For a brief time recently, I was in Paradise. But I had no time to linger. I next found myself in Conception Bay headed for Heart’s Desire, Heart’s Delight and Heart’s Content. Time and distance being what they are, I didn’t make any of the three but settled instead for Witless Bay by way of Dildo, South Dildo and Petty Harbour.
I was, of course, in Newfoundland.
Being the vice-president of the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association, it was my bounden duty to attend the presidents and vice-presidents meeting in St. John’s. The meeting is always held in the hometown of the national president, and it was our good fortune that the president this year resides in our most easterly province.
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Traveling from Saskatchewan to Newfoundland, one realizes how huge our country is.
We left Saskatoon around seven in the morning and arrived in St. John’s about eight that evening, local time.
Newfoundlanders are extremely hospitable, and our host was no exception, ensuring that each and every one of us was properly screeched in, a ceremony designed to make Mainlanders into honorary residents of Newfoundland.
All in all, I had a deightful five days on the Rock, sailing, sightseeing, finding souvenirs, driving to out-of-the way places, and having our pictures taken at Cape Spear at the most easterly point of North America.
Another group was enjoying St. John’s at the same time: Europeans who had each paid $7,500 to fly on the Concorde from Paris to St. John’s. The trip was a spinoff from the recent Titanic movie. The Europeans came to see icebergs like the ones that sank the great cruiseliner. They toured the harbor and the city and the countryside around St. John’s.
They were only in the province for about four days, but so great was the expected windfall from their tourist dollars that they were met on arrival by the province’s finance minister.
The Concorde was sitting on the tarmac as I boarded my own plane to fly home. I couldn’t help thinking, with more than a little sadness, that the group which would fly home to Europe that afternoon would leave knowing more, and having experienced more, of our most easterly province than the vast majority of Canadians. Many of us have become extremely insular. It is past time that we put some effort into seeing our own country and experiencing its richness and its diversity.
