Tales from St Anthony Part III -- Just ask the janitor

A house near the most northerly tip of Newfoundland near L'Anse Aux Meadows, where Vikings first landed in North America.

"Do you eat meat," my landlord Ken asks me as we stand next to a chest freezer in the basement of what will one day be his dream home.

At the moment it is a gutted two storey house, age unknown, located at the front of a large chunk of land near the fish processing plant.

A seemingly abandoned fishing punt, replete with a large hole in its stern, dominates the backyard that is also home to a rake, a bit of fishing net and several large chunks of snow, remnants of one of the warmest winters on record.

From the outside it looks like it should be scuttled, but Ken is a carpenter, electrician and handy man. A scan of the work done so far you can tell he's a good one too.

He's also a good bloke.

"Do I like meat," I parrot, "of course."

Ken swings open the lid of the freezer, which will one day be replaced by a queen sized bed in what is to become the master bedroom.

"Ever eaten moose," he asks and seemingly already knowing the answer he rummages around in he bowels of the freezer producing a pack of Italian herb moose sausages and two moose steaks plonking them into my hands before reaching down again to retrieve another another plastic bag.

"Moose heart," he says revealing the contents of the bag, "we stuff it then bake it, it's quite nice really."

Having eaten heart during my time as a butcher, I strongly doubt it.

"You can tell the weight of a moose by the weight of its heart," he tells me balancing it in his left hand like he's a human Salter scale.

"This heart here is about five pound so the moose was about 500 pound," he puts the heart back in the freezer before pulling out another bag, this time I know exactly what is coming.

"Do you eat fish," he asks, "here take this it's cod, dad and I have got heaps, more than we can eat."

What he asks me to take is about 10lbs of frozen cod fillets, far too much for Em and I to eat in a year so we come to a gentleman's agreement and head back to the truck and jump in.

Every time I meet a local talk soon turns to the future of the town.

"If you want to know what’s wrong with this town, just ask the janitor,” Ken says as we round the bend near the processing plant.

"The problem is when things go wrong in a town like this they ask the wrong people what needs to be done," he continues.

"All you need to do is talk to the janitor or the labourer on the job site digging holes, doing the hard work. They’ll tell you what’s wrong with the place and how to fix it."

He's right. If you want to know what ails the population and how to fix it, just ask the people on the bottom rung of societies ladder.

No point asking the ones with the money, they'll just tell you how to make them more money, although I don't get that same feeling in a town like this.

In sporting parlance, St Anthony has a serious case of the yips, a form slump if you will.

The town is facing a troika of trouble -- the fishing industry (cod, crab and lobsters) has gone belly up, the seal season is similarly slow and the government is in the midst of relocating the air ambulance, the biggest issue of the day here.

Just a few years back they tried to relocate the trade school but that failed and while the future of the hospital seems certain considering they have invested a whack of money into it, the air ambulance is seen as a life line that is being yanked from the slippery grip of the people by the government.

"I’ll give you this," I say, "you Newfoundlanders are a hardy bunch, you’ll pull through."

He looks at me and laughs.

"Oh ya right, we are hardy," he says, "stubborn too."

Not far from his house, moored along the docks are rusting hulks, a few men mill around a big black Chevrolet truck.

"They’d go out if it were worth it but it ain’t," he says.

"What do they fish," I ask.

"Anything that will pay the bills. They'll stay at it though, they'll find a way."

You know what? I believe him.