Contents
ALSO BY DAVID W. MCFADDEN
POETRY
Intense Pleasure, 1972
A Knight in Dried Plums, 1975
The Poets Progress, 1977
On the Road Again, 1978
My Body Was Eaten by Dogs, 1981
The Art of Darkness, 1984
Gypsy Guitar, 1987
Anonymity Suite, 1992
The Death of Greg Curnoe, 1995
Therell Be Another, 1995
Five Star Planet, 2002
Cow Swims Lake Ontario, 2003
FICTION
The Great Canadian Sonnet, 1975, 2002
Animal Spirits, 1983
Canadian Sunset, 1986
NON-FICTION
A Trip Around Lake Erie, 1981
A Trip Around Lake Huron, 1981
A Trip Around Lake Ontario, 1988
An Innocent in Ireland, 1995
Great Lakes Suite, 1997
An Innocent in Scotland, 1999
Copyright 2003 by David W. McFadden
Paperback edition published 2003
Electronic edition published 2016
McClelland & Stewart and colophon are registered trademarks of McClelland & Stewart
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication is available upon request
Library of Congress Control Number is available upon request
ISBN:9780771055355
Ebook ISBN9780771061394
McClelland & Stewart,
a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited,
a Penguin Random House Company
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
v4.1
a
For the poets of Newfoundland, including
Sir Cavendish Boyle (18491916)
We love thee, we love thee,
We love thee, frozen land
and
Al Pittman (19402001)
In virtue we are very rich.
In rapture very poor.
CONTENTS
![CHAPTER 1 KOUNTRY KORNERS North Sydney Gulf of St Lawrence Port aux - photo 6](/uploads/posts/book/386026/images/McFa_9780771061394_epub3_map_r1.jpg)
![CHAPTER 1 KOUNTRY KORNERS North Sydney Gulf of St Lawrence Port aux - photo 7](/uploads/posts/book/386026/images/McFa_9780771061394_epub3_map_r1.jpg)
CHAPTER 1
KOUNTRY KORNERS
North Sydney Gulf of St. Lawrence Port aux Basques Robinsons
T uesday, May 15. The ferry across the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Port aux Basques leaves at nine. Its a surreal dawn, with a fleet of four Lays Dorito potato-chip trucks waiting to get put aboard. We have three hours to wait. Im chatting with a fellow in the next car. Those trucks are empty, he says. We cant get any free samples.
Why are they going to Newfoundland empty? Is there a potato-chip plant over there?
No way! he says. Look. No plates. Somebody bought them, see? I dont know who. Maybe the newspaper. They could do a good job of delivering the news all around Newfoundland with a fleet of trucks like that.
Also at dockside: a small man sitting on a big motorcycle, and several stubby little tractor-trailer cabs without the trailer all with engines running. My cars turned off, but it seems as if its running, because its shaking along with all the surrounding engines. In fact so am I, but if I get out of the car, the noise and fumes will be worse. The ferrys moored at the dock a mere two hundred yards away, but we cant get aboard. We have to wait for the shuttle bus at 8:30 for safety reasons.
There are two ferries docked the Caribou, with its engines off, and the Smallwood, with black smoke belching from its smokestack. As I start getting steamed about all the unnecessary soot in the air, the smoke from the Smallwood thins out and wafts away. The truck drivers start turning their engines off. And I hear one driver yelling over to another: Dont be good, Peter. You gotta be bad.
Nova Scotia has different slogans for car plates Canadas Ocean Playground and for trucks Open for Business. But Newfoundland and Labrador have just one, and its a subtler one A World of Difference, a line worthy to be used when signing tourist-home guest books.
I managed only the briefest snooze on the new Caribou, named after its predecessor that was torpedoed by a German U-boat at 3:10 a.m. on October 14, 1942, with the loss of 137 lives, including those of Captain Ben Tavenor and his two teenage sons. I can offer no impressions of my first sight of Newfoundland, as impressions dont make much of an impression on weary souls. In retrospect, I shouldnt have been driving. After doing some shopping in the old seven-hilled former fishing village of Port aux Basques, I had to ask directions on three occasions before finding my way out of that miniature maze. I needed a full nights sleep, but only in a quiet place in the country.
Another hour and I found the perfect spot, called Kountry Korners, near the town of Robinsons, on the shore of St. Georges Bay, about forty miles northeast of Port aux Basques, way off the main road. There was a filling station, a garage, a convenience store, a large dining room, a large barroom, a large cook, a poolroom, a convenience store, and a dozen rooms upstairs, along with an indoor sauna and hot tub. Why indoors? They said they had plans to build an outdoor set-up as well for heartier folk like me.
I staggered to my room and was assailed by the strongest smell of solvents. A workman noticed me sniffing and offered an unsolicited apology for the fumes. It was some work they were doing on the hot tub.
So I tore off my clothes and threw myself in bed. The clock said 5:00 p.m. I closed my eyes. I opened them. The clock said 2:00 a.m. I closed them. I opened them. Clock said 2:00 p.m.
CHAPTER 2
AN ENTIRE PROVINCE OF FUN LOVERS
Robinsons Corner Brook
W ednesday, May 16. Sleep well? asked the desk clerk, without a hint of sarcasm. Id missed out on supper, breakfast, and lunch. I was the only overnight guest, and the girl had arrived at eight specially to cook my breakfast. She had knitted a whole pair of baby booties before finally leaving. I felt terrible and asked for the girls wages to be added to my bill. But the boss wouldnt hear of it. Youre human. Were all human. We all make mistakes.
In the parking lot, a broken case of lager was lying in a pool of foam beside a Labatts beer truck. A wiry little guy was wheeling a stack of empty cartons to the truck. I held the door open for him.