Newfoundland is like a jagged iceberg run aground between the Atlantic and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Like the Big Island, it’s layered with human cultures that found their way to the shores over the centuries, more often than not, seeking sustenance and shelter from starvation or worse. On the west coast outside a village called Port Aux Choix, we walked a trail through native wildflowers dotted with purple iris and a ground cover of berries to a site reminiscent of rugged, wild Kawa Bay on the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii. Here on this rugged, wind- swept Newfoundland shore, a group of pre-Inuit settlers thrived many centuries before, living from the bounty of the sea.
The many cultural layers have created a unique dialect and I’m reminded of my arrival on O`ahu many years ago when much of what was spoken was inscrutable to me. The first expression we learned, appropriately enough was “Some stunned”, meaning stupid but not in the sense of I.Q. points but more in the sense of caught off guard and frozen with ignorance. Gliding along in a kayak, I realize that the trick to travel is to really see where you are. There are an infinity of lives ticking along in both microcosm and macrocosm. I sit in my place in the continuum and gaze with the sense of missing much but with joy at what I see. The kayak swings along and jelly fish perform an undulating dance, punctuated by the paddle’s arc. A minke whale circles, surfaces one, two, three and gone, the waltz of the species. Eagles peer into the depths and dive for a prize, puffins bob and seals snake in for a look at this awkward, stiff contraption that has joined the ocean choreography, uninvited.
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Newfoundland is the edge of true wilderness and those who managed to endure, now dwell mostly in tall rectangular houses, simply functional, distinguished only by color and height and perched on a tundra landscape. There are cliffs topped with two hundred and fifty year-old evergreens called tuckamore, standing only 3 feet tall, curled in on themselves, the only way to survive the battering wind and cold. Not so for the people that inhabit this far northern wonderland; perhaps their open friendliness comes from the satisfaction of a life hard-earned and an understanding of their place in it. These are island people. The person with that designation has the sensibilities that come from living together in and with finite space and resources. The clear realization of interdependence that comes when standing on the deck of a canoe. “He wa’a, he moku, he moku he wa’a.”
Tuckamore Lodge, our temporary home in the heart of the northern island is an island within an island. Set among the trees on a seemingly endless body of water, called a pond here, with a forested horizon, changeable weather and waves that echo the ocean’s movements. Salmon jumping, a loon calling from across the water, robins on the lawn and a woodpecker outside the window. Add to this the pervasive fog formed when the warm moist air of the myriad ponds meets cool artic air and you are lost in a magical meditation of timelessness, much like the blanketing mists of the Hāmākua Coast on the Big Island.
Dinner, which consists of gourmet, downhome Newfoundland delights, are an elevated affair with an array of ever-changing travelers. Who’s sitting at your dinner table? Regular returnees to this mysterious kingdom are Kathleen Blanchard and master fly fishers Hans and Ina. Kathleen Blanchard, who heads a non-profit called Intervale which, “…takes its name from a heritage word used in rural areas of the Atlantic Provinces and New England. The intervale is a low meadow, by a river, that naturally produces hay in abundance. The intervale is harvested, enjoyed, and cared for. It is a metaphor for our work, which is about the beneficial relationship of people to the earth and its resources. This organization specializes in community driven conservation efforts. Kathleen had a group of students with her who were engaged in a project to increase the eider duck population, whose numbers, like the cod, have been depleted by virtue of their usefulness to humans. With piercing blue eyes and wild red hair, she is almost in constant motion with the exception of dinner when she became a focused presence and turned her laser attention to her dinner companions.
Hans van Klinken and his wife, Ina Stevens are avid salmon fishers and Hans is also an expert fly tier, wildlife photographer and author. Their enthusiasm and generosity infected the atmosphere and created a temporary all-inclusive family of sorts, with evening fly tying and day time fly casting lessons. But it’s Barb and her staff that set the scene that draws travelers back to this special spot. Petite elfin Barb never seems to stop moving and has opened what was once her homestead to travelers far and wide. She epitomizes aloha and e komo mai (welcome), a spirit that all her staff share.
In search of orca, we found ourselves on a boat outside St. Anthony’s Harbor, almost at the north end of the island. Here the Atlantic is merciless. Even on a fairly sunny summer day the wind is ceaseless and wide swells hint at the possibility of destructive forces. It’s these same forces that shape the ice sculptures, icebergs run aground, calved from glaziers formed a millennia before, wild abstract fancies created by little understood forces that show themselves in sweeping slopes and jutting spires. Theirs is a very long story that ends with a metamorphosis from sculpture to fresh ocean water. There is a sort of Eucharist on deck when a chunk of ice is netted and fractured into small pieces, filled with tiny ancient bubbles. This is the purist water on earth, captured before humans began contributing the taint of our endeavors, a gift from the mystery that set this crazy experiment in motion and when I fish out a wafer from the pile of fragments and place it into my mouth, I feel somehow forgiven and purified.
Other sculptures grace the shore made of ancient gray stone. Ancestral faces crowded together shoulder to shoulder, back to front, a free-form version of Mt. Rushmore, peering north, the origin of the native peoples of this place. They face the past, but hold the future, lest we forget. Their altars or ahu in Hawaiian, are stones shaped square and smooth, improbably stacked, line the shore. We make for a gaping maw in the cliff side. Deep inside the cave sides form an ancient esophagus, leading to…? I wonder if it’s a place where orca have come to play. It’s a place where Billy Earl, a man foolish enough to venture inside, barely survived for seven days after his boat was crushed by molars lurking inside that mouth.
In the afternoon we climb to an angel’s rest on the very north coast of the island, not far from Lans aux Meadows, a Viking settlement and UNESCO site. At the trail head, we encounter a gardener working his patch, which is tucked in among the trees and has that dark rich soil with the potential to grow anything and indeed, there is an array of root crops and cabbage that appear to be thriving. He is an island person and tells us that after he retired, he started this garden to experience the peace of earth connection. Onward we climb, emerging at the top to the full force of artic winds and the shipping lane of more icebergs.
When we leave Tuckamore we make our way to the north shore, turn left and head south down the west coast to Gros Morne, a large national park and UNESCO site. Today the north coast is a land of mists, enchanted by an Old Norse god perhaps? As we pass the Labrador ferry terminal, we know that it’s out there in the mists somewhere, created when the cold Labrador current meets the warm gulf-stream. We leave the mist behind and arrive in Rocky Harbor to brilliant sunshine. Our current hosts are island people as well. The first thing you see when entering the driveway is a greenhouse; the property has the feel of a working farm. When I mention this to Margaret, one of our hosts, she explains the multi-step process they must use to actually grow vegetables in this land of short summers, beginning under lights inside and moving in stages to the ground.
The Alderbed Cottages are tucked into their own groves of trees and I mention this to Boyd who tells me, “You have to think for at least two years before you cut a tree.” Their son is an artist and a gardener. He paints the rectangular rocks that seem to be prevalent here, creating miniature buildings and houses. They are displayed in a small cabinet on their front porch and sold in the town’s shops. I imagine him combing the shore, selecting stones, much like a sculpture who sees the potential within the granite. They are a charming, wistful reminder of all the leaning precarious houses that are perched along the shore, many canted slightly with years of prevailing winds.
Newfoundland is a place of wild beauty and haunting music, some of which we found at Norris Point, a tiny village a short drive from Rocky Harbor, on Bonne Bay, a wildlife wonderland. On the waterfront, there is an aquarium and marine science research center, a fish and chips truck with the absolutely best fish ever (Big Island excepted of course) and the Cat Stop where you can sit on the dock, surrounded by treed cliffs, watch eagles fly, jellyfish dance and listen to real Newfoundland folk music. We were treated to the music of Jeff Quilty, whose day job is at the local hospital. A one-man band of guitar, harmonica and accordion, he had folks from 5 to 85 up tickling the boards.
These travels were a truly enriching experience and were made possible through Big Island roots. In Hawaii I’ve learned to simply be where you are and to really see and experience the beauty of what is below your feet and swirling around you, to see and accept any person standing before you and to recognize and connect with fellow island people. Aloha e, Aloha e, Aloha e
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