The Four Sisters

Just before Duckworth Street turns into Signal Hill Road, four red-trimmed stone houses follow Temperance Street down towards the Harbour. The lonely dwellings have long been surrounded by rumours of strange passageways and haunted tunnels.Commonly referred to as the Four Sisters, the houses were built in the late 1800’s by Samuel Garrett, the stonemason and designer responsible for constructing nearby Cabot Tower. Built from the Tower’s surplus sandstone and slate, they were intended as wedding gifts for Garrett’s four daughters. But only two of the sisters married, leaving the other two houses to be rented until grandchildren could take up residence. In 1982, the last residing relative passed away, and the last of the Four Sisters left the Garrett family.As it turns out, the rumours aren’t so far off the mark. The houses were built with connecting interior doorways, so that the daughters could visit each other whatever the weather. (Sadly, these were later walled over.)

According to a 2005 article in The Independent, the houses indeed sit on top of a tunnel—thought to have carried fresh water all the way from Quidi Vidi Lake. And while not exactly haunted, reports of mysterious sewer gases emanating from the tunnel have played a part in keeping three of four houses vacant for over 20 years.

R.F. Brentnall

Between The Rock and a Hard Place

I's the b'y that built the boat, and I's the b'y that sailed her,
Thanks to the fed the outport's dead,
Is I the b'y that failed her?

The Destruction of Newfoundland's Outport Communities
On July 1, 1916, at Beaumont-Hamel, on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, no unit suffered greater losses than that of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Afterwards, the Divisional Commander said an odd thing: "It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault failed of success because dead men can advance no further." Of the eight hundred and one men to face that hell on earth, just 68 answered roll-call next morning. If anything, the remainder of the century would treat Newfoundlanders with less courtesy.
Proudly calling itself "Britain's Oldest Colony," Newfoundland's semi-autonomous status was ordained by King Henry VII's letters patent to John Cabot. The Cod-fishing grounds of the Grand Banks were a known and jealously-guarded secret among a few close-mouthed Basque, Irish, and Viking fishermen -- but the immediate effect of Cabot's 1497 voyage was to spread the word: In the New World there were fish to be had in such unimaginable profusion a man might almost walk upon them! In his 1620 "Brief Discourse of the Newfoundland," Englishman John Mason remarked, "Cods so thicke by the shoare that we heardlie haue beene able to row a Boate through them." It is impossible to overemphasize the historical significance of the Codfish. Called the "Faithful Friend" by the Portuguese, this boneless, skinless staple would not only sustain Catholic Europe over centuries of Lenten seasons and meatless Fridays, it alone kept far-flung colonies (including slave colonies) nourished and productive. Something never before seen in such abundance would reliably feed the world over the next 500 years.
For three hundred of those years, English, French, Basque, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen arrived on the Newfoundland shore for a share of seasonal plenty before heading back to winter in European ports. Since most of these sojourners were themselves, employees or indentured servants, Newfoundland's permanent population growth remained sluggish until the Napoleonic Wars at the close of the eighteenth century. The sudden inrush of southeastern English and southwestern Irish settlers introduced to Newfoundland cultural traditions that would endure as if preserved in a bell jar. Between 1804 and 1884, the island population increased ten-fold, to 200,000 souls, with immigration slowing to a mere trickle after 1840. A hundred years after that, with the highest birth rate in the country, the native-born comprised over 98 per cent of Newfoundland's 1940 population. Fishing had by then evolved into a family affair and a way of life wholly dependent on the annual shoreward migration of the Northern Cod. As James Yonge, Plymouth Surgeon, remarked in 1670: "The middle or end of June came the capling, a small sweet fish and the best bait, and when they come we have the best fishing, the cods pursuing them so eager that both have run ashore." By 1934, 1,292 small fishing settlements straggled along Newfoundland's rocky coast. Only 100 of these had populations over 500. So scattered and strung-out were the small outport settlements that the only outfitters prepared to set up shop in such commercially rugged climes were those who relied upon the autocratic "truck" system of credit. When, at some crucial juncture, a demand for payment was made, the usual solution was to "pay" with precious finished fish -- allowing unscrupulous merchants to "buy low and sell high" at every turn. Each year the merchants raced to dump fish in the market as early as possible, each hoping to get the kind of prices that prevailed before the dumping began. Such ruinous competition inevitably led to gluts of poorly cured fish. These gluts drove down prices, but the merchants continued to profit; controlling as they did the prices of supplies they bartered for the fish. It was a system that kept the market depressed and fishing families and real money-in-hand relative strangers for centuries. According to a 1760 English description, the Newfoundland merchants were "infamously intent on Trade, proud of their quick raised fortune, unsociable amongst themselves and envious of any success that strangers who settle among them meet with. Remember, we are not in Newfoundland to buy fish but to sell goods." - Newman and Company, 1850

Under such conditions, the Depression of the 1930s would hit Newfoundland folk especially hard, and for the first time, one-in-six were "away" looking for work. Among those back home, there was a growing sense that the whole world was beginning to pass them by -- with some justification. Given the eccentric outport settlement patterns, electric, telephone, water and sewage services were virtually unattainable. A 1934 health survey found that there was just one hospital bed for every 644 Newfoundlanders -- a poor showing against the then-American rate of one bed per 130 persons. With the establishment of WWII bases and the arrival of tens of thousands of American and Canadian servicemen, the long years of privation came to an end, but as always, the price was unjustifiably high: Newfoundland contributed more than its fair share of War Brides. By 1949, there were 1,187 (mostly mission) schoolhouses in Newfoundland -- of which, 778 were single-room affairs. While much of this poverty could be laid at the feet of an archaic and inefficient economy, there's little doubt that Newfoundland was ready for big changes. What it got was Joey Smallwood. Socialist, journalist, union organizer, publisher, and pig farmer, Smallwood was the best-known personality in Newfoundland, broadcasting nightly on radio as "The Barrelman". He would single-handedly dominate provincial politics over the critical years 1949 to 1972. In 1950, a visiting British wag observed how he towered above his colleagues: "Mr. Smallwood obviously enjoys his position as the head of a one-man government." Desperate to bring Newfoundland into the Canadian fold, he played shamelessly on the yearnings and ambitions of the outport fishermen. Smallwood's confederation movement was generously, if anonymously, underwritten by the federal Liberal Party and, having once achieved the barest victory in the confederation referendum, his hastily-organised provincial Liberal Party urged voters to "let Joe finish the job!" There were, in fact, two votes: in the first referendum, a return to responsible government won, but as there had been three options (independence, Canada, or Britain) a run-off referendum was arranged to decide between independence and confederation with Canada. Hasty infusions of money meant that before the campaign was out, Smallwood and his confederate forces had spent almost five times as much as the combined opposition. Smallwood found his strongest support among the fishing folk of the outport communities, and -- by a stroke of incredible good fortune or something else -- electoral boundaries, redrawn after 1949, gave a preponderance of seats to those very communities! In the time-honoured way of Canadian politicians, this "man of the people" would repay voter loyalty with betrayal and the utter destruction of their way of life.Note fish drying in foreground
Don't vote confederation,
Now that's my prayer to you,
We own the house we live in,
Likewise our schooner too;
But if you vote Joe Smallwood,
And his line of French patois
You'll always be paying taxes
To the man up in Ottawa.
- a fisher boy's plea to his mother
"The Hero of '48"

 

While he did, indeed, deliver a massive programme of public works, infrastructure upgrading, unemployment insurance for fishermen and a host of other social welfare state goodies, in true Newfoundland fashion, these came at incalculable cost. There were other, scandalous endeavours, like the Stephenville linerboard mill, the Come By Chance oil refinery, and the Rothschild-backed Brinco scheme that, even in Canada, might well have toppled a less messianic politician. Worse, for the first time, the fishery was being professionally "managed," by far-distant Ottawa bean-counters, more attuned to flow-charts than the joyous, primordial ebb and flow of the Cod themselves. The length of the Cod fishing season was determined, not by anything so prosaic as the life-cycle of the Cod, but by requisite employable earnings weeks to qualify for pogey. In due course, politically correct mainland sentiments would condemn both the logging and sealing industries, and, shamed out of their more traditional sources of income supplementation, hard-pressed fishermen only grew ever more dependent on a ruinous cycle of sole reliance on the already hard-pressed Cod. Unsurprisingly, the Hibernia Oil Fields were likewise deemed a federal, not provincial, resource. The island's loss of autonomy would by no means deliver those elusive economic securities: on the contrary, as poverty and unemployment mounted, out-migration became a permanent feature of post-confederation Newfoundland.
Meanwhile, the fact that Atlantic Cod stocks were in trouble was, by unanimous consent, simply ignored. In the 1870s, the fishery accounted for over 95 per cent of Newfoundland's annual exports; by 1920, seventy-one per cent; by 1930, thirty-seven per cent. Nor had Newfoundland developed any alternate economic base over those years -- the fish stocks were simply being systematically depleted by increasingly sophisticated foreign fishing fleets and increasingly desperate domestic fishermen. It was a problem with a long pedigree. Over the furious protestations of Sir John A. Macdonald, Britain and the US concluded the convivial Treaty of Washington in 1871. Under this instrument, Americans were free to fish Canadian waters for twelves years, and Britain walked away with a cool $5,500,000 weighing down its pockets. Since Newfoundland was technically a British -- not Canadian -- possession there was little Macdonald could do, other than mourn: "Here go the fisheries ... we gave them away." Britain would assuage Macdonald by extending a loan to help get his CPR up and running. That didn't help the Cod. As usual, the costs to Newfoundland were incalculable. There was an enforced moratorium on the fishery during WWII, and the tremendous recovery of stocks indicated that the resource badly needed a break it was just not going to get. In 1949, Joey Smallwood declared: "The fisheries are NOT finished. Anyone who says they are, is wrong." Thus, the typical Northern Cod catch, 150,000 tonnes in the 1940s, peaked out in 1968 at 810,000 tonnes. From this killing spike it was all downhill until July 1992, when the Cod Fishery closed.
But Cod don't vote. On April 17, a scant 10 days before the 1997 federal election call, Liberal Fisheries Minister Fred Mifflin announced that 6,000 tonnes of Cod might now be taken from the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the west coast of Newfoundland, and 10,000 tonnes from the southern Newfoundland coast! And Atlantic voters fell in line. Such games -- with Cod and fishermen serving as pawns -- have prompted scientists to call for "a complete separation of science and government" (an odd spin on science as secular religion). One scientist said: "Irrespective of whether or not cod should be fished, this process stinks." The September, 1999 Marshall decision by the Supreme Court has only exacerbated fishy politics, putting large numbers of native fishermen on the water, in season and out. In PEI, the Department of Fisheries is actually buying back non-native licences to present to native band councils. The current Fisheries Minister, Herb Dhaliwal, a Sikh, brings to the embattled fisheries department a wealth of experience -- in the taxi industry. But worse, after fifty years of stupendously poor management, the Canadian fishery is not even about fish anymore -- it's about native land claims. It might have all been so different had Canada chased off foreign interlopers in timely fashion and resisted the urge to underwrite our own giant masticating factory trawlers, but managing the world's biggest Cod fishery was a complex and subtle affair. As always in Canada, it is meddling and social engineering that puts a spring in the bureaucratic step. In the end it would not be the foreign fishing fleets that were "dealt with," but local fishermen.
Joey Smallwood swore he would "drag Newfoundlanders kicking and screaming into the twentieth century." And, in a bitterly ironic way, that's just what he did. The last Father of Confederation's solution? In a word -- resettlement.
In 1949, a bare half of all Newfoundlanders enjoyed electrical services. As far back as 1933, the Amulree Commission noted that Newfoundland, "has always been, first, and foremost, a fishing country; the settlements are, therefore, situated in places from which fishing could most easily be conducted. The original settlers, in making their homes, paid little attention to what they considered relatively unimportant factors; such as, ... the lack of amenities." Well, if it was inconvenient to bring utilities to the outport residents, why not bring outport residents to the utilities? Better yet, why not put modernized filleting, freezing and cold-storage fish-processing industries at the hub and heart of these progressive centralized "growth centres"? After all, despite the many warning signs, the fish would always be there, wouldn't they? Under federal and provincial auspices, three major resettlement programmes took place between 1953 and 1975.

Sorting scallops, 1965 The first most outport people heard about the scheme was when Smallwood made a public announcement that hundreds of small communities and thousands of people could expect to be affected by "centralization". Stalinist implications aside, it's almost impossible to imagine the havoc such an announcement would wreak on small, insular communities: all the old enmities would be revived as rumours flew that this one or that had made application for relocation. New enmities would percolate as the most ambitious prevailed upon his neighbours to sign up. Adult children and their parents might well find themselves on different sides of the dispute, thanks to differing compensation schemes. Additional pressures were brought to bear once it was known that a certain proportion of the community had to agree to move or all would "lose out". After all, the province had said it could not guarantee medical, educational, or utility services to hold-outs. Hadn't Smallwood said he was discontinuing coastal ferry, postal, and freight services? There were rumours too, that government agents would be sent out to see to it that there was nothing left to return to. No one knew whether or not his particular community was on the block, but underlying it all was the heartbreaking prospect of leaving your centuries-old home place -- the font of your earliest memories, -- and abandoning the graves of your forefathers to the whistling winds.
It is a mark of just how impoverished the outport communities were to think that between 1953 and 1965 alone, 110 outport settlements vanished utterly, the residents given the pitiful sum of just $150 from welfare services to pull up stakes. Clearances in all but name, sudden demand drove up housing prices in the new "growth centres" and one study estimated it would take the displaced a minimum of 20 years to replace all that had been left behind. The sight of a house being towed across the bay was commonplace throughout the resettlement years. No one seemed unduly concerned that poorly educated fishermen might not be able to compete in urban areas where unemployment rates already averaged 20 per cent -- or that fishing grounds around settled areas were reserved for long-time residents, not penurious newcomers. Even the much-loathed merchants lost out: not only did their customers vanish overnight, there was no compensation plan for shops, stores, wharves or sheds. Under a final scheme, the householder's pay-off reached a magnanimous $1,000 (plus $200 per household member), but under this disposition, government officials would dictate where the newly-homeless would be permitted to settle. In other words, the household would only receive assistance if and when they agreed to move to a region approved by a committee of federal and provincial bureaucrats. Between 1965 and 1972, 3,876 households and 19,197 persons were "evacuated". More and more, federal health dollars were dedicated to addressing "lifestyle problems" associated with the relocations.

Towing a house, Bonavista Bay, 1961 "They cheat us and rob us and continue to say, that our only salvation is leaving the Bay." - Joe Byrne
Predictably, no good came of the massive uprooting of the outport people. The centralized fish processing industry would die with the Cod. Subsequent polling found that in some cases, no single member of a dispersed community was willing to admit that he or she had ever wanted to move. Those who went willingly felt they had been seduced with false promises, while the remainder continued to feel they had been pressured and driven out. Some Canadians now regard Newfoundland as a fiscal sinkhole of doomed regional development schemes -- but honestly -- is that attributable to some previously unseen innate Newfie sloth and profligacy, or the congenital genius of the federal-provincial decision-making mob? For too many, resettlement was just a first step on the way to leaving Newfoundland for good. Faithful to some few traditions at least, the latest (2000) election had the Liberal Party talking about a limited Cod fishery in the near future, despite the fact that Cod stocks are showing absolutely no sign of recovery. And Atlantic voters fell in line. Through it all, Newfoundlanders endure with characteristic good grace, good humour, and, as always, ever more out-migrations. From the highest in the land, Newfoundland's birthrate today is even lower than that of its old rival, Quebec (the other lowest birth rate in the country).

Newfoundland Child with Cod For some peculiar reason known best to themselves, federal politicians prefer to reserve their gushing sympathy and generous funding for the ubiquitous Third World refugee. As we're told, "shattered lives" and "displaced people" are defined as -- and ONLY as -- UN Convention refugees. Too many well-meaning Canadians would seem to agree, viewing the Third World refugee as an inherently noble, suffering protagonist. In contrast, the ill-used Newfie, after generations of battling the vicissitudes of the Atlantic, is relegated to the butt of jokes as the eternal simpleton and clod. Outside Newfoundland, the deportation of the Acadians and the internment of the Japanese excites much disapproval, but in terms of forced population movements, these pale beside the destruction of the outport communities. The same thing was done to traditional Eskimo settlements, and with the same result: traditional life-styles do not survive population centralization.

O hear us when we cry to

Thee For those in peril on the sea Just why the Liberal Party wants all Canadians to feel ashamed about the treatment of all minority groups -- past and present -- is mysterious enough. Why we must at the same time, remain indifferent to the shabby treatment of one of our oldest distinct resident groups is a certifiable imponderable. For some perverse reason, we just don't care that these programmes eliminated 300 traditional Newfoundland communities, (about a quarter of the whole). So what if resettlement finally affected 30,00 to 40,000 Canadians? So what if more than 40,000 Atlantic Canadians lost their livelihood when the Cod moratorium was imposed? Perhaps Atlantic and B.C. fishermen are too busy trying to find work elsewhere to ask Ottawa for their very own "family reunification" plan. What matter if Newfoundlanders were displaced and remain uniquely disadvantaged by the bargain they made with "The Canadian Wolf"? And if Ottawa mismanaged the Cod out of existence in fewer than 50 years, who really cares? Certainly not the UN: did they censure Canada, as when illegal Chinese boatpeople were "forced" to wear prison garb of supposedly ill-omened colour? It's easier to import votes than to restock desertified oceans. The shameful lesson of the demolition of the outports is not much taught outside of Newfoundland -- for once the resettlement programme had come under a cloud, it was allowed to die in peaceable disgrace and no official statistics have ever been published.

Watch in particular the attractive bait which

will be held out to lure our country into the Canadian mousetrap

Her face turns to Britain, her back to the Gulf.
Come near at peril Canadian wolf.
- Anti Confederate Toast

Shouldn't we all have felt some protective sense of kinship toward places like: Bareneed, Famish Gut, Here and Now, Empty Basket, Calves Nose, Cow Head, Topsail Head, Cape Onion, Horse Chops, Little Cat Arm, St. Jones Within, Nancy Oh, Come-by-Chance, Run-by-guess, Heart's Desire, Heart's Content, Heart's Delight, and Little Heart's Ease?
If you read the sundering of Newfoundland as a metaphor (or blueprint) for the ecological and cultural destruction of Canada as a whole, it only proves that -- when we really apply ourselves -- we can overcome almost any natural advantage.
Deemed to be one of the three best movies of all time, How Green was My Valley laments the passing of another traditional way of life -- that of a Welsh mining family. It was not the sea that provided for their wants -- but that passing was at least noted. Like the peal of church bells from the bottom of a lake -- listen: "I can close my eyes on my Valley as it is today -- and it is gone -- and I see it as it was when I was a boy. Green it was, and possessed of the plenty of the earth ..."

A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast
And fills the white and rustling sail
And bends the gallant mast.
- Allan Cunningham(1784-1842)

David French: A Newfoundland Gem

David French is the best known of a group of playwrights associated with the Tarragon Theatre, one of four "alternative" theaters which revitalized Toronto drama in the early 1970s. While not a technical innovator, French successfully combines convincing Canadian situations with well-made, realistic conventions accessible to a broad audience. The enormous success of his first stage play, Leaving Home, did much to convince a popular audience that Canadian drama could be worthwhile. The working relationship between French and Bill Glassco, artistic director of the Tarragon, has had profound effects on Canadian theater and script development. While playwright/director teams and symbiotic relationships between writers and theater companies are common in countries where theater is well established, such collaborations were quite rare in Canada until French and Glassco demonstrated their worth.
Born in Coley's Point, Newfoundland, to Edgar Garfield and Edith Benson French, the playwright moved to Toronto with his family at the age of seven, experiencing himself the tension between regional and urban values that later became central in two of his plays. In his mid teens, French developed an ambition to write; several of his early short stories appeared in youth magazines, and one was included in an anthology of work by young writers. He began his theatrical career as an actor, training with Al Saxe and Roy Lawler in Toronto and, briefly, at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. French performed in several radio plays produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1960 to 1965. In 1962 he wrote his first television play, and during the following ten years he completed many short plays for radio and television; most have been broadcast by the CBC.

What started as a television play became French's first full-length play for the stage. Set in Toronto in the 1950s, Leaving Home explores father-son conflict in a working-class family, intensifying the conflict by contrasting Jacob Mercer's Newfoundland speech and values with those of his two sons, who have been raised in the city. All the characters "leave home," one son, Billy, to marry a girl pregnant by him, and his brother, Ben, to escape their father's oppressive hand. Jacob also "leaves home" as the conflict with Ben forces him to abandon the spiritual values of the Newfoundland fishing village he left behind physically several years previously. While Jacob is proud of Ben's academic achievements, he cannot refrain from mocking Ben's inability to meet the fishing village's measure of a man; when Ben moves on, he leaves Jacob no one to whom he can pass his values.

Leaving Home's premiere (Tarragon Theatre, 16 May 1972) was the beginning of the working relationship between French and Glassco's company: French found the theatrical support he needed, and the Tarragon achieved a commercial success to bolster its shaky first season. The play immediately struck a responsive chord with the popular audience; in the season following its premiere, Leaving Home was produced by thirty-five theaters across Canada, consolidating the reputations of both French and the Tarragon.

French's next play, Of the Fields, Lately (first produced at the Tarragon Theatre, 29 September 1973 and later by The Avion Players of Gander Newfoundland as their 18th entry into The Newfoundland Drama Festival) , is a sequel. Several years after the events depicted in Leaving Home, Ben Mercer (Roderick Brentnall) returns for the funeral of one of his aunts and again attempts to communicate with his father, a few weeks, as it transpires, before Jacob's (Ross Goldsworthy) own death. Father-son conflict is sharpened by the imminence of death. Also in the stage production were veteran James Lewis playing Wiff Roach.Although only her second appearance on a Canadian stage Ruth Simms Ferguson playing the role of Mary Mercer won a much deserved Best Actress award.Many theater goers of the 70's would also agree that the award was a consolation prize for having played Trese Delaney the previous year in Tom Cahills "As loved our fathers" to an exquisite and captivating degree.Of The Fields, Lately was also a runaway success. It won a Chalmers Award, was adapted as a CBC television special, was produced across Canada and abroad -- including a critically-acclaimed run in Argentina in Spanish translation and a production on Broadway.

French redresses the imbalance of Leaving Home, in which the father is responsible for the failure to communicate. Ben has left home but to no great purpose, and on his return, his values are revealed as superficial. He is ashamed of his father's rough manners and working man's appearance. The old is dying, and French questions the validity of that which is replacing it. When Jacob dies, father and son have managed no more than fleeting human contact.

In Of the Fields, Lately, French departs from the conventions of realism through a framing narrative device. In the cinematic structure of his third play, One Crack Out (Tarragon Theatre, 29 May 1975), French goes still further. The play depicts the Toronto demimonde of pool hustlers, conmen, marks, pimps, and prostitutes. In a series of short vignettes, Charlie Evans engineers several scams in a progressively desperate attempt to evade the dire consequences of a bad gambling debt. Unfortunately, the realism of dialogue and situation are incompatible with the short, choppy scenes, and One Crack Out fared badly with critics and audiences alike.

Despondent over the failure of One Crack Out, French attempted to start new plays, without success. Then, at Glassco's urging, and with the assistance of Russian scholar Donna Orwin, he translated Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, joining a growing number of playwrights adapting plays from the international repertoire for Canadian audiences. His confidence restored by the success of The Seagull, produced by Tarragon in 1977, French fulfilled a long-held ambition to write comedy.

Jitters (Tarragon Theatre, 16 February 1979) is set in a small, Toronto alternative theater and employs a play-within-a-play structure to reveal the world of rehearsals and opening nights. In comic scenes ranging from slapstick to witty infighting, French shows the company struggling against everything from jammed doors to personal and artistic insecurity. The play's central conflict concern's Jessica Logan's attempt to make a comeback in a new play, "The Care and Treatment of Roses," while her leading man tries to sabotage the production for fear it might be transferred to New York, exposing him to a more demanding audience.

His next play, The Riddle of the World (first produced at the Tarragon in 1981), was a disappointment. Described by some as a philosophical postsex comedy, the piece concerns a young man whose lover joins a cult that requires celibacy. Most critics thought that the protagonist's attempts to cope with his dilemma and his attempts to persuade a friend not to convert to homosexuality were overly burdened with quotations from psychologists and philosophers and too far removed from the comic confrontations that the script seemed to call for.
French returned to his Coley's Point source with Salt-Water Moon (My personal favourite and first produced at the Tarragon in October 1984). This, his latest play, concludes the so-called Mercer trilogy by returning to the Newfoundland of 1926. Jacob returns to his hometown after a year in Toronto to confront the ghosts and resentments he left behind and to try to win back Mary, who has become engaged to another man. Both previous Mercer plays included anecdotes about the courtship. In the course of this long one-act play, Jacob does win Mary but never quite comes to terms with his past, thus laying the ground, in retrospect, for Leaving Home and Of the Fields, Lately . Salt-Water Moon makes full use of regional dialect and imagery to achieve its lyrical charm.
French has won several awards and prizes, including the 1973 Chalmers Award for Of the Fields, Lately; the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Of the Fields, Lately in 1974; Canada Council grants in 1974 and 1975; and, for Salt-Water Moon, the Dora Award in 1985, the Hollywood Drama-Logue Critics Award for best play in 1985, and the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for best drama in 1986. He is currently working on a new translation of Alexander Ostrovsky's The Forest.

While most of French's plays have proven popular with general audiences, critical response has been divided. Supporters admire his craft; Urjo Kareda, for example, describes him as the most significant Canadian playwright of his time. Detractors, such as Michael Cook, find French's work derivative and dependent on sentiment for its effects.
Michael Cook has never received acclaim outside of Newfoundland.

R Brentnall
Toronto

Danny Williams is right…The people are wrong!

His going to the U.S. has stirred a great volume of controversy and comment -- almost as much, by informal measurement, as the propogation of Parliament. Both here and in the U.S. Heavens, it's even been brought up in that Shangri-La of Socratic disinterest,FOX News' Bill O'Reilly show,now there's a Judas. Not surprising, many might say. Danny Williams is a lightening rod of his own construction. He's aggressive, combative, partisan -- and back home, largely without any real opposition. My own personal take on him, for what its worth, is that I admire the ferocity of his feelings for Newfoundland while I sometimes deplore the bullying and bluster it occasionally leads to.

But I see it as more than awkward that his surgery, and his choice -- perhaps on the advice of his Newfoundland doctors -- of where to have it, has become the great political football that it has. I've never been a fan of that wretched slogan "the personal is political" for the very obvious reason it demolishes the barrier that should -- must -- exist between our genuine private lives and the wide-open, reckless and supercharged arena of politics.

It's his heart, it's his surgery, and it's his choice. Danny Williams, Premier or no Premier, and his family are the only ones at this point who have any real say about where he chooses to have life-threatening surgery. Further, as most commentary admits, the actual facts upon which he made his choice, and the counsel he has received from his Newfoundland doctors is not known to us -- nor, by the way, should it. So the river of commentary, both here and in the states, is taking place in a vacuum of fact.

A larger reason for refusing to politicize ;the moment however is a simple one: It parallels Trudeau's dictum that the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Likewise, politics should stop at the edge of the operating table. It's his life and it's his business.

He hasn't, using his standing as Premier, jumped some queue, lined up an MRI by cutting off someone less connected, hasn't displaced some other Newfoundlander waiting for surgery. Something like that would make a genuine case for debate of condemnation.

So -- the decent civil course would be to wait till the operation's done, wish him the best, wait for his recuperation -and if then, he wants to unfold his personal circumstances, and offer some thoughts on the "politics" of his choice, we can all hear him out.

Here is a man who obtained the portfolio of Premier of Newfoundland,
Took no salary and fights tooth and nail for the cause.The operation as I have read it was paid out of the pocket of the premier himself and not by the Canadian taxpayer.If all policians were to repeat this gesture the media would have no political news.I am beginning to think that you can never please the public.If you are crooked its bad,If you are honest it's bad.It's a no win situation.

Danny Williams is by far The greatest premier Newfoundland has ever had.Joey's dead and Danny's in. Politics, as I've said, should stop when the man in the white coat is reaching for the scalpel.

The Bows and Wows of Newfoundland

Before 1832 Newfoundland was governed by non-elected officials, usually naval governors, appointed by the British Parliament. Agitation had been growing during the early decades of the 19th century for the granting of representative government to Newfoundland as it had been to other North American colonies. The fight for representative government was led by Dr. William Carson, a Scottish-born medical doctor, and Patrick Morris, an Irish-born merchant, both of whom had been living in St. John's for many years. Through public speeches, pamphlets, letters to the newspapers and petitions to the British Parliament, they encouraged the people of Newfoundland to support the cause. In January 1832 a committee of local residents went to London to lobby for the establishment of an elected assembly. They were finally successful: a bill approving a representative assembly for Newfoundland was passed by the British Parliament in the summer of 1832.
The lobbying efforts of the Newfoundland representatives and their supporters in Britain did not go unnoticed in London. Articles appeared in the press both in favor and opposed to the idea. One person who took a particular interest in the subject was the noted caricaturist who signed his work HB.
HB was the pen name for John Doyle (1797-1868), who had been born in Dublin and trained as a miniaturist and portrait painter. Unable to make a living in his chosen profession, even after moving to London, he soon took an interest in lithography. This led to the series of caricatures for which he became famous. During the years between 1829 and 1851 he produced over 900 drawings, usually of the prominent British politicians of the day, including Wellington, Disraeli, O'Connell and Melbourne. His work was highly acclaimed for both his "excellent likenesses and gently satiric pencil." His drawings were produced as broadsheets and over 600 are preserved in the print room of the British Museum.

Newfoundland's new legislative assembly became the subject of one of Doyle's caricatures. It was entitled New Legislative Assembly. Newfoundland. (The Speaker Putting the Question.) It pictured a meeting of the House of Assembly with the Speaker in powdered wig and black robe presiding in the chair, and members on both sides. They are not represented as people, however, but as Newfoundland dogs. The Speaker puts the question: "As many as are of that opinion say ...Bow! Of the contrary ...Wow! The Bows have it." For many years it was thought that this cartoon was published in Punch but that magazine was not established until 1841 and there is no record of the cartoon appearing in its pages. The drawing was actually printed in broadsheet by Meifred Lemercier and Co., Leicester Square, and published by Thomas McLean, 26 Haymarket, London, on March 30, 1832. It is identified as "HB Sketches No. 187."
It was assumed for many years that the drawing caricatured the Newfoundland House of Assembly after it had opened, as in its early years debate was rowdy, often acrimonious, and the members might be taken for a pack of unruly dogs. However, it would seem that no one took note of the date of publication and compared it to the dates surrounding the establishment of that first House of Assembly in Newfoundland. The bill granting the assembly did not pass the British Parliament until the summer of 1832, the first election of members did not take place until November 1832 and the first House of Assembly did not open until Jan. 1, 1833. Therefore, Doyle's cartoon, published March 30, 1832, was not descriptive, but prescriptive, a prediction of what he thought would happen, before the fact; an interesting commentary on Newfoundland in Britain.

About Confederation

Newfoundland and Canada: 1864-1949

Whether Newfoundland and Labrador should remain as an independent political entity, or join the federation of the other British North American colonies, was an issue from 1864 to 1949. In 1864, Newfoundland delegates attended the Quebec Conference and signed the resolutions which became of foundation of the 1867 British North America Act. But it was not until over 80 years later, in 1949, that Newfoundland became a Canadian province.Active debate in the colony during the 1860s culminated in the hard-fought "confederation election" of 1869, won by the anti-confederates in a landslide victory.

William V. Whiteway, ca. early 1900s.
Whiteway was an avowed confederate in 1869.
Photo by Lafayette Ltd. Courtesy of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives (Coll-026), Memorial University of Newfoundland Library, St. John's, Newfoundland.

Not yet ready to give up independence, Newfoundlanders had decided that they could survive, prosper even, on their own. The election was so decisive that the idea of confederation was set aside - indeed, it became a dirty word in many circles. Thus Newfoundland became the only British North American colony to try the experiment of independence (within the British Empire).

As neighbours, Newfoundland and Canada had to negotiate and settle a wide range of issues of mutual concern over the years. Fisheries, trade, relations with the USA, the Labrador boundary and defence were among the most important. Sometimes, between 1869 and the second World War, confederation was raised as a possibility, but only once, in 1895, were there serious negotiations. These failed because neither Newfoundland nor Canada were much interested at that time.

Alfred B. Morine (1857-1944), n.d.
In the late 1890s Morine, Newfoundland's Finance Minister, supported confederation.
Artist unknown. From D.W. Prowse, A History of Newfoundland, from the English, Colonial and Foreign Records (London: Macmillan, 1895) 550.

With the collapse of responsible government in 1934, followed by War II, Newfoundland entered a new phase in its history, and in its relationship with Canada. By 1945, the Canadians were coming to the conclusion that incorporating Newfoundland into confederation made sense. The British government thought the same. And the referendums held in 1948 showed that a majority of Newfoundlanders now agreed as well. But the vote had been preceded by a long, tense and divisive debate, and was followed by a difficult period of transition. Finally, on 31 March 1949, Newfoundlanders became Canadian citizens. How that happened has been debated ever since.In this year of 2008 I ask myself what have we really gained fron the whole darn thing.The fishery is gone,the railway has collasped,the forestry is looking pekid so what has England's oldest colony really gained.

"Cinderella of Empire"

Joey Smallwood's

    "Cinderella of Empire"

The history of this island is an unbroken history of struggle.
The war has widened our horizons and deepened our knowledge of the great gulf which separates what we have and what we are, from what we feel we should have and should be. We have become uncomfortably aware of the low standards of our country, and we are driven irresistibly to wonder whether our attempt to persist in isolation is the root cause of our condition. Our very manhood, our very creation by God, entitles us to standards of life no lower than our brothers on the mainland. We are fifty, in some things one hundred, years behind the times. We live more poorly, more shabbily, more meanly. Our life is more a struggle. Our struggle is tougher, more naked, more hopeless.
We all love this land. It has a charm, it warms our hearts, go where we will,a charm, a magic, a mystical tug on our emotions that never dies. With all her faults we love her. But a metamorphosis steals over us the moment we cross the border which separates us from other lands. We are so used to our ways that we do not even see their inadequacy, their backwardness,their seaminess. We take for granted our lower standards, our poverty. We are not indignant about them, we save our indignation for those who publish such facts. Except for a few years of this war and a few of the last, our people’s earnings never supported them on a scale comparable with North American standards, and never maintained a government on even the prewar scale of service. We might manage, precariously, to maintain independent national status. We can resolutely decide to be poor but proud. But if such a decision is made it must be made by the sixty thousand poor families, and not by the five thousand families who are confident of getting along pretty well in any case. Our danger, so it seems to me, is that of nursing delusions of grandeur. We are not a nation. We are a medium-sized municipality. There was a time indeed when tiny states lived gloriously. That time is now ancient European history. We are trying to live in the mid-twentieth century, post-Hitler New World. We can, of course, persist in isolation, a dot on the shore of North America. Reminded continually by radio, visitors, and movies of the incredibly higher standards of living across the Gulf, we can shrug incredulously or dope ourselves into the hopeless belief that such things are not for us. By our isolation from the throbbing vitality and expansion of the continent, we have been left far behind in the march of time, “the sport of historic misfortune,” “the Cinderella of Empire.”

-excerpt from Richard Gywn's "The Unlikely revolutionary"

If we join......Canada

Canadian Taxes
Sept 29 1948
Letter to the editor
Daily News

Dear Sir, The Confederate paper and the speakers over the radio are continually telling the people of this country that there is no tax on property in Canada except in towns. They say the Federal government does not tax such things as houses, fishing boats, land, and so on. It does not matter what authority does the taxing, it is done just the same. Ask anybody who has lived in Canada whether a person living out in country places pays taxes on property or not. In fact, property taxes are levied in every province, and Newfoundland would be no exception. Those living towns [sic] come under the municipal tax scheme, those in country places come under the district or county plan. The property tax rates as high as five per cent. It is all controlled by government authority, with the central power in Ottawa.

The writer of this letter has lived in Canada for some years. We were forced to come back to Newfoundland for the simple reason that it was easier to live in this country, and we had a home to come back to. There are many who would do likewise, if the old home still stood. Wages are no good to a man in Canada to-day, as the government takes practically all.

If Newfoundland enters Confederation, Canada has to take thirty million dollars out of this country. The province would have to raise another twenty million in order to carry on necessary public services. How in the name of common sense can that be got except by further taxation, and it would still be controlled by Ottawa. We are about as far from Ottawa as we are from England. Remote control is one of the most serious disadvantages of any government.

The so-called baby bonus is only a hindrance to a man under wages. It often puts his salary into the taxable class. The most serious thing in connection with this bonus is the fact that it encourages immorality and illegitimacy. This fact is causing alarm in Canada right at the present moment.

Newfoundlanders are descended from pure loyal British stock. They have proved their devotion to King and Empire. The French Canadian is anti-British. The refusal of many of them to fight overseas in the last war shows their attitude to the Empire. They hold views on social life altogether different from ours. Let us keep clear of the shadow of French influence.

Newfoundland fishermen, your ancestors built their homes on this tight little island, and guarded them. They wanted to be free from interference. The degenerate who would sell his native land is not fit to breathe the air of our Terra Nova. His fetid breath pollutes the atmosphere in which we live.

Yours truly,

NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.

Commission of Government in Newfoundland

The Commission of Government in Newfoundland was established in response to an extraordinary set of circumstances. The collapse of world trade during the GREAT DEPRESSION of the 1930s was particularly damaging to Newfoundland's economy, which depended on exporting large quantities of fish and forest products. In 1933, following several turbulent years of severe budget deficits and heavy foreign borrowing, the government of Prime Minister Frederick Alderdice asked the British government to establish a royal commission to investigate Newfoundland's financial difficulties. The commission's report blamed both political corruption and international conditions for Newfoundland's predicament, and advocated replacing RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT with a "Commission of Government" that would rule until Newfoundland was self-supporting again.

Alderdice, Frederick Charles b. Nov. 10, 1872, Belfast, Ireland [now in Northern Ireland] - d. Feb. 28, 1936, St. John's, Newfoundland [now in Canada]), prime minister of Newfoundland (1928, 1932-34). In 1924 he was appointed to the Legislative Council. In the summer of 1928 he assumed the office of prime minister following the resignation of his cousin, Walter S. Monroe, from that post. After the defeat of his United Newfoundland Party in the general election of October 1928, Alderdice led the opposition in the House of Assembly until 1932 when he and his United Newfoundland Party were elected to office. Alderdice was to be the last prime minister of Newfoundland before Confederation. Following the election he also took on the portfolios of Minister of Education and Minister of Finance and Customs, holding the latter office only until August 1932. In 1934 responsible government was officially replaced by commission government (no national referendum was ever held on this constitutional change). Alderdice served as Commissioner for Home Affairs and Education in the new Commission of Government until his death.The commission government took office in February 1934 and remained in power until Newfoundland became a Canadian province in 1949. It was presided over by a governor who acted on the advice of 6 commissioners appointed by the British government. During its tenure the commission government introduced a number of reforms, including a land resettlement scheme, the reorganization of the civil service and the creation of the Newfoundland Fisheries Board. With the outbreak of WWII in 1939, however, large-scale reconstruction was postponed in favour of a total war effort.Gradually much of the original goodwill toward the commission government dissipated, and after the war there was increasing agitation for the return of self-government. Consequently, in the first of 2 referendums held in 1948 to decide the island's future, commission government placed a distant third (behind the restoration of responsible government and Confederation), and when Newfoundland entered Confederation on 31 March 1949, few Newfoundlanders mourned the passing of the commission government.Fred Alderdice on the other hand was rumoured to have been caught with his hand in the gouvernment purse more than a few times.Probably a good friend to Sir Richard Squires and Frank Moores no doubt.

NEWFOUNDLAND’S HEROISM REWARDED

 

     January 6, 1918
As a reward for valor and for services in the world war, Newfoundland, England’s oldest colony recently received the title “Dominion of Newfoundland “ from the British Government. According to British officials and army officers In New York City, the change In name will not mean a change In Newfoundland’s already “very liberal government, it shows that Britain’s oldest colony, often referred to by British writers as the Cinderella of England’s provinces,” is by her own efforts and the bravery of her soldiers and sailors coming Into her own. A native of Newfoundland. who is one of the most recent arrivals In New York City from that colony, said that out of her 250,707 population Newfoundland had given to the British infantry alone a battalion of 1,100 men. It’s also said that Newfoundland’s Forestry Brigade had at present 500 men, and that there were 2,500 men In Newfoundland’s National Militia. This man spoke of the part the Newfoundlanders played in the Somme fighting. In which 900 of her men took part. Of these, he said, only 95 survived. Word had reached St. John’s of the more recent activities of the Newfoundland troops In the Cambrai drive, in which he said there were heavy casualties among the troops of his colony. When asked regarding the part Newfoundland had played—the part which has won for her a distinction awarded to no other colony by the British Government during the war—Geoffrey Butler, head of the British Official War Exhibits, with headquarters at 511 Fifth Avenue, said that the number of men Newfoundland had given to keep up her battalion of infantry at the front was close to 5,000. Besides this, he Quoted from an official report of the “Contributions of Dominions and Colonies to the Common Cause,’ an official bulletin of June. 1916, that as early as that date Newfoundland had contributed 1,500 naval reservists to the British Navy.” “Within a month after Britain’s declaration of war,” wrote A. M. de Beck In “The Imperial War,” a recently published war work, “a. thousand men, drawn from a class of the community of the ‘very best type and every One of them Newfoundland born, were drilling at St. Johns, and by November were completing their training in the historic castle at Edinburgh. This work has been going on from that day Until the present time. The foremost advance on the Suvia Bay front, Donnelly’s Post on Caribou Ridge, was made by Newfoundlanders. It Is called Donnelly’s Post because It was here that Lieutenant Donnelly (a Newfoundlander) won his military cross. The hitherto nameless ridge from which the Turkish machine guns poured their concentrated death into our trenches stands as a monument to the initiative of the Newfoundlanders. It is now called Cariboo Ridge, as an acknowledgment to the men who wear the deer’s head badge, (Newfoundlanders.) The part played by the Newfoundlanders In the ‘Great Push’ of July 1 is quite equal to anything performed by any of the troops that took part in that great forward movement. The Newfoundlanders were brigaded with the Eighth Army Corps, commanded by Lieut, Gen. Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston, K. C. B., D. 0. S. In July a letter was addressed by the General to all the men who took part in the ‘Great Push,’ and it is one of the proudest possessions of the Newfoundland troops who survived.Colonel hunter-Weston also sent a letter to the Premier of Newfoundland, In which he recounted in detail the gallantry of the men of England’s oldest colony.” Except for almost incessant wrangles between the British settlers and the French fisherfolk, Newfoundland has had a peaceful history. The peace of Utrecht In 1713, which subsequently was ratified by the treaty of Paris gave sole sovereignty of Newfoundland to England, with certain rights granted to the French fishermen. France possesses two small Islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon. The fishers rights were definitely settled as late as 1904. This removed obstructions to local development. The Government of Newfoundland is similar to that of Canada, but the province Is in no way connected with the Government of the Dominion of Canada.

Published: January 6, 1918 

Titanic

The Titanic was one of the largest and most luxurious ships in the world. It had a gross registered tonnage (i.e., carrying capacity) of 46,329 tons, and when fully laden the ship displaced (weighed) 66,000 tons. The Titanic was 882.5 feet (269 metres) long and 92.5 feet (28.2 metres) wide at its widest point. It was designed and built by William Pirrie's Belfast firm Harland and Wolff to service the highly competitive Atlantic Ferry route. It had a double-bottomed hull divided into 16 compartments that were presumed to be watertight. Because four of these could be flooded without endangering the liner's buoyancy, it was considered unsinkable.

Shortly before midnight on April 14, the ship collided with an iceberg about 400 miles (640 km) south of Newfoundland, and at least five of its watertight compartments toward the bow were ruptured. The first four of these five compartments filled with water, which pulled down the bow of the ship. The Titanic's compartments were not capped at the top, so water from the ruptured forward compartments filled each succeeding compartment aft as the ship's incline brought the bow below the waterline. The ship sank at 2:20 AM April 15. The Titanic had only 1,178 lifeboat spaces for the 2,224 persons aboard, and many of the lifeboats were lowered into the water only partly filled with passengers, thus leaving many people stranded on the sinking ship. As a result, about 1,500 people died. (Although the facilities proved to be inadequate, the Titanic had actually exceeded the lifeboat requirements of the British Board of Trade's regulations, which had been formulated for much smaller ships.)

Inquiries held in the United States and Great Britain alleged that the Leyland liner Californian, which was less than 20 miles (32 km) away all night, could have aided the stricken vessel had its radio operator been on duty and thereby received the Titanic's distress signals. Only the arrival of the Cunard liner Carpathia 1 hour and 20 minutes after the Titanic went down prevented further loss of life in the icy waters.

Many of those who perished on the ship came from prominent American, British, and European families. Among the dead were the noted British journalist William Thomas Stead and heirs to the Straus and Astor fortunes. The glamour associated with the ship, its maiden voyage, and its notable passengers magnified the tragedy of its sinking in the popular mind. Legends arose almost immediately around the night's events, those who had died, and those who had survived. Heroes and heroines, such as American Molly Brown, were identified and celebrated by the press. The disaster and the mythology that has surrounded it have continued to fascinate millions.

As a result of the disaster, the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea was called in London in 1913. The convention drew up rules requiring that every ship have lifeboat space for each person embarked; that lifeboat drills be held during each voyage; and, because the Californian had not heard the distress signals of the Titanic, that ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch. The International Ice Patrol also was established to warn ships of icebergs in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

Bow of the Titanic,
some 400 miles
south of Newfoundland, Canada.

On September 1, 1985, the wreck of the Titanic was found lying upright in two pieces on the ocean floor at a depth of about 13,000 feet (4,000 metres). The expeditions found no sign of the long gash previously thought to have been ripped in the ship's hull by the iceberg. The scientists posited instead that the collision's impact had produced a series of thin gashes as well as brittle fracturing and separation of seams in the adjacent hull plates, thus allowing water to flood in and sink the ship. In subsequent years marine salvagers raised small artifacts from the wreckage and even attempted to lift a large piece of the hull.In the mid 80's Captain Bob Ballard located
the exact location of the infamous Titanic...an endeavor not always shared by the general public and indeed the surviving passengers of the great ship.In Newfoundland we have a saying 'those who go down to the sea in ships have found a sacred burial ground' Maybe the rest of the world should follow the wise sayings of England's oldest colony.

R Brentnall

Newfoundland Words and Phrases

Dialect has it's place not only in our community, but all over Newfoundland. Words and phrases like the ones below use to be part of the daily dialect between residents. Today however, this part of our heritage is not as prominent and distinct as it once was but many of us can still whip up a sentence that will leave the best scholar trying to decipher the context of what we meant. For all you fellow Newfoundlanders out there, you will enjoy reading these. Everyone else, this will be like your first spelling test. If someone you know is a Newfoundlander and you sometimes can't understand them, you may use this as your reference to find what he/she is saying. If I am missing any (there are plenty) and you have the time to send them to me, I will add it.

Words and meanings:

• Angishore - a weak miserable person.
• Ballyrag - to abuse.
• Ballycater - ice formed by spray on the rocks.
• Barmp - Toot your car horn. (Hey Tom, why did you barmp your horn at me?)
• Biniky - ill-tempered.
• Biver - to shiver.
• Blinker, Blinker - sound your vehicle signal lights make. (Hey Tom, turn on your blinkers)
• Blear - to complain loudly.
• Chucklehead - a bright person.
• Chinch - to stow tightly.
• Cuddy - a covered space in the bow of a boat.
• Douse - to give a guick blow, "douse the fire"-put it out or "don't make me douse you on the head"
• Drash - to pluck or pull quickly.
• Duckish - the time between sunset and dark.
• Dwai - a short snow shower.
• Faggot - a pile of half-fried codfish.
• "tap"(fawcett).
• "clit" ( tangles in your hair).
• "taps" (sole of your shoes).
• Ferks - the crotch of pants.
• Starn - your behind.
• Bridge - porch or veranda, back step.
• Shit-picky - person don't look too well.
• The Reckly - soon
• Bumbuy - Later on
• Slu or slew - turn
• Maul Mouth - a screecher
• Glom - to grab
• Rodney - a Punt
• High Rat - Three Handed Punt
• Water the harse - give water to the horse.
• Lassy - Molasses.
• Flux - to Haul quickly
• Flice - to throw.

Phrases:

• Long may your Jib draw - A good wish for the future.
• May snow is good for sore eyes - An old legend, many say it's true.
• Tom Long's account - To pay what you owe and have nothing left.
• Wait a fair wind, and you'll get one - Await and opportunity.
• Mucked her off to the hospital - Took her to the hospital.
• The older the crab, the tougher his claws - It is not easy to fool a sophisticated person.
• You are taking a rise out of me - Your flattery is only for the purpose of making others laugh at me.
• You can't tell the mind of a squid - This refers to an unreliable person, a squid can move backwards or forward.
• You are as deep as the grave - Your real feelings are not easily judged from your appearance.
• The old dog for a hard road - Experience easily overcomes difficulty.
• Tis not every day that Morris kills a cow - Favorable opportunity comes but seldom.
• The devil to pay and no pitch hot - Unprepared for emergency. To "pay a boat" meant to put hot pitch over a seam between the planks.
• Fair weather to you and snow to your heels - Good luck on your way.
• Come day, go day, God send Sunday - Applied to a lazy person.
• A fisherman is one rogue, a merchant is many.
• All mops and brooms - This refers to an untidy condition of the hair.
• You are like a fish out of water.
• A gunshot away - A short distance, about fifty yards.
• Take Care - means to say good-bye
• 'ow she cuttin dere by'e - How are you??..
• where she longs at - where's u from?
• u gotta face only ya mudder could love - your ugly.
• 'ow she gettin on dere cocky - how are you??
• i'se da by'e da bulid da boat, not.. ur's da by's dat sails er!..
• yur stund as me arse - your not too bright.
• " i dies at u"- meaning your some funny person .
• something under your pinny(apron) - having a baby.
• Cold enough to skin ya, Hot enough to poison ya - really cold or too hot.
• Jumpin dyin - upset with something not going the way you want.
• go on by! - You sure?
• yes by!
• you don't say - go on by!
• ow's ya gettin' on maid? - How are you doing?
• LUH - I told you so!
• go awn wich ya - Really!
• ya got more tounge that a logan - You have a big mouth.
• more lip than a coal bucket - Person with a big mouth.
• Blabber tongue - Person with a big mouth, can't keep a secret.
• "Darker den a cow's gut" - Really dark, and you would ask "and how dark is that?"
• wus ya born on a raff? - Are you stupid?, meaning " Was ya born on a raft, Close the door, it's cold"
• Lard tunderin' ders more slang in nfld den der is icecaps on da water!
• out on the neck, down da arm, up the shore - No one goes by street names.
• pass da tumbler over der on da slab - Meaning pass the glass from over on the counter.
• Get that thinganabob - Like your suppose to know what a thinganabob is it could be anything.
• stay werr you're to ,I'll come where you"re at! - Stay were you are and I will come to where you are.
• The doors not an arse hole, it doesnt shut it self - Meaning shut the door behind you.
• "put it on the stan" (kitchen counter)
• "that is some squish" (notstraight).
• We gotta keep the lingo bye's, shes easy to loose out here.
• blowed up like a blood poison cat - A person who has gained weight from eating too much.
• you looks like you've been " hauled through a knot hole" - You look worn out and tired.
• "Deef as a cod." - Cod actually have ears, "when I didn't hear her or ignored her she would tell me "Bye(boy), your deaf as a cod."
• may the wind aways blow in your back - good luck on your way, wished good fortune.
• so more it was (yes you are right).
• not a bad bit nice (it's beautiful).
• nare one here (don't have any, nare meaning none).
• "Who ownes you?" - Who are your parents and what are their names?
• "Go play outta around the door." - Generally said to your kids when they are asking for 'something to do", to go play outside!!
• 'Bottle of drink' - A bottle or can of pop (for all those mainlanders).
• hes some nesh.... - The person is very timid or hes a wimp.
• How ya doin me old trout? - How are you doing. Usually said by family.
• Your on nish ice there b'y - meaning the ice is not strong, dangerous.
• "You can take the boy out of the bay but you can't take the bay out of the boy"
• Da skitters are some tick by'e - There are a lot of mosquitos about.
• Ohhhh STATE! - Drunk. Context which it would be used...
  Glenn: Wattaya At.
  Jason: Nuttin Bye.
  Glenn: You wit Garge last night er wha.
  Jason: Yuh.
  Glenn: How was he.
  Jason: OHHHHHH STATE!
• Jesus iddn dat stun!!!!! - Someone not too bright,
• Lard dien' dumpin' - Jesus-Oh my god!!
• shit hit the fan - After that, everything became a mess.
• The bottom feel out of her - it all went wrong.
• "How's the young fella'?" - How is your son?
• "Catherines solo on the tickle" - The ferry "Catherine" is making the crossing back and forth to alone .
• "shag it!" - Meaning forget it.
• "best kind" -Meaning great.
• who you looks for me love, come in before you get the bivers - who you looking for, come in before you get cold.
• lard-god-me-child-some-good-ta-see-ya - Good to see you, usually your grandmother says this.
• some-nice-piece-a-stuff - Something that is good, car, clothes, women.
• Hows she cuttin'? - If used when cutting wood, it refers to the chain on the chainsaw and it's sharpness.
• God bless your cotton socks' - Thank you.
• Ol' Slut - An old flat bottomed kettle.
• He's bout half cut .. - He's very drunk.
• "you best be coming back" - You better come back.
• One of them mornings your going to wake up dead.
• She's goin a be some vexed wit ya - He's going to be angry.
• How's ya getten on now - How are you.
• Proper ting bye - Your doing the right thing.
• Take care me ducky/me love! - Wishing well to a girl.
• Yes bye! - ya "yes bye, I can meet you at the warf at 5am"
• Gone right out of 'er! - Being very Drunk.
• "B'ye if you shoot that it will be line nawing on a mud flap!! - If you shoot that moose, the meat will be tough.
• By',..she's got a face on 'er like a burnt-boiled-boot! - Ugly.
• Ye fellas can figr' that one out! - Leave it to you fellows to figure something out.
• chummy- it can be anything that you want an object to be when you cannot remember the name for it.