Newfoundland State of Mind

What an amazing place. Blog readers, if you get the chance to visit this place, take it. Once more, my entries are coming after the fact - I didn't take my laptop on my Newfoundland trip, but didn't miss it, I was just so excited to be present in the moment on that trip. I'll break it down into a couple of entires and pop in a few snaps; I'm planning to create and link to a photo album but that may come after.

Newfoundland evokes aspects of many other places - english moors, irish cliffs, mainland pine forests and lakes (cue Bill the sometime-incoherent hostel manager - ''Tis a pawnd, b'y! tat's what we callit!") - and combines them in a unique package. I met a couple of locals one afternoon and ended up chatting to them for a couple of hours (as seems more likely here) and one fellow commented that the locals have been the subject of genealogical studies, much like icelanders, due to the sheer homogeneity of the population for a substantial stretch of time. Much of the original population came from southwest England initially as seasonal fishermen (the small town of Trinity, for instance, was considered a virtual colony of Poole, Dorset, for a period of time after 1700), or from south-east Ireland: Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny. I think a number of Irish villages up and relocated themselves in similar fashion in Newfoundland way back, thus transplanting the dialect in similar fashion.

Newfoundlanders love, among other thing, Newfoundland, irish music, and alcohol (they love these latter three very much). It is the poorest province in Canada, yet people are very generous, laid-back, friendly and spirited. (One of my hostel buddies was put neatly in his place trying to joust verbally with female staff at the supermarket. The outcome: Francine the lobstster seller: 1, Crushed husk of hostel buddy: minus 5). The province only became part of Canada in 1949, and the fluttering pink, white and green republican flag seemed far more common in yards than the offical provincial flag, just as I'm sure the locals are (emotionally at least) islanders first, and Canadians second.