Mapalicious

This is how far I've come in the world and how far I've yet to go. 

So many questions

Truck drivers must be the most inquisitive people.
Why?
I’ve spent the past five days on the road, travelled 3105km, and I have questions, so many questions.
For instance:

1) How much does it cost to adopt a highway but more importantly do they send you letters every Christmas or on their birthday?
2) If you adopt it a highway, are you allowed to give it a new name? (I’d like to call Highway 11, Gary)
3) Who numbers all the highways and by-ways? What system do they use? Are they on LSD when they do it?
4) If you rent billboards along the road, is it illegal to plaster them with random remarks? I’d like take a short-term lease on signs and plaster them with words like “GIRAFFE” or “TRAPEZOID” or statements like “Paranoid? I think someone’s following you” or “Jesus Saves! It’s going to overtime”
5) Shouldn’t towns be held accountable if their slogans are erroneous? Chalk Village claims that it’s the “the village that cares” but what if it doesn’t? What if its residents go through a period of apathy?

Conversations from the Mazda

There are times when clichés need to be rewritten.
For instance, the adage you can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink should, for this trip, be updated to: you can lead a cat to a litter tray but you can’t make it poop.
It's impossible.
At least you can drown the horse but what can you do with the cat? Shower it in chunks of deodorized and bacterial growth inhibited clay particles?
Sir Richard's stoic refusal for a morning constitutional BEFORE we leave the motel has become a point of tension on the pilgrimage.
He's perfectly fine when you get to the motel for the night but he's just not a morning pooper.
He'll sleep for the first half an hour but when he rises he does so with the most mournful and harrowing meows possible.

SR: Daaad?
ME: No.
SR: Daaaaaaaaaad?
ME: NO.
SR: DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD?
ME: WHAT?!
SR: I need to poop.
ME: Hold it.
SR: But I caaaaaan't.
ME: Sure you can.
SR: CAAAAAAAAAAN'T.
ME: For the love of ...
SR: No need to blaspheme.
ME: But I never....
SR: You were about to.
ME: Since when have you cared?
SR: I've converted.
ME: From what?
SR: What?
ME: You said you converted.
SR: And?
ME: It means you must have been something else. You can’t convert from nothing.
SR: What?
ME: Look…
SR: POOOOP.
ME: Hold it.
SR: I can’t.
ME: You’ll have to.
SR: Just pull over.
ME: I can’t, we are on the Trans Canada. You can’t just “pull over”.
SR: They did.
ME: “They” crashed into a snow bank
SR: Let’s do that.
ME: NO.
SR: Please?
ME: Why can’t you just go before we leave?
SR: I have to be in the mood.
ME: Really?
SR: Oh yeah, it’s very emotional. You wouldn’t understand, squelchy.
ME: What does that mean?
SR: I can hear you, you know
ME: That’s different.
SR: Look, I need to be Zen. I need to be centred.
ME: So you’ve converted from Buddhism?
SR: What?
ME: Zen is a Buddhist construct. So if you’ve converted to Christianity then you must have been a Buddhist.
SR: I am NOT a Christian.
ME: Why stop me from saying God?
SR: Did I?
ME: You know you did.
SR: Why do we always have to argue?
ME: (Silence)
SR: Pooooooooooop.
ME: No.
SR: Fine.
ME: What’s that smell?
SR: What smell?

Day ?? Oh, I don't know anymore...

Today I broke the 2500km mark on my journey so in honour of that special occasion I wrote a country music song on the snow covered leg between Montreal and Ottawa. (For the record, I hate Ottawa)

Here are the early lyrics:

When the whiteness descends,

Blanketing the black

The spanners around me have clearly been smoking crack

It doesn’t take long for the white to turn to brown

But those crazy Mainland drivers refuse to slow down

CHORUS:

Slow down

Slow down

Put down the crack pipe and just slow down

I’ll be the first to admit it needs a bit of work but I have another four days left to hone the lyrics. Stay tuned….

***

Tomorrow I head for Cochrane, the birthplace of Tim Horton (and I had hoped Tom Cochrane but apparently not.)

Day 4 -- 1770km of 5500km

Theoretically, if the entire road trip consisted of a single broken line down the middle of all the highways, I would, based on my calculations of 83 lines per kilometer (travelling at 80km/h), pass more than 456,500 little white dots.

They are the kinds of things you think of when you are driving 5500km across Canada.

The other thoughts surround the highlights for each town.

For instance, as hard as it is to believe I missed out on visiting Potato World Museum in Florenceville-Bristol, N.B., it’s harder to believe that such a museum exists.

The lack of punctuation left me wondering whether it was a museum about potatoes or a potato museum about the world.

Either way, it wasn’t the only attraction I had to bypass on my leg through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The giant blueberry at Oxford, N.S., was impressive but I would have loved to have visited  the world’s longest covered bridge in Hartland, N.B., Nackawic’s world’s largest axe and the thought of standing at the site of New Brunswick’s last fatal duel in New Maryland, intrigues me no end.

****

“Think they’ll mind if I dry my vamps on the fire,” I asked Aaron as we slouched in mass produced wooden chairs that were never meant to be lounged in.

The Piper’s Inn, located in the heart of Antigonish, was about as active as the Amherst wind farm.

“You’re Australian,” he replied, “they’d expect it.”

As we sat back nursing a pint of stout, feet resting in front of the gas fire place, pogie boots and their innards scattered asunder, their stench wafting through the bar, we tossed around theories about everything from newspapers to Russian oligarchs.

Later we moved back to Aaron’s attic apartment for a few more beers, more tales, more theories on world politics and before finally falling asleep in the unmade queen-sized bed – separated by Sir Richard, we spoke of the future.

****

My pursuit of blue sky across black bitumen ended about 70km from the New Brunswick border. The trip through new Scotland was uneventful expect for the odd slab of ice cartwheeling ever so briefly from the roof of passing semi-trailers. Picked up in its entirety with a sharp gust of wind, they float towards the road and shatter into car sized chunks before disintegrating on their second contact with the blackness. At one point an entire sheet flipped back straight onto the windscreen of a trailing semi causing it to weave across two lanes of traffic. There’s a real benefit in driving at 80km/h.

Day 3 -- Snow daze

There are two things you never want to hear when attempting to catch a ferry off the island of Newfoundland.
The first is a CFCB radio host describing the 250km drive to the ferry terminal as “treacherous”; the second is that the ferry is leaving two hours early.

****

On the Townie Scale – a 0-10 mathematical representation of a winter storm’s severity based on the number of calls to VOCM OpenLine by St. John’s residents decrying a lack of snow clearing multiplied by the number of school closures divided by Memorial University students who instead of using the day to finish an essay on Socialist Newfoundland instead head to George Street for a pint – Saturday’s storm was a 9.
On the Northern Peninsula scale, it was a five, possibly a four.
With no snowplows on the roads at 6am, ‘Steve’ cut fresh tracks along the highway like a concussed blindfolded snowboarder due to my distinct lack of spatial awareness on where the road started and the edge of the ditch began.
Whiteouts between rock cuts and the need to stop every couple of hundred metres to get out and scrape the snow buildup from the wiper blades made driving slow but Sir Richard helped by keeping the car from fogging up by rubbing his body up and down the passenger window. Truth be told, he seemed to quite enjoy the adventure.(I should say that there were snowplows on the road, it’s just that they were going in the other direction to me.)

After re-booking my ferry to Sunday I began the second leg of the journey between Corner Brook and Port aux Basques (Codroy Valley actually).
“RCMP are urging drivers to stay off the roads unless it is totally necessary,” the radio announcer suggested to me, “driving conditions are treacherous out there today so stay home if you can and I you can’t, be safe out there.”
It was a similar message tweeted by the RCMP I read on the iPad which issued the following: “Take extra precautions,” it read, “if you MUST drive, pack warm clothes, food and a cell phone.”
The radio announcement explained why there were no other cars on the road but that was a presumption on my part because the snow was driving so hard and the wind so strong that you wouldn’t see another vehicle until you were nose to nose, or nose to bumper.
Safe in my winter driving skills, I toodled on down the road thinking about my superior packing abilities and forethought.
Food: CHECK (bottled moose and caribou)
Water: CHECK
Warm clothes: CHECK (and I have the cat to keep me warm if all else fails)
Emergency candles: CHE…. Oh crap (I know I bought them, just not where I packed them)

****

“Be careful with all that weight in the rear, b’y,” a man, who I’d never met in the years living in St. Anthony, cautioned me before I set off on Friday.
“You could lose the back.”
“Nah she’s right mate,” I responded, “I have studded winter tires.”
Plowing through 10 inches of partially-frozen slob along Highway 1 soon after leaving Corner Brook for Codroy at the tail-end of a blizzard, there was a briefest of moments when the stout little man’s words appeared to be ghosting through the front speakers of Steve and drowning out Luke Bryan’s country ballad, I Don’t Want this Night to End.
At the point Steve’s rear floated past the front, I didn’t want this trip to end.
As much as ‘drifting’ sounds like fun to rev-heads, when you end up perpendicular across four lanes of the Trans Canada Highway in a snowstorm, you can’t help but think that producers made a sound decision in creating The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and not The Fast and the  Furious: Newfoundland Drift.
It was neither graceful nor subtle but when you start to lose it, there’s not much you can do but take your foot of the gas and use it to stamp down hard on the toes of the foot reaching for the break.

****

A few beers, pea soup and a night in the Thomas household in Codroy – 30 minutes from Port aux Basques ferry terminal – would have been made all the more perfect by a filling breakfast and fond farewells on Sunday.
Instead, at 8.50am, the iPad blinked: “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I hope you get this message. Ferry leaving early. Go go. Be there by 9.30am.”
Had it not been for my rugby days I probably would have found bounding down a flight of stairs into the basement, scooping a 22 lb cat under one arm, rucking my way across snow covered front yard and passing Sir Richard into the front seat somewhat challenging.

Hugs and handshakes replaced bacon and eggs for breakfast; the trip to the terminal was… succinct.
“It’s better we leave early or not at all,” the lady in the Marine Atlantic booth told me when I aired my disbelief that a ferry could leave two hours early without the company updating their website or automated phone message.
“If we don’t leave now the ferry won’t leave today.”
The ferry did leave – with five cars and half a dozen semi-trailers.
There’s no way Marine Atlantic made any money on that day.

Let me peer into the future...

So this is what Nova Scotia's roads look like today.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/index.php?product=hwycond&pagecontent=ns
Here's hoping tomorrow brngs better driving conditions

Didn't get very far...

What do they say about the best made plans?

I stayed in Pasadena last night with friends who treated me to a night of amateur theatre, a hilarious tribute to Monty Python, and woke this morning to find snow gently falling.
"That's okay," I thought, "I've seen worse on the Northern Peninsula." Turns out that I have seen worse but I also didn't need to drive 300km to catch a ferry. Still, in good spirits, I set out for Port aux Basques and made it all of 30km to Corner Brook in an hour and a half.
Turns out that NL is in the midst of a winter storm so I've decided against driving at 20km/h through blindng snow. For the time being at least.
Hilariously, I had very little choice but to take the Corner Brook exit because there was so much snow on the road that Steve was nothing more than a tiny little green train carriage coasting along the "railway tracks" left by the truck in frnt of me. Depressingly admitting defeat, I pulled into the closest service station and was greeted by a lass from St. Lunaire-Griquet on the Northern Peninsula.
She warned me that it was go going to get worst before it got better and being that I could barely see the end of my car on the first leg of the trip, I've decided to wait it out in Corner Brook.
She kindly allowed me to use tne phone to call Marine Atlantic whereupon a delightful chap told me the road was closed near Port aux Basques and tha none of the ferries had docked because of the weather. I've rebooked my ticket for the same time tomorrow but again it is all dependent on how many ferry cancellations there are today.
There is a good reason why people don't drive across Canada in the middle of winter.

So right now I am doing what any smart person would do and am sitting in Brewed Awakenings for a double shot capp. Still looks awfully messy out there. Might hunker down for an hour.

The good news is that Sir Richard is findng the car trip to his liking. He's made a fortress on top of the pile-o-crap n the back of the car and gives me directions when required. He was awfully helpful yellng at me in the snow storm this morning,bless him.

For now I will wait it out.





--
Sent from Steve, a 1999 Mazda Protege

This is the worst kind of melon

Please bear with me for just a moment as I get all melancholy. I promise it won’t happen again (until next time of course).

****

This is it.

It’s over.

It’s the final night in the basement of St. Anthony’s “Milk Carton”.

Not sure how it all rolled around so quickly but it’s over.  

Done.

Naked walls bounce Paul Kelly’s Songs from the Sixteenth Floor around the Spartan living space which, until yesterday, was the home of donated furniture.

Perched in a top hat on the floral chesterfield we watched Will and Kate get hitched, the All Blacks beat the French, Socceroos escorted calmly from the World Cup, a Harry Potter marathon, and now, with the bed sold, it briefly became my nightly refuge.

The kitchen – now reeking of bleach – saw the birth of bread, baked treats, moose vindaloo, moose sushi and a pizza-fuelled tantrum that would have made Ramsey blush.

It’s been fun.  

Now, as I sit in my straw cowboy hat listening to Paul Kelly now telling the tale of Don Bradman, it seems so vacuous, except for the memories.

This is Sir Richard's contribution to helping me pack. Sure, he can't do a lot but this is just taking the piss.

Mega Road Trip --the opening scene

***sssshhhhh***

Scene 1

(Scene opens with a sock-wearing, beard-hoarding, bedraggled former reporter of a local newspaper crouched over his glass-topped kitchen table in a one-bedroom “flat” in northern Newfoundland)

Me: Are you listening?

Sir Richard von Pinkenbah Retractaclaw III: Meow

M: Seriously?

SR: What?

M: I knew we should have called you Gary.

SR: Fine

M: Good

SR: Get on with it

M: The plan is this:

SR: Thus

M: What?

SR: The plan is thus

M: (deep breath)

SR: I’m just pointing out that this and thus should be respected for their grammatical independence

M: Respected

SR: Yes. Respected

M: “ independence”?

SR: Yes?

M: Is this how the trip is going to go?

SR: Perhaps

M: Perhaps?

SR: Yes

M: Fine. The plan is thus:

SR: Better

M: We leave St. Anthony on Friday Jan. 27 and head to Corner Brook. From there we head to Port-aux-Basques to catch the ferry to Nova Scotia at 12:15pm on Saturday, Jan. 28.

SR: Ferry?

M: Yes

SR: You didn’t mention a ferry

M: Why would I?

SR: Courtesy

M: You’re a cat

SR: Speciesism still exists

M: (deep breath)

SR: Discriminator

M: From North Sydney we head to Antigonish in Nova Scotia. Should be there about 10.30pm

SR: I feel discriminate.

M: (deep breath) Discriminated

SR: What? Don’t my feelings count?

M: Of course they….

SR: WELL I DEMAND AN ANSWER

M: We are on an island

SR: And?

M: How do you think we are going to get off an island?

SR: First class

M: First class?

SR: Yes

M: I’m not flying you to Regina

SR: I want those seats, the ones that fold right back, the ones that have the little cup holders and a screen. I’ve missed Big Bang Theory ever since coming to Newfoundland. That lanky guy, the smart one, you know the one?

M: Sheldon

SR: Is it?

M: Yes

SR: Are you sure?

M: (deep breath)

SR: Ok, Sheldon. I like him

M: How about I show you the open road of Canada? How about a 5500km journey across Canada in nine days?

SR: Do I get my own TV?

M: No

SR: NOT ACCEPTABLE

M: You get your own TV

SR: Cup holder?

M: You can use mine

SR: Does that mean there are two?

M: Yes

SR: Can I have both of them?

M: No

SR: Speciest

M: Why do you need two?

SR: I may need to get drunk if I’m spending nine days with you 

Farewell Newfoundland

 I can’t believe I’m leaving a community that has a half-time and a full-time whistle.
 At 12 noon and again at 5pm, St. Anthony’s steam powered flute signals supper and the end of the working day. I’m convinced locals don’t hear it anymore; it’s like car horns in Bangkok or the rattle of a clapped out test tube on the Northern Line in London, it’s at the aural foundation of the community.
But, every time the kettle boils on the East Side of St. Anthony I know it’s time to take a break, or go home.
I’m going to miss it.
It’s not the only thing I’m going to miss.

****

“Just a quick question,” I said. (I’d like to add I was wide-eyed when I asked the question but being my eyes are always wide open when I speak, it’s probably superfluous fluff.)
George, on a Saturday no less, had already fielded questions about where two Australians could swap their licenses for Newfoundland ones, where was good to eat in town and – courtesy of our friend Mark who had driven us from Deer Lake to St. Anthony –  what kind of tidal fluctuations you could expect in the harbour and the Bight.

(Now keep in mind the following has been pieced together from notes written two years ago and contains a mixture of gibberish and journalism shorthand)

He looked at me from behind his desk willing to offer up any advice he could.
“Am I allowed to go fishing in the harbour?”
There was silence as he leaned back in his chair and sized me up from behind his moustache. His gaze suggested a concerted attempt to decide whether the long-haired bearded manchild who had stumbled into his office with two other Come From Aways was an idiot, ill-informed or naive (For the record, I am all three.)
“No b’y,” he said with a smile that over time I discovered was never far from his face, “even if you could you wouldn’t want to.”
It was sound advice.
I later discovered that A) unlike Australia where you can virtually wet a line anywhere you like at any time of the year, in Newfoundland, not even locals are allowed to fish; and B) what you’re likely to catch in the harbour isn’t piscatorial.
During our time we met many people like George. Happy and willing to give advice or tell a tale.

****

I’m never going to be able to quantify the ways I’ll miss this place but I’m definitely going to miss meeting someone on the street and hearing:
 “Whaddya at?”
It’s the question I will forever know the answer.
“This is it.”

The mess...

I'll get it sorted. I have to.

Stay tuned...

Wow, it's hard to believe it's been 18 months since my last blog post but time flies when you are living in northern Newfoundland. For the 1500 or so people who have viewed this page (I'm sure that I account for most of those numbers) stay tuned because Lost and Found is being ressurected. For a short time at least.

--
Sent from Steve, a 1999 Mazda Protege

Tales from St Anthony Part XVIII – Martha Stewart saved my life and tips on driving in Newfoundland

I am prone to fits of internalized paranoia whereby the usual outwardly projected extreme and irrational distrust of others is turned inwards – in short I am paranoid of paranoia.

Just for the record I am also scared of people wearing sombreros (who needs a hat that big anyway), termites (anything so small that can devour a house deserves to be feared) and since moving to Newfoundland, I have begun to fear driving, more accurately my paranoia of computer-based written driving exams scares the bejesus out of me.

Oh and I am also scared of falling asleep and waking to find my limbs fused with useless kitchen utensils like a pastry brush, spork and a colander as a helmet, but none of the cool ones like rolling pins for arms a meat tenderizer for my right hand and a pizza cutter for my left and egg beaters for legs that I would spin so fast I would gravitate to become the ultimate crime fighting machine able to flambé the fricassee out of culinary crooks.

Anyway, today I should have been studying for my driver’s test because despite my 16 years of clean driving in Australia, I have to go through the whole process again. That's cool with me, I dig practical tests. I'm a practical kind of person. But it means I have to sit

that rotten written test again so instead of studying I cooked macaroni and cheese from scratch for the very first time.

The driving exam has me spooked so much I turned to a Martha Stewart recipe. It makes sense after all, who better to guide me through the heady and complicated world of Mac and Cheese than Martha, who I also discovered is a damn fine history teacher. Did you Thomas Jefferson invented Mac & Cheese?

Now let me make this clear, my fear of driving isn’t because of the conditions in these parts. I have driven horribly dangerous roads in the southern hemisphere and survived potholes the size of small mammals, small mammals the size of humans and humans with brains the size of small mammals.

Nope, but sit me down in front of a driving test on a computer screen and I go to water and it’s all because of the way they phrase the questions and rank the answers.

There is always one ridiculous answer, one slightly daft one and two that are almost identical and would both be correct however one is more right than the other.

For instance, according to the Newfoundland and Labrador Road Users Guide, the minimum safe following distance is at least one car length for every 15kph meaning if you are traveling at 90kph you should be six car lengths behind the one in front. To work that out you must wait for the car in front to pass a checkpoint and start counting. If it takes two or more seconds for your car to pass that same checkpoint, it is considered to be a reasonable following distance.

The literature goes on to point out that the two second rule will allow you to react to an obstacle but it won’t be enough time to stop your car.

Again, sound advice though I would tender the argument that novice drivers shouldn’t be burdened with mathematical duties as well as driving responsibilities.

Now if I were to then suggest that it was safer to up the ante, turn the two second rule into a three, four or five second rule, I would be correct and a great deal safer but I would also be wrong and fail the test.

Then there is the advice given in the user guide which at times is quite hilarious.

For instance under the heading To Avoid Hitting a Car in Front of You, it calmly starts with: “Don’t be impatient,” which I admit is very good advice before concluding, “never let personal problems or daydreams take your attention from the road.”

Again, sound.

One of my favorite quotes comes under the heading Sudden Stopping and Reaction Time that reads:

“Before you can realize that you must stop your vehicle to avoid an object ahead, you must see it.”

I am wondering if this is a philosophical debate or instructions to Jedi.

The most worrying aspect from a non-moose acquainted driver is that the writers of the manual appear more worried about headlights then they are about moose.

For instance the paragraph about headlight glare reads:

“Glare causes the pupil of the eye to contract ... it takes about seven seconds for the pupil to readjust, during this time you may be temporarily blinded. If you were traveling at 90kph for those seven seconds you would have gone 125 metres while you had no vision.”

Temporarily blinded for 125 metres traveling 90kph? The only way that could get any worst is if an eagle flew in through the open window and began clawing your face off.

The writers under the heading Vehicle Plunges into Water helpfully demonstarte how to successfully escape a submerged car, what to do if the hood flies up or your car catches on fire while driving 90kph down the highway. 

They also offer the indispensable tip on what to do if you are about to slam into another car under the heading Direct Collision Course that reads: “Brake hard!”

Martha might have just saved my life.

Under moose the best advice they can give is thus: “Always think moose – especially when you drive at night”.

'Think moose' is the best they can come up with?

I think Martha Stewart and I are going to become well acquainted up until I sit my test on July 22.

Tales from St Anthony Part XVII –George the Bard, Family Ties and $25 lobster dinners

Hello Mr Lobster, would you like a new home in my belly?

"Do you come from a big family George," I asked Cow Head’s friendliest local bard as I tried to prevent my rickety plastic lawn chair from toppling over.

George had rushed up the road to the Dr Henry N Payne Community Museum where he had been boiling lobsters at the Anglican Church all morning.

As strange as that sounds, it was all part of the 29th annual Cow Head Lobster Festival on the weekend and George was multitasking.

"Oh yes, a big family, seven brothers and a sister," he said as the summer sun slapped me upside the head while the ice box chilled wind kicked me in the shin.

"My daughter asked my father there once, she said, why do they have such big families around these parts and my father said, 'well you know, we’ve got to keep warm in the winter somehow'," George grinned and chuckled to himself.

For about an hour George did what he does best, he spun some yarns regaling us tales of his family and that of the region, stories that would have been told years ago around the camp oven, or in the kitchen to traveling strangers.

This time around it was just four of us huddled together on the lawn of the historical society.

He told us about his fishing days, local folk lore, maritime disasters and the death of modern society.

"When you buy a piece of lumber 2¼ inches and what you actually get is a piece 1¾ and you pay seven times its worth, well things aren’t looking good," he said, "we are in a bad way, a bad way," he concluded of modernity.

The talk of families was poignant as I had only that week bid farewell to my own who had journeyed from Australia to the northernmost point of Newfoundland.

I hadn’t seen them in about 18 months so there was plenty to talk about and for almost two weeks we showed them all that the Northern Peninsular had to offer and by the end, my father had developed a guttural Newfoundland laugh, my sister and mother had been made honorary Newfies after being ‘Screeched in’ and the entire lot had grown scales and gills because of all the cod and seafood they had digested.

A family portrait, not my family portrait but one nonetheless.

On the last night though, my parents in typical dramatic form, brought the whole trip crashing to a low.

At this point I must point out that my parents can be kind of dramatic. If mum has some bad news she usually starts the conversation with, “now don’t panic” or “before you get upset” my dad normally just comes out and speaks his mind.

“It’s been good to see you,” my mum said as she wiped at her face in a bid to make it look like she was scratching an itch that scuttled about her face like a snow crab. She was crying, but she didn’t want me to know. But I did and put an arm around her.

“Don’t make it sound like it’s the last time we’ll see each other,” I said.

“But it might be,” she said, “we might never see you again.”

“Sure you will it’s not as though we are that far away from you. We are only in Newfoundland.”

“You don’t know that,” she muttered, repeating it under her breath, “you don’t know that.”

Moments earlier over a tasty chunk of halibut my dad averted his eyes from my gaze when we had concluded the very same conversation.

“This might be it mate,” he said, “we might not ever see you kids again.”

“Don’t be silly,” I retorted.

“I’m not,” he grunted, jack blunt as always.

And therein lays the difference of generations. While we think it’s nothing to jump on a plane and fly around the globe as if we are packing the campervan and heading to the local beach for a holiday, for my parents it is a big deal, this trip to Newfoundland was a big trip, a once in a lifetime trip if I am to believe them.

I know the locals around St Anthony feel the same. With job opportunities limited, most of the extended family has been forced to move away to Alberta or further afield to make ends meet but each summer they try to make it home and celebrate as a family unit.

As each year rolls on and families expand and contract with numbers, a new baby here is offset by the loss of a grandparent there, many of us wonder if this will be the last time they will see a family member again.

My grief at not seeing my parents again for a while is tempered by the knowledge that I am lucky.

My family is still alive and currently driving around Ireland.

Sláinte.

Tales from St Anthony Part XVI -- Acceptance speech

The immigration officer's hand shot out at me, waist high, with a military snap.

I flinched but I needn't have.

 

"Sir, " he said, "welcome to Canada."

As I unwrapped my spindly fingers from around his meat claw it dawned on me that I was now a permanent resident of Canada.

My new home had officially accepted me, a faceless bureaucrat at the Canadian Consul found me to be truthful, honest and trustworthy and granted me permission to stay while a burly Newfoundland immigration officer at the aptly named southern port of Fortune confirmed it  with a stiff handshake and a heartfelt profession of pride.

I could tell Charlie, that's the immigration officer, was proud to be Canadian and he was darn happy to be the first person to welcome me into his country, his home.

With those thoughts ricocheting in my skull I turned to Em and started crying. She laughed. 

I tried to laugh but I was too busy crying so I kind of blubbered a bit, it's not every day you become part of a new country.

Tales from St Anthony Part XV -- Wrestling Bedouin and a parallel universe

"Me against my brother, my brothers and I against my cousin, then my cousins and I against strangers."

The modern Bedouin travels in a rental van and not on camel through a desert.

According to the World Wide InterGoogle machine the above is a “widely quoted Bedouin saying” and while I will suspend my belief until irrefutable proof is presented, more than Wikipedia at least, it is the perfect description of the nomadic band of journeymen I witnessed last night – professional wrestlers.

A traveling troupe crisscrossing their way about Canada – Mainstream Wrestling – arrived with little fanfare in St Anthony yesterday, setting up residence inside a corrugated iron shed that doubles as the town’s ice hockey rink in winter.

Perched on the peripheries of a ring erected inside the freezing stadium about 400 people, mostly kids, watched on as good guys and bad guys belted each other senseless for more than two hours.

A montage clearly showing Josef Von Schmidt, a wrestler supposedly from East Berlin and whose MySpace page attests a desire to "resurrect the Berlin Wall" and proof of a love tryst between Dolph Lundgren (circa Rocky IV) and StreetFighter's General M Bison and Sagat. 

Sometimes the hits hurt, other times they missed all together but still inflicted a certain amount of injury and pain; such is the wonder of wrestling.

When the show finished and the crowd, with lungs aching and cheeks hurting, filed into the car park, the showmen packed up their own merchandise tables and the troupe disappeared south down Route 430 through the fog, past the moose onto the next town, onto the next show.

When Em first told me about the wrestling, I remember laughing, snobbishly.

I can’t remember the exact details of that exchange but I imagine when Em broached the subject, I was inside my ivory tower at the time sitting on a thrown made of intertwined strands of hair from the fabled golden badger, stroking my pet thylacine, ordering my thralls to track down more wine.

I probably then threw my head back and chortled at the idea proclaiming with a booming voice that would put Brian Blessed to shame something like: “I have been to international sporting events the world over with crowds reaching up to 100,000, what folly is this?”

In instances like this I’m either in my ivory tower or on my high horse, named Garry. 

Either way, I admit I was a fool, treated the concept with contempt, and as such I would like to issue an apology.

Because I have no-one to apologise to but myself, I hereby accept my own apology, acknowledge I have a lot still to learn and promptly move on.

Now here’s a question, is it culturally insensitive to draw parallels between a formally nomadic Arab ethnic group, the Bedouin, and spandex-clad fringe wrestlers? Maybe it is better to compare them to Fred Brophy’s travelling boxing tent in Australia, however I fear the latter is far too bloody and a lot less theatrical.

I’d imagined this group as muscle bound circus carnies, charlatans, who left town in the middle of the night with all the towns peoples’ hard earned money, everything not bolted down, perhaps a cat or two and a couple of stowaways with dreams of the big lights of WWE.

But that wasn’t the case – not by a long shot.

"Me against my brother, my brothers and I against my cousin, then my cousins and I against strangers," is the perfect way to describe last night’s performers.

Each day they travel to a new town, set up their traveling show, fight each other then move on.

The Bedouin entertained through folk music, dance and poetry, these guys do the same although thrash metal has replaced the sullen tones of the al-rababa, their choreographed war dance (ardha) ends in moves subtly titled brainbusters and powerbombs and the poetry was more monologues about the wrestlers own greatness mixed with crowd tauntings of “no, you suck”, rather than the traditional ghinnawas, two line emotional poems similar to haikus.

Am I drawing a long bow? Maybe, but one certain thing is that last night was all about the kids.

I think it’s fair to say that entertainment options are limited up here on the Northern Peninsular.

The closest cinema is six hours away and while there are a couple of playgrounds, a lot of open land and several sporting groups, live show experiences like this don’t come around every day, in fact it was four years since the troupe last came to town.

Four years.

Let’s be honest, the show wasn’t professional wrestling on a scale of WWE but who cares?

Watching all those kids and their parents yelling, screaming, cheering, booing and watching the wrestlers exacting every ounce of effort and strength from tiring bodies courtesy of a strenuous tour, the show was nothing short of inspiring.

Last night, those kids might as well have been inside a stadium of 100,000 baying fans.

Hell, I even cheered and whooped it up.

I felt a surge of passion for the entertainment, not because of what it was but because of what it did.

Sometimes those hits really did hurt. Really, really.

It made people happy, it made people forget.

For a couple of hours kids got to be kids and parents could forget about a failing fishing industry, the imminent removal of their air ambulance, mortgages, shopping bills and simply sit back and watch their kids laugh, smile and holler.

Some of the parents’ smiles were as big as the kids’.

Since coming to St Anthony I have learnt that living in a place where even getting basic things can be tough, a night of entertainment provided by a modern band of Bedouin can do wonders for morale.

There are plenty of parallels between wrestling and the Bedouin, there are plenty of parallels between that show and the fighting spirit of Newfoundland but then again you can draw parallels between any objects with a bit of imagination.

Tales from St Anthony Part XI (ADDENDUM) - Badly stitched panoramas

It's been fantastic weather so I've strapped on the hiking boots and headed for high ground to snap a few more badly stitched panoramas. My apologies on the quality but they are quite rushed.

There is no path to get to this rocky outcrop, in fact it's a bloody hard slog however it offers unobstructed 360 degree view. Unfortuantely it's too big to be uploaded to Blogger.

This is from Fishing Point, after climbing 460-odd stairs.

This is looking back towards the lighthouse from Lamage Point

And the original panorama that stated this whole crazy idea. Again, there is no path to get to this viewpoint, just a whole lot of rock hopping, shrubs and moose poop.

Tales from St Anthony Part XIV -- Cultural sensitivities

To Newfie or not to Newfie, that is the question and one whose answer is far from being simple and straightforward.

Australians suffer a rare genetic disposition that propels them to shrink everything to its lowest common diction denominator ; the term reductio ad absurdum was originally penciled onto Australia’s coat of arms but it was shortened to just Australia – true story.

Incidentally does anyone else find it strange the phrase on the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom is in French? I would have surely just gone with God and my right, rather than the French translation, Dieu et mon droit.

Their sensitivity to pre-Revolution aristocracy means the French haven’t bothered with a heraldic coat of arms, however if one existed I am almost certain it wouldn’t be in English, unless it was a jibe directed squarely at the English, something simple like “nick off” or “your rugby team is rubbish”.

Back on point, the Newfie argument is one that hasn’t been resolved since our re-settlement from Vancouver to St Anthony.

Before we left the message was clear – calling a Newfoundlander a Newfie is the greatest disrespect imaginable

Since our arrival the overwhelming message has been that Newfoundlanders don’t find Newfie derogatory unless the recipient is from St John’s in which case they will berate you endlessly.

I am always very concerned when it comes to nicknames for a country’s inhabitants.

As an Australian, I am comfortable with the term Aussie a simple contraction of our country. In fact I don’t know of anyone who finds Aussie offensive, I don’t mind it when I’m called a convict in reference to our prison colony past. Sticks and stones and all that I guess but Newfie, now that is an interesting one.

According to The Dictionary of Newfoundland English, the term was first used by the province natives well before transiting US soldiers started using it as a pejorative and disrespectful term in 1945.

It could be argued that Australian soldiers solved a similar issue in 1942 when they rumbled with US soldiers who they deemed to be disrespectful of Australian culture and in the words of one author, "the Yanks were overpaid, oversexed and over here."

The term Newfie was abolished in Alberta of all places in the 1970s; the government of the day deemed the term a racial slur and banned its use on number plates until 2006 when, according to CBC, the government changed their mind and described the word “as a term of endearment”.

I don’t know if that makes it any better, “a term of endearment” makes it sound patronizing, in itself could be considered far worse in some circles.

I guess the thing is any term used to describe a group of people can be used with negative undertones and let’s be honest, some names are better used by their owners.

Looks like I may to have to suppress the innate compulsion to shorten the tongue-twisting term Newfoundlander until I can fully justify its legitimacy. The last thing I want to do is pick the scab off a freshly healed sore or come across as someone culturally insensitive.

Having lived in London, I know what it’s like to be thought of as a cultural barbarian.

Whenever I overheard the word “Australian” it was generally prefaced by the term ‘bloody’ and not by someone exclaiming, “oh those bloody Australians are such a lovely jovial lot who can handle their alcohol and are delightfully quiet and pleasant on the Tube”.

No, it was more, “when we shipped those bloody Australians down there the first time, did someone leave a map because how the hell else did they all find their way back up here to take all our jobs?”