First Impressions Of Newfoundland

by P. Lockwood

Having for some time been of a mind to emigrate, owing to professional circumstances in the United Kingdom, my wife and I had a hankering after British Columbia until, after a chance meeting with a colleague, we decided on St. John’s, Newfoundland. Place and date once settled, there was the usual chaos of packing and getting away. During this time I made some researches into our new place of abode. I discovered that both the City of Leeds and the University Libraries were completely lacking in information about the island, indeed all the literature to be found was on the Grenfell expeditions to Labrador which, though politically part of the Province of Newfoundland, is one thousand miles north. Northern Labrador looks like the Lofotens and very interesting, but could not really be a good guide at that distance. So, full of curiosity, we embarked on R.M.S. Newfoundland at Liverpool on 13th June, 1958, and sailed on the 14th.

After an uneventful voyage, I awakened at five a.m. six days later and went on deck with a camera. The approach to St. John’s is very impressive indeed. The Narrows, as the harbour entrance is called, is almost invisible until the ship is upon it; one is faced by a wall of red sandstone cliffs, five or six hundred feet high, until suddenly the ship enters the Narrows flanked by the old guns of Fort Amherst on the port bow and the cliffs of Signal Hill on the starboard. Once inside the harbour opens out to reveal the oldest city in North America — St. John’s.

We were met by my colleague and were quickly introduced into a marathon social round which did not subside for at least a month, by which time I was established in practice and the family settled in a new home. Having arrived at the time when summer begins, the weather could only be described as delightful, especially after the North of England. Temperatures of sixty to eighty degrees, a constant cool breeze, hot sun in clear pure air; by the time July arrives most people are already getting a sun tan. During the first few weeks we did little by way of physical activity but made many excursions by car on the appalling dirt roads. Indeed there were only 110 miles of tarmac in the island and 100 of them in St. John’s and district. However, things have much improved lately and one can now cross the island by car, a feat which was still impossible when we arrived.

The countryside somewhat resembles both Sutherland and Southern Norway. This similarity is enhanced by the fact that St. John’s is a wooden city except for the business quarter, whilst outside the town wood is universal. The hills around the city are six to seven hundred feet high and quite steep, with small crags on many of them. The rock is a very loose coarse conglomerate with rounded holds. Access, however, is the big difficulty, most hills, if not afforested with conifers, are covered with brush six to eight feet high in which one can get completely lost and entangled when only fifty yards from the road. One therefore must use a trail.

Time was the big difficulty with any expedition and I had to be content with a few hours on Saturday afternoons with an older ‘native’ colleague who is a first class photographer and enjoys the open air. On these occasions we usually went into Conception Bay where some good walking is to be had on some of the Barrens. These are high and rocky tundra areas, the site of an ancient forest fire. All soil having been burnt and eroded, brush cannot grow. The highest hill in the district is about 1,000 feet and looks somewhat like Pen-y-Ghent, though the view from the summit is not as good as that from some slightly lower hills further round the bay. The place names are quaint and nautical, signifying origin, ancestry or part of a ship. One finds Holyrood, Kelligrews, Harbour Main, Topsail, Portugal Cove, Brigus (Brighouse?), Cupids (Coopers), to name only a few.

The ‘natives’ retain to a great extent a West Country dialect in Conception Bay, though in St. John’s it is Irish; in fact on first arrival one wonders if Water Street, St. John’s is not indeed O’Connel Street, Dublin. I am told there is a community on the West Coast accessible only by sea where a pure Yorkshire dialect is spoken! Most of the out-ports, as these small coastal communities are called, were, until Confederation with Canada in 1949, accessible only by sea, roads being non-existent; the terrain is in fact most difficult for road building. The communities have retained many of their ancestral dialects, customs and family names; fishing and lumbering are their main occupations.

By about mid-September the weather started cooling off and in October the fall (autumn) arrived, with the first frosts. The fall in Canada, and certainly in Newfoundland is the most colourful time of the year; it is then that the brush assumes the most magnificent reds, browns and yellows from both leaves and berries. This is a good time of year to be out of doors and I spent some time on short expeditions, taking photographs. The fall is also the start of the hunting season when the Newfoundlander stalks the moose for winter meat, though caribou, bear, fox, hare and humans often fall victim to the rifle. The last-named game is however a story in itself and is as long as the trout that got away!

At this time of year my practice was getting busy in a final rush before winter, so I was tied down to some extent until in November the first snow fell and business dropped. The snow caused great excitement, but it was wet and lasted only a few days. It was time however to get my skis unpacked and others bought for the rest of the family before the snow melted away again. By early December temperatures were averaging 20°F or so at night and 30°F in the daytime. About 14th December it snowed, the real stuff, twelve inches of dry, powder snow! That week-end I tried my skis for the first time in Newfoundland and then began the most continuously enjoyable winter I had ever spent. Fortunately I had a willing and able accomplice in the form of another immigrant colleague who had spent his youth as a guide in the Tatra. Jerry and I spent every week-end on skis until the middle of April.

At Christmas there were four days’ holiday so we managed to get in one full day in the hills to the north of the city. The ski-ing was delightful; in the glorious sunlight, ten to twenty degrees of frost, following wood trails which eventually led back to our own doorstep. In all we covered about 20 miles and felt very pleased with ourselves over the successful day. The hills north of St. John’s are all covered with conifers and crossed by many of these wood trails, among which one can get temporarily lost as they are unmarked on maps. We simply set off and followed our noses on many days. The families also enjoyed the snow as there was a convenient field near the house which was used as a nursery and tobogganing slope.

Unfortunately, however, the winter is not all week-ends and many interesting situations were encountered in motor cars, particularly on roads a foot deep in solid ice with snow banks six feet on the sides. One soon learnt how to drive in snow and also how not to let it disorganise transport. The City Council has some first class rotary blower ploughs which could be useful in England. In early March a hurricane hit the city with 130 m.p.h winds. This was too much for the authorities and for days we reached our offices and hospitals on skis, many streets being blocked by 20-foot drifts.

Eventually our first winter came to an end, in the middle of April the weather became milder and the Newfoundland spring started. This is like a North of England winter, cold, rain, mist and wet. At this time also the Arctic ice is driven inshore and once again the harbour is blocked with ice; earlier, in January, it had been frozen solid, along with the inshore two or three miles of sea. The arctic ice keeps the weather cold until favourable winds blow it out again; this was a time for indoor activity. Following the arctic ice in May the icebergs arrived; I counted as many as twenty-seven off St. John’s harbour one morning from the top of Signal Hill. They also keep the temperature down although by then the skies are clear.

The first long holiday week-end of the year is 24th May (Trouter’s Day), start of the fishing season. By this time we had been in Newfoundland for almost one full year, a year which had been a most pleasant introduction to our new home. There is still much to explore, the West Coast of the island appears to have more of interest to the mountaineer with the hills reaching 2,500 ft., and I am looking forward to my first visit there when time becomes available.