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NEWFOUNDLAND AUGUST 2012
Aug 22 St John's
I’ll be meeting Norton and his crew on the sailboat in the small fishing village of St Anthony. Our original meet-up point was Halifax, Nova Scotia, but weather and ice and the sheer distance on the ocean have thrown off their itinerary by three weeks. Two of the crew, Barry and Jan, have already hopped off at a tiny airport in Labrador to catch their flights back home. At the last minute I change my own tickets, hopping from Oregon to Denver to Toronto to Newfoundland. So many of my journeys start the same way - running down airport corridors, or running down the wrong corridor – oops - finding my way to another terminal, gliding through customs. I actually have recurring dreams where I run through airports and never get there. But this time I did, I got there all the way to St John's, the easternmost city on the continent. I even found a backpackers' hostel for the night.
For $38/night, the hostel is a treat. I marvel at its polished wood floors, its high ceilings, open and airy, and the communal kitchen nook downstairs. It is one house among a neat row of salmon, yellow or blue-painted Victorian houses. Windows and stoops are decorated with red geraniums.
In the balmy air, the coffee smells good from the corner café. Students linger on the steps sending a smile my way. I am ready to stereotype Canadians as sensible and friendly. There is something missing - is it the anxious edge that seems to accompany most Americans? Sadly, there was no lack of war and suffering in the history of this place. St John’s was twice burnt to the ground and its inhabitants massacred by the French during those wars of the late 1600’s that plagued Europe and then sent their ripples across the ocean. The next morning I take a taxi back to the airport for the final leg to St Anthony. The taxi driver calls me “luv” and tells me about the fish disappearing from the ocean. The government has set quotas on the small boats to keep more of the breeding fish alive, but the dragnet factory ships operating just outside the 200 mile limit scoop fish out of the ocean with impunity. The oil rigs don’t want those small boats around either, so it’s hard to make a living as a small fisherman. The offshore oil industry has taken off, attracting immigrants to St John's and bolstering the local economy. Fishermen are now construction workers and taxi drivers. They have jobs.
As the small plane follows the Atlantic coast to the northern tip of Newfoundland, I look down on deep inlets and lakes - as much water as land. The last time I talked to Norton on the satellite phone, he and his remaining crew member, Marina, were still off the coast of Labrador, running out of fuel, facing headwinds and looking for a town with a fuel dock. He thought they might get to St Anthony later than I did, so we made the library our place to rendezvous. My cell phone won’t work out of country. If I don’t see them when I arrive, I’ll just have to wait somewhere until they show up.
Aug 23 St Anthony
The airport shuttle into St Anthony drops one passenger off at the only hotel in town. There are no restaurants and we have long passed the library. My heart sinks as I imagine lugging my suitcase a couple of miles back to the library in the rain if the boat isn’t there. What if I have to spend the night? After spending hundreds of dollars to change my ticket, I don’t want to waste more on a hotel. I've heard that people in these small towns are very friendly and often help you out. I turn to the mother and daughter still on the bus, but they speak an English I hardly understand. When they get off, I see them waiting in the drizzle outside the locked door of their mobile home.
The taxi driver is vague about the location of the public dock. Driving out onto the levee I don’t see any sailboat. I notice a fishing boat and a mast sunk below my line of sight on the low tide. Something familiar about that rolled up jib... I jump out, look over the edge of the dock and yes! It’s the sailboat! “They made it!” I yell. “Hallooo!” Two heads pop out from below-decks. A woman with clear blue eyes extends her hand for a strong handshake, “Welcome, Carol!” she says, with Norwegian accent and a big smile. Norton looks lean and handsome. Big hug. Sailing all night to get here at 5 am they look amazingly refreshed, ruddy cheeks, energetic. They look like they’ve been having a good time.
Norton is my boyfriend and he's been gone for two months, sailing through arctic oceans to Greenland, Baffin Island and Labrador, with Marina, Barry and Jan.I didn't go because it sounded too cold, but I did want to join them on the way back and hear all the stories. “Did you hike the glaciers?” I ask. Norton said Barry liked to talk to his girlfriend in California every time they touched land, and Jan explored the local cuisine. She was the only one who tasted whale meat. Norton was the hiker and Marina was his equal, always ready to go, not only hiking but inspiring Norton to all the possibilities of adventure. They made so many plans, they weren’t sure how to tell me. Next summer they plan to bicycle the U.S. Continental Divide for two months, then build rowboats to go up the Amazon and then row through the rivers of Europe! For most of his life Norton has thought he had to defend his two-month Arctic canoe trips from people who might think he’s weird and irresponsible for doing such things. And here’s a woman who leaves him in the dust. “Carol, are you shocked?” she asks. A bit. I wonder if I'll ever see him again.
After a while, Marina goes off to use the internet at the library, and Norton and I finally have quiet time, snuggle time. We thrive on touch. It’s good to get reacquainted.
A heavy rain starts falling as we make long treks on foot to the hardware store (there’s always things to fix on a boat), the grocery store to stock up for the next few days of sailing, and then, for a treat, miles to a restaurant, that ended up closed. Below-decks that evening we rest our feet and plan our itinerary for the next couple of weeks. Marina has to book her ticket back home to Norway. Her dog and friends are calling, and her jewelry business is calling. As we sit in the evening, she crochets silver wire into a tube necklace. Silver and gold polar bears are the big sellers. She is an artisan, and this is how she affords traveling six months out of every year. We estimate it’ll take us two weeks to get Marina to the airport in Halifax, if we sail fast.
Aug 25 Viking Ruins
I wake to the sound of the boat engine. It's 6 am and a sunny day. We head north for the Viking ruins at L’Anse aux Meadows. The Greenland crew has already toured this site, but now I get to see it. Both my parents are Swedish and my mom was sure the Vikings were in the New World long before Columbus. Turns out she was right. In the 1960’s archeologists excavated the mounds here and found extensive artifacts of Norse settlement from the year 1000.The replica Viking ship at the replica village is surprising large. It was a cargo ship. They brought their crew, carpenters, blacksmith, wives and servants (or Irish slaves) here to settle and then carried valuable hardwood logs back to Greenland. They spent 25 years sailing back and forth between Greenland and Newfoundland. The original Vikings took about two weeks to make the trip. The replica of the Viking ship sailing the same route in the year 2000 took seven weeks!Why did they settle here and not further south? The docents, dressed as Vikings of course, tell us that these barren hills used to be heavily forested, good for making houses quickly before winter set in. From nearby peat bogs they could cut blocks for the 4 ft thick walls. Seafood was abundant in the sheltered harbor, the nearby stream gave them fresh water, and in the peat bog was iron slag they used to make nails for the ships. So why did the Vikings abandon the settlement after 25 years? No one really knows. Some speculate that they may have annoyed the people who already occupied this land. Vikings weren't known for their good manners.
This Viking information is all very interesting but quietly I’m having an emotional meltdown. Norton and Marina are on a separate walk since they already toured the site two months ago. I set off bravely on my own, then get lost, not knowing which way to go at the highway. I flag down a car and hitch a ride to the site which turns out to be miles away. By the time I’ve done the tour and find my way back to Norton and Marina at the shore, all the tensions and uncertainty of the last few days finally hit me. I ask Norton to go on a walk so I can talk. I blurt out how I feel. He hears me and holds me. When I relax, I open my eyes to see the beautiful tiny flowers at my feet. I look up over the rolling hummocks of green tundra and the sky glows with the pink of sunset. I’m good to go again.
Aug 26 Headwinds in the Straits of Belle Isle
This morning we start out at 7:30. I’m the last on deck. It takes me a while to get my 3 layers of long johns on under rain pants, 2 pr of socks in boots, then a sweater and jacket under my foul weather gear. Later I add a towel around my neck to keep the rain hitting my face from dribbling down my shirt. We don't have a dodger (a cover) over the steering area like some boats, so headwinds bring the weather right at you. I call it "spray in the face."
Rounding the northern tip of Newfoundland into the Straits of Belle Isle, we’re ready to make a good long run down the western coast of Newfoundland. Immediately we hit headwinds, not cold but blowing 25 knots against us. The current is running 1 knot against us and so are the waves. It’s bouncy! We tack into the wind. No sailboat can sail directly into the wind, usually it veers 45 degrees off the wind one side or the other. We cut long zigzags away from shore and back, but because of the current pushing against us we make almost no progress south. For all our efforts, it feels like we’re going backward. Mid-day we give up and head for Boat Bay to wait for the tide direction to change, and hopefully the wind will abate as well. At 5 pm everyone is napping. The plan is to start again after midnight to take advantage of the changing tide.
Aug 27 St Barbe
We're up at midnight but the current is still against us. Found out later it always flows NE up through the Strait. Navigators! how did we miss this?! We motor-sail all night near shore. When 25 knot headwinds come up again mid-day, we head for harbor, this time to St Barbe.
Another sailboat follows us in. Sailors are always curious about other sailors. Soon four young men from Cape Cod come alongside in their dinghy. We're eager for their story. They're friends who grew up sailing together. A year ago, all four quit their jobs and sailed down to the Caribbean, over the Atlantic to England, to Iceland (they really liked Iceland), to Greenland, and now they’re going home to make some more money - so they can do another trip! We watch how well the four of them handle the boat when they take off across the strait to Quebec. I am envious of their youth and all the years ahead.
We older folks stay put out of the winds in the quiet town of St Barbe. Walking around, we notice how many new houses there are, with signs out front announcing their owner’s names, and the same last names over and over - Appleby, Dredges. What’s going on? The teenager at the grocery store tells us it’s the annual “Rompin and Stompin Festival.” The young men, who used to fish, now work in the Alberta oilfields 3000 miles away. The men work one month out and one month home, bringing back the money for those new homes. This is ”Coming Home Day,” the community celebration, and yes, most people are related.
Maria strikes up a conversation with an old man who takes a shine to her, jumps in his jeep and comes back with presents - eight jars of canned moose meat for our journey. He was a little strange so we still haven’t eaten it.
Next day, with high winds in the bay, we’re still hunkered down. Showers at the local RV park cost $7 each but after a second of hesitation, we go for it, taking as much time in that hot water as we can. Laundry, internet, lunch and partridge berry pie at the locals' café - all the things you do when it’s pouring rain. Then a nap so we can start again at midnight when wind and rain might drop.
Aug 29-30 Passage to Woody Point
We're up at 1am to begin a 30 hr passage. This is when I learn the art of putting on all those layers in the dark. When it's your turn to go on watch in the wee hours of the night, someone calls your name softly, then a bit louder if you don't respond. The third person is sleeping so you don't turn on any lights but fumble around for the pants and sweater, jacket, hat, scarf, gloves, rain pants, boots - where are those boots? And (for the women) better go pee first. The art is to know exactly where you put everything when you came in from the last watch and dove for the bunk. Peeling off rain pants and leaving them flopped in your boots is a good trick for finding them all together again. Marina was pleased that I had learned this so quickly.
During the very bouncy second night I feel seasick. Going below to sleep, I am hot and sweaty, blaming all the layers I have on, but Marina says it’s the other way round, that getting hot and sweaty, and yawning, are the first signs of seasickness, not the cause. I lie in the bunk clutching a plastic bag while Norton and Marina graciously cover my watches. I drift off to the slapping sounds of waves and sails. Suddenly I awake to a perfect stillness. We’ve come to dock at Woody Point, several miles down the long bay in Gros Morne National Park.
Aug 31 Woody Point and Clyde
I feel so good I make a big breakfast for everyone. Marina peers up the hill at a certain yellow house. Clyde is there waving at his window. Bounding down the hill in shorts, he comes below for tea. Grey-bearded Clyde is the sailor’s friend. From his living room window, he can see any boat that ties up.
Being a hospitable and conversational sort, he invites sailors up for hot showers and soup. He has lived by the sea long enough to know that hot showers and home-cooked food are golden. Norton and crew met him the first time they went through this area headed to Greenland. Clyde says he has been sensing our return for the last couple of days and is genuinely happy to see us.
In his house, I sink into the warmth of the wood stove and the sounds of music. I examine the artwork and old photographs, one of which shows this house being floated up the bay on its own timbers from another location.
We learn that this old fishing town of Woody Point has just had a week-long writers conference, which Clyde attended. He shows me his own small book of poetry. The poetry is good. Some of it describes his mother and father in the time they lived with their seven children on an island off the Newfoundland coast, catching cod and salting it for sale. For hundreds of years salt cod traded all over the world. It was the cheapest form of protein at the time. In 1942 this way of life stopped when freezers on ships replaced salt. The government gave these coastal families a choice - eke out a living with subsistence fishing or move to the factory towns that process the frozen fish. Clyde’s family moved and the children scattered. By the twists of fate, Clyde became an English professor at St John’s.Clyde offers to drive us anywhere we want to go. Norton and I are dropped off at the Tablelands, where, in the days of the giant continent of Gondawanaland, the African land mass butted up against the American, moving back and forth like an accordion, squishing up sea bottom to make the whole Appalachian chain of mountains. We hike over jumbled orange rock and serpentine soil. Almost nothing grows but red-speckled pitcher plants, which find their nourishment from insects instead of the barren soil.
Norton and I stretch our legs walking back to the house, where we find Marina and Clyde, wine glasses in hand, deep into diced onion, mushrooms, fish, shrimp and salmon for chowder. As the pot fills up with milk and cream, the fish and vegetables go in (to simmer but never boil). I ask where the potatoes are. Oops...forgot! Someone must have had a moment of too much red wine!
Soon, we sup on sweet rich chowder as the blue moon rises over the bay, the music of Beethoven charges the evening with excitement, and Norton shows his ice photos from Greenland.
There is a beautiful knoll in a Greenland fjord which Norton climbed to put to rest my dad’s ashes and some rose petals from my mom’s funeral. My parents had Viking ancestry, but in life they never would have sailed to Greenland. But now that they are in the spirit world, I thought they might enjoy the adventure.
In Norton’s photo the rose petals grace the dry grass next to delicate bluebells and the cairn he built. Serene water and blue mountains expand in every direction. Thank you, thank you, I tell Norton. It was an honor, he says.
Sept 1 Lucky Moose Stew
In the night, thunder and lightning initiate a long hard downpour from the north. This morning is calm but the radio forecasts a nor’easter gale for mid-day at 35 knots with 9-12 foot waves, expected to decrease this evening. Norton wants to take off late afternoon just as the wind drops
Another free day! Clyde drives us to Trout Village, unusual in that it is quite isolated and still an active, tight-knit fishing community, and home to the best fish cakes you'll ever have. Back in Woody Point we stop by the Legion Hall, which is full of locals at the bar inside. Clyde introduces us around. A younger crowd is putting up wedding decorations. I watch them cover over the dart board with crepe paper and also some ancient pictures of Winston Churchill and the Queen. I try to guess who the bride and groom are. I guess wrong but the real bride-to-be, who is actually beaming, invites me to come by for the reception. Plenty of food, she says.
By mid-afternoon we’re hanging out at Clyde’s house eating leftover chowder and pie. Looking out the big window over the bay, we watch the waves and white caps come up. Not even the ferry attempts to buck the wind, and we know this is mild compared to what is going on outside the bay. We'll wait, we won't go yet.
Someone at the bar has given Clyde a fresh haunch of moose. He cuts it up for stew and simmers it slowly in a whole bottle of red wine (except for what we drink.) Cooking aromas bathe us as we share our stories. Clyde's young girlfriend (she’s 40, he’s a young 75), entertains us with stories of shipping cows (she's a vet) by boat to Russia. Marina shows photos on her computer of her three years living with the Sami, the Reindeer People of northern Scandanavia. Clyde shares his favorite poems. Friendship cooks into the stew.
I can tell Norton is restless to get going, but finally he relaxes into the flow of the afternoon. Imagining the height of the waves outside the bay, I’m glad the stew is taking a long time to cook. In my mind I start calling it our “Lucky Moose Stew.” By the time we gather up the plates, it is 8 pm. The whitecaps are down. Clyde and his girlfriend walk us to the dock to say goodbye. Without fanfare, we put on our gear and head out. Looking back at the small figures of our friends walking off the dock, I am struck by how quickly we change our realities. We don't know what remnants of the storm we will meet out in the Gulf of St Lawrence. Bracing for big swells, we find instead a mild wind and the full moon rising in a cloudless sky. Such a beautiful night.
Sept 2 Tragedy
Early next morning as I come up to my watch, Marina points to the helicopter circling over a section of ocean behind us. Later, calling Clyde, we learn that another sailboat docked at Woody Point had left the bay eight hours before we did. In the rough waves, the captain had come up to take his watch. Before he could clip his harness onto the boat, a rogue wave hit, washing him and the other man overboard. The other man was clipped in and was rescued. With the rudder broken, the boat could not steer back to find the captain. The helicopter found his body the next day.
We sit quietly as we feel the impact of this news. The last thing you'd ever want to do is go on deck and find no one there, your friend gone, missing, just not there, and realize he must be overboard, out somewhere on that vast ocean. At night you'd never be able to see him unless he had his beacon light on, and then could you get back to him? It's why we always clip on during the night watch - but we've been casual about it. Usually we chat a bit before we get around to it.Now reality hits hard and the thought of losing one of us is unbearable. From now on we clip on to the boat before we step out of the companionway.
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