Bay of Hope

by David Ward

  But at least now we know. If there is any silver lining in this snub, it’s that Newfoundland’s government has finally been forced to come clean. It’s gotten clearer why government treats us the way they do, why they don’t fix any road that might bring visitors down here, or set up a ferry schedule that would actually encourage tourists to travel this incredible coastline. It’s because government wants this area for themselves. It’s because they see this region as having as many ecologically insane salmon cages as they can stuff in every cove, bay, and fiord. It’s because they want more mountains of mine tailings, and fewer mountain climbers. It’s because they want oil rigs as far as the eye can see, like you’ll find in the Gulf of Mexico from Alabama to Texas. It’s because Newfoundland’s leadership sees the Southwest Coast as some sort of garbage dump where they can hide their most unsightly, smelly, and environmentally unsound things.

  Twenty-two

  Residents of McCallum voted on resettlement last week, but not enough people were in favour for the town to be eligible for government financial assistance . . . “While the government are saying that they have to think about everybody in the community, it’s really difficult to believe that when we have more than 50 per cent of people that want to go,” said Hennessey. “These people not only want to go, but they need to go.” . . . “All the government has done is put a generous offer on the table, and they’ve created a lot of broken families, friends, and divided the community.”

  — CBC News, June 8, 2015

  Therein lies the outports’ predicament — the Government of Newfoundland hates outport people because communities accessible only by boat cost considerable money to service. So, because government values money more than anything else on earth, they’re making life miserable for outport people.

  I know — hate is a strong word, but I’m sticking with it, because the province knows exactly what they’re doing. Newfoundland has resettled several hundred communities, so no one should be surprised that by increasing relocation money and insisting that people reach a ninety-percent agreement before accessing their offer, government is pitting neighbour against neighbour, even family against family, and that’s despicable.

  “Now what?” the majority of McCallum inquires. “Now that we know most of us want to go, but this is not good enough for government?” Their anguish goes on. “The school is [almost] empty, and children have no one to play with,” say the 76 percent that are ready to roll but now have this enticing inertia-inducing cash-carrot dangling directly in front of their face.

  “Our doctor doesn’t come, people get older, and our weather, fishery, fish prices, ferry, [employment] insurance, drinking water . . . worse. Friends are not friends no more. Even families are fighting. People are depressed. And all we want to know,” residents ask, “is if government can help this community get over this rotten mess? Because things are not going the way we need them to. No sir, after hundreds of years of people living in McCallum, things are not so good around here these days.”

  The ones who want to stay say a “government [report in the sixties] said that McCallum would not last, but here we are.” But that’s because many of those who were chased from communities like Mosquito and Muddy Hole relocated to McCallum. With no feeder-towns to facilitate such a resurgence today, it’s difficult for even the most skillful rejectionist to argue that history is ripe to repeat itself.

  Then there is the gang who have some really sweet reasons to stick around — the ones whose children and grandchildren are still here. Lucky them. While drifters like me try our darnedest to define “home,” this multi-generational crowd has figured out exactly where they want to live and die. It’s probably not a coincidence, however, that several members of this McCallum-clinging team are in possession of some of the town’s more rewarding employment positions — there are not a lot of people pondering the possibility of voting in lieu of their own employment needs, and I’m a little surprised by this. I’m amazed that more folks don’t vote to leave on the grounds that their friends and family wish to go, because these people seem so community-centred otherwise. I figure they’re afraid that they won’t be able to find comparable employment elsewhere. And, in a province where people are tremendously territorial, and institutions nepotistic, they’re probably right.

  Of course, there are others who are healthy, happy, and simply love the life so much that they don’t want to part with it. In contrast, there are some with serious health issues who no longer have family around and are constantly dependent on someone else to assist, yet they consistently vote to stay, and this seems somewhat selfish to me. And then there are others who are afraid of the unknown — they are scared of what waits outside the outport.

  This predicament isn’t particularly pleasant for me either. There’s a lot to not like about being part of a population where three out of four people wish they were someplace else. I’ve never been a fan of bad attitudes, and suddenly they’re showing up in surprising places. Some people who seemed contented suddenly aren’t. Plus, indecisiveness rules. Do we or don’t we buy new windows for the church? What about boats, homes, boardwalks . . . ? This maintenance dilemma reaches far and wide, and it creeps into all conversations. With more and more of your neighbours leaving for the winter, your pipes are at greater risk than ever of freezing when flow is not adequate enough to keep them fluid. Even if you get up several times in the night to turn on your taps — a practice that greatly affects one’s sleep, thus mood — there is no guarantee that you will have water in the morning. You can take my word on that. My home is at the end of a long, vulnerable line.

  Plus, I’m lonely. I’m finding internet dating more difficult than I thought it would be. Five years in an isolated outport has been an incredible experience for me, but I’m tired of dreaming alone, and it would be nice to have someone to be intimate with once in a while. While I’ve done my best to work with this unpleasant situation, it doesn’t dismiss the fact that I’m sad without someone to share it with.

  Many on the mainland tell me that if they weren’t married with children, they would do what I did — quit secure employment and take on a life of art and adventure — but they wouldn’t. They’re just fooling themselves. I’m not implying that children don’t greatly affect choices. I’m pointing out that, with or without kids, freedom fighting is hard work. It takes a lot of psychological labour before a person can initiate large change in their life, and many people won’t do weepy work. It’s obvious, isn’t it? When these parents blame their incapacity to initiate change on their partner and their children, not only is such a lack of accountability unconscionable, it’s an indicator of these people’s failure to see that having a partner and children could be — should be — their greatest adventure ever.

  Even those who drag their feet can — if they truly want to — initiate enormous change once their gang has fled the nest. But I don’t see that happening. From my perspective, post-retirement for the majority still looks like the life that came before it, just with a lot less employment, and a little more lawn care. The transition from job to retirement — however you define stepping down — can be extremely difficult. Yet we all have to face it eventually, unless we die young. So if you look at the changes I’ve made as being the same that my peers will ultimately confront — only ten years after I did — my actions stop seeming so out of the ordinary. We all have to decide what we want the last leg of our life to look like. Or, as one of my more sensitive and insightful McCallum buddies said after long and careful consideration, “Let me get this straight, old boy — you had a good job, and you were making big bucks and living on a beautiful farm in Ontario when, suddenly, you realized you wanted to be a Newfoundland lobster fisherman.”

  “That’s right, my son,” I teasingly tell him. “Except it wasn’t so sudden. It took several years of emotional pain and suffering before my needs became even a tiny bit clear, and it was years after that before I could muster up the courag
e required to make such a jump. Even then I wasn’t completely comfortable with my choices. I found lots of ways to self-sabotage . . . but, you’re right, somewhere deep inside of me, I needed to sail the high seas.”

  What I didn’t tell my buddy was my soul-searching process is ongoing. And that just as he was figuring this out about me, my world was changing once again.

  I got an email this afternoon from a former love interest named Liz, informing me that she has recently removed herself and her kids from an extremely unhealthy household. Liz and I haven’t communicated in fourteen years, yet there is no ambiguity in her inquiry — she wishes to know what the relationship part of my life presently looks like. I tell her I am alone in an isolated Newfoundland outport. My answer prompts her to ask a second question — she wants to know if I ever imagine myself returning to Ontario. I inform her of my plans, that I not that long ago decided my five-year Newfoundland adventure was coming to a close, and that returning to my home province is my intention.

  Liz and her children have taken refuge in a women’s shelter in Fenelon Falls — the town I coincidentally left for Newfoundland — where she is trying to decide their next move. You know how it is — you’re in a major crisis, and you need room to be okay with that, but your desire to believe that everything is all right has you making an assortment of important decisions, even though you should be years away from that reality.

  Liz is in no position to be determining anything and, to be fair, anyone in her situation is entitled to be in a decision-making mess for a long time afterwards. So she’s desperately grasping for some semblance of stability, but there is none. There is only pain, and an ex-husband with a restraining order on his head. That’s why women’s shelters exist, so women can land on their feet after an enormous tragedy, and what better place to do that than around those suffering in similar circumstances, with a significant support system in place and all the modern security that today’s technology can provide? In the meantime, Liz is clearly asking for my assistance, so I’m encouraging her to sit tight, catch her breath, and put herself and her children first. I tell her that I’ll try from afar to fill in, where needed, but that she has to trust the process.

  The hardest part for me is, I’m not free to go anywhere for a while. I’m currently committed to lobster fishing, and then I’ve got a lengthy string of friends and family visiting from Ontario after that. Plus, I’ve previously booked myself into Gampo Abbey — a Buddhist monastery in Cape Breton — where I intend to sit in silence for eight days. That means I’m not free to travel to Ontario for six months. Liz and I will have to find other ways to connect while she gets the professional help she needs and I tie up loose ends in Atlantic Canada.

  So that’s what we do. We exchange phone calls and emails with each other every day. While these forms of communication create opportunities for us to really get to know each other, it is difficult at times. I’m craving intimacy, and it’s easy for me to see that I’m needed in Fenelon Falls. Guilt and shame are powerful forces, and Liz is clinging to them like barnacles to a boat. It’s no secret that the majority of women who find themselves in the same hideous spot that Liz is in can feel a tremendous pull to return to the life that put them there in the first place. There is no doubt in my mind that I have to support her.

  Twenty-three

  While 59 out of 76 residents said they wanted to leave McCallum, the 17 who opted to stay carried the day in the June 1 vote on possible relocation from the community . . . Linda Hennessey said she expects some people will leave regardless of the June 1 vote, which will make it harder for the ‘Yes’ side to ever receive the required 90 percent.

  — Clayton Hunt, the Carbonear Compass,

  June 8, 2015

  I’ve heard it said that after you’ve lived somewhere spectacular for a while, you start to take that place’s gorgeousness for granted. This is not the case for me in McCallum. Many times every day, I look out at the dramatic cliffs and our almighty ocean and feel compelled to pinch myself and ask, “Do you know where you are, and have been for five years?”

  My feelings for these outport people are also over the moon — I’m seriously attached to several of them. Same can be said for the culture. Lobster season is alive and thriving, and even though I find the work exhausting, I’ve never enjoyed a job more. What with Clyde’s busted ribs, my load is a whole lot larger. It’s nice to be needed, and the adventure that comes along with added responsibility has me in high spirits. On mornings like today when the fog’s exceptionally thick, what’s an already dodgy endeavour becomes even more dangerous. Especially after a full moon plays tricks with the tide, transforming what are normally deep, underwater rocks into big bombs sitting close to the surface.

  If I’m asked to steer our boat out of the harbour — and no one with a brain would ever seriously consider such a suggestion — there’s not a chance in the world that I could navigate the narrow channel we take out to the open ocean. I can’t see ten feet in front of me. Fortunately, my skipper is unflappable. We’ve had some heavy rains and, given all the runoff, there is a risk of debris in the water, so Junior’s got me on lookout for floaters — large logs, errant containers — something that could upset our boat should she come upon it quickly. We’re travelling slowly while Junior cries out the names of landmarks that periodically barely appear on our right. “That’s the Eye,” he’ll confidently call out, where all I can see is fractionally darker fog. A long time later he might shout, “Muddy Hole,” “The Bird,” or “Fish Head,” and I’m not only surprised that he recognizes these hidden markers, but at how little distance we’ve travelled in the meantime.

  I don’t understand how travelling west along a foggy southern shoreline has to be so difficult — you just travel a close distance from what you can see on your right, right? But that’s not accounting for sunkers and shag rocks. We’d be crazy to go anywhere near that rugged coastline. As it is, I have no idea how Junior missed running into Mosquito Island. I didn’t even remember to watch for it until I realized he had intentionally pulled us up directly under its big, bold eastern end. And what about the lengthy openings that occur when we cross the mouth of a fiord, where there is nothing to be seen on the open sea? How Junior knows when, and how much, to turn our boat slightly southwest to accommodate the land change that awaits us at Dragon Bay is beyond me. It’s as if my captain has a compass at his core. I appreciate his patience when I signal that there’s something in the water to watch out for and it turns out to be nothing worth worrying about. “I’m just glad you got your eyes on,” he is kind enough to say, while I swallow my pride and carry on.

  I try to connect with the ghosts of those who travelled these waters before us, but today I’m finding that idea difficult. I feel disoriented in a lot of different ways. I’m unsure of where we are, my stomach is unexpectedly upset, and, while searching for spirits that previously belonged to courageous, hard-working fishing families, I find myself stumbling across lying selfish thieves who used this island to amass fortunes at the expense of others. Predatory merchants, deceitful politicians, and disgusting pirates like Peter Easton, who four hundred years ago worked these shores.

  Sponsored by a scummy English family named Kelligrews, Easton moved to Newfoundland so he could be free to plunder without interference from the king. Then one winter he loaded two million pounds of gold onboard his boats and headed to the Azores Islands. It was in the Azores that Easton’s wealth grew even greater. After stealing a Spanish treasure ship, he connected with corrupt Portuguese politicians who worked with him in ways that allowed them all to make massive fortunes on the backs of the less fortunate. Eventually settling in Italy, Easton retired as one of the world’s wealthiest men.

  Today I am imagining Easton at the helm of the San Sebastien. I’m picturing that lawless freebooter and his ignorant fleet, loaded with all the weaponry that dirty money can buy, approaching a single vessel belonging to men whose only wish was to saf
ely return to Britain with enough income to feed their families. I tell Junior this, and he humours me with half a grin before he shakes his head in disbelief of my black magic.

  Whatever witchcraft I turn to today, none of it is working. In fact, it feels like my attempts to access the supernatural are simply making me sicker. I notice that if I look inwards, my constitution feels terrible, but peering out into the fog isn’t the answer either. I think that not being able to acquire a lengthy look at the land because of the foggy fortress that surrounds us is upsetting my biological and mental makeup. I need a long view of something stable if I hope to feel better, and today that’s impossible to find. The fog is denying me the opportunity to get a glimpse of anything large, fixed, and steady. I’m left with nothing but the roll of the ocean. And I haven’t a clue why this has to happen. Not that I think I’m some sort of big-shot fisherman who never feels queasy. Just that I have been out enough in bad weather that I’d begun to believe I had seasickness beat. Yet, nothing about anything is feeling good to me right now. My mind and body are rebelling. It starts like a migraine. A short time later, I sense a nauseous feeling. I don’t immediately think I’m going to throw up, but my history tells me that what I am experiencing could easily escalate.