s short name also of reminded me of another Linux group I happen to know of.

Newfoundland is a large island with long roads. You get used to seeing it on maps where it appears small, but the island is some 600 kilometres wide with a land area similar to England. Areas of interest are separated by large amounts of nothing. Travel is hampered by the fact there isn’t a straight road on the island. Carla had remembered that Summerville was a forty-five minute drive from St. John’s, but it turned out to be forty-five minutes from Clarenville. Clarenville turned out to be some two hours from St. John’s. Fortunately the roads on the island aren’t as bad as one might think. Some are a bit bumpy, like the land, but a lot of effort has been put into paving and maintaining roads on the Avalon and Bonavista peninsulas, and probably on most of the island.

The Trans-Canada Highway starts in Newfoundland winding its way from St. John’s to Port-aux-Basques. It’s as smooth as the 401 is and better than any U.S. state highway I’ve ever been on. Large portions of it are literally cut out of the surrounding rock, leaving massive artifical cliffs for young Islanders to spell out their true love for one another with spray paint on the rocks. Amazing what some federal money and a little bit of willpower will do.

When you think of Eastern towns you think of little white shacks on cliffs by the ocean. While there is a lot of that, not every place in Newfoundland is a cute fishing village like Summerville or Plate Cove, where Scott and Carla were married. But there aren’t jumbo-sized Ontario-like cities here either. In fact, all of Newfoundland and Labrador has only 519,000 people or so. Certainly everybody has heard of St John’s, the ancient seaport capital. The greater area there maybe has 150,000 people. Gander, Port aux Basques, Corner Brook, and Bonavista, where explorer John Cabot landed in 1497, are some other famous cities. We stayed in a town called Clarenville, which is apparently around the same size as Stratford (30,000 people or so) though I can’t figure out where they all live. I suspect that they literally live in the hills around the town. Clarenville even has a suburb called Shoal Harbour. Towns on the island are very spread out with homes dotted here and there amongst the hills and trees. It reminded me a lot of the area around Wiarton or Wasaga Beach.

While modern Islanders buy their food at the grocery stores like everybody else in Canada, I had wondered what the original settlers here ate, besides fish. I can’t believe that European setters would have put up with all fish, all the time. Being from Southwestern Ontario, and of European decent, the idea of seeing land without a farm on it is fairly odd to me. But much of the the land on The Rock is too rugged, with too little topsoil to realistically grow large amounts of grain, or ranch cattle. Some of the area around St. Johns had some farms, but they were few and far between, not nearly enough to feed any sizable group of people. Then I went up one of the hills, and discovered the other major food crop on the island: Berries. Blueberries, everywhere there wasn’t a pine tree, billions on them on the hills around Summerville alone, enough to feed hundreds of people.

Newfoundland is famous for it’s moose, but the species is not indigenous to the island. It was apparently introduced here some time ago by settlers for it’s meat. Now moose walk around the island getting hit by cars. There are even signs on the Trans-Canada Highway warning you of the potential dangers of wandering moose.

Although there is no shortage of rock on the island, for some reason the Islanders don’t use it to build things. Most homes are made of wood, and there’s no shortage of that either. People here have also figured out recently that you can clad your home with vinyl siding and not have to paint it every couple of years. This evolutionary leap in island construction was apparently incorporated into the mainstream quickly: almost every new home, except for the out of place summer mansions that rich mainlanders keep building, is covered with this siding.

In Ontario, most bathrooms have a light switch inside the room by the door. In Newfoundland, those switches are on the outside by the door. I’m not sure why this matters at all, I just found it interesting. I guess the Newfoundlanders don’t like to be surprised going into a dark bathroom.

The people here don’t lock their doors much. Maybe in St. John’s they do, but in places like Summerville, why would you bother? Nobody owns anything worth stealing anyway. Islanders don’t seem to be all that much concerned with material things anyhow. I find myself caring less and less about things like leaving the keys to your car in the ignition. Said one of the locals at the dock in Summerville, “Where else would you keep your car keys?” There is a certain amount of logic to that which is hard to beat.

Real estate is cheap here. There are suckers in Toronto right now trying to figure out how to pay for a $500,000 three-bedroom house in the suburbs. But a massive house with a monster-sized yard in a well serviced town like Clarenville might run you $100,000. Out in the sticks stuff is even cheaper. People don’t even bother to sell their old houses, they just build new ones. There are spare houses everywhere. While I was writing this, Uncle Jim sold his “spare” three-bedroom house in Summerville for $6,000. Admittedly it needs a few thousand dollars of work. . . No wonder rich mainlanders keep moving here. You could sell your house in Toronto, move to The Rock, and live off the profits. In fact, I think this is what Uncle Jim and Aunt Daphne do.

Which isn’t to say that other folks around here aren’t doing anything. In Ontario, you’re either farming, making car parts, or supporting the people who work in those industries. And you work as hard as you can, as fast as you can, to hell with everything else. Though poorer, the people of the island are certainly hard working, but never rushed. Since the collapse of the groundfish industry in the Nineties I think many of the fishermen have just accepted the idea of fishing part time. But it seems like there is no real dominant economic activity here, not even fishing (oil and gas extraction is actually ten times larger). Many of the people just seem to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that to make the ends meet. It’s very informal, almost disorganised, but yet the island functions, and functions well. Roads get fixed, houses get painted, the docks get cleaned. I wonder if the economy has simply settled into a kind of equilibrium of sorts.

Perhaps related to this is the availability of cheap fresh fish. Cheap fish isn’t so easy to come by because it can only be harvested in seasons. Prices for a lot of fish products at the grocery store are no different than in Ontario. This might be a problem unless you know the guys catching the fish. They were able hook us up with some fresh crab. We ate $250 of it one night just because we could.

Newfoundland is something of an Irish colony. The original settlers here basically scared off or killed whomever was here first. Modern Newfoundlanders are much easier going than I think the original settlers were, but they still have plenty of piss and vinegar left in them. The groom, Scott, explained that it takes an awful lot to piss off a Newfoundlander, but when he’s finally mad it’s go time. I suspect the world may see some of that soon — European fishermen are constantly fishing in the waters off the coast of the island, in violation of various treaties, seriously angering the people here who, for the most part, respect the law and understand the need to conserve the fish stocks. One of these days I think that some of boys from the Rock are going to go out there and teach some of them a lesson. You would think the Europeans would show some more respect given the disproportionately high number of Newfoundlanders that fought for their freedom in the various World wars.

The people here still have an interesting Irish/English/Canadian accent that’s interesting and kind of soothing to hear. I could listen to the fair lasses of Newfoundland telling me to get on the beer (let’s go drinking) anytime. They also make up words and phrases for stuff too. Moths are called millers, ants are called emmets. People really say the word by (How’s that , by. ) Some other interesting phrases that the Islanders actually say include: Whadd’ya At (How’s it going), flat on the back with that (it’s damn good), and my favourite, it’s not fit (that’s pretty good). People also swear a lot too. The word “fuck” used constantly to end a sentence: “I can’t stand it any longer, fuck”. The word “shit” is used continuously as an adverb: “that shit amazing”, “that shit awful”, “it shit rainy”, “it shit hot”, “that shit good beer”.

Newfoundland is legendary for its drinking. This is an understatement if I ever heard one. And I thought people in Perth County were boozehounds. . . but here, the drink isn’t just something to do, it’s a whole lifestyle. Hell, I was drinking all the time — on the beach, walking in the forest, hanging around on the wharf (lots of ice there), sailing on boats, or driving in cars (the Trans-Canada goes by a lot faster if you have some friends and a dozen beers in the car). The time is always right, as they say. They never seem to run out of booze on the island, despite the best efforts of the locals to get rid of it all. There are at least three breweries in St. Johns alone, which is impressive, given that it’s only the size of Kitchener.

Getting said booze is pretty easy too. Like in Ontario, all types of booze are sold officially in provincially controlled Liquor stores found in any sizable town. But outside of the few cities it is sold everywhere else like corner stores and gas stations. In fact, I’ve noticed that the mom ‘n’ pop outfit on the way to Summerville had a better selection that the Liquor Store in Clarenville. Oh yeah, and it had a beer fridge too. What kind of liquor store doesn’t have a beer fridge, I mean really?

According to the cute tour girl at the Quidi Vidi brewery Newfoundlanders drink mostly light beer. I’m surprised by this but I suppose it makes sense if you drink beer all afternoon. Sadly, if the bottle intake at Quidi Vidi was any indication, people drink mostly boring beer: Blue, Canadian, and Coors Light. Shame too since the brew from Quidi Vidi is better than all three of those combined. Interestingly, people don’t drink Guinness here. I only saw the stuff in St. John’s.

The island has an “official” hooch called Screech, which is basically rum bottled by the local liquor board. Screech was traditionally the rum sent back from the Caribbean in return for salt fish. Like Scotch, Screech has ceremonial uses and is supposed to be drank neat. While it doesn’t exactly compare to a dram of decent Scotch, the three or so ounces I chugged while I got “Screeched In”, wasn’t too bad. Getting Screeched In really does involve kissing a raw fish, by the way. Fortunately the Screech acts nicely as both a sterilant and a breath freshener.

I suppose there might be a potential downside to the amount of booze going on but somehow it seemed all right when you’re hanging out on the rocks watching the sun go down with a cold one in hand. And as I said before, it’s been plenty hot since I got here.

Maybe it’s because of the people, maybe it’s because of the lack of people, or maybe it’s because of the land, but Newfoundland is a soothing and compelling place to visit. I’ve noticed a lot of children about, perhaps because of all the Catholics, or maybe the beer, but for whatever reason there is no shortage of new Newfoundlanders. I look at them running around all happy, wondering if they’ll be happy working in Ontario like so many Newfoundlanders do in their adult years. . . I know a lot of down-homers who have come to make their fortune in Ontario. Many of them work hard at their crappy jobs, like most of us do in Ontario, without complaint, not just because they’re happy for the good paying work, but because I think they know that they will be able to return to The Rock someday. I am both heartened by this and confused by it too. It’s nice to know there is this simple place out there that gives enough hope to its sons and daughters so they feel compelled to return. But maybe I also long be one of those who finally gives up on on the frantic pace of the mainland to return to the Rock and finally live in peace on Newfoundland Time.