Vive l’isle de France!

It is 9 AM and we are lining up at the start of the “Trail des Collines,” a race and hike along the barren hills of a small island off southern Newfoundland. Anouk is perched in her backpack pointing excitedly to the dogs lining up with their owners. “Attention à vos oreilles!” shouts an organizer as he points the gun to the air and shoots. Klick. The crowd of a 100 bursts into laughter at the failed gun start, especially in light of the previous remark about watching out for your ears. People stumble forward wondering: “On y va ou pas?” Do we go or not? “Non, non, retournez à vos place, on recommence…" And so, we return to our places and the race starts over. Gun in the air… and this time: POW! The race has begun!

Before I go much farther, I think I need to clarify that this wonderful event took place not in Newfoundland (though within sight of it) but in France. Now if this sounds crazy, it is time to pull out your Atlas and brush up on geography and history. The French island archipelago of St. Pierre and Miquelon lies within sight of Newfoundland’s south coast (on a clear day!). It is the last stronghold of the French Empire in the new world, negotiated out of British control by an enterprising French government who sought to lay claim to some portion of the great North Atlantic fishery in perpetuity. Perpetuity being a fisheries myth – the islands are also subject to the cod moratorium that has decimated Newfoundland’s economy – St. Pierre and Miquelon are facing major challenges of their own. The islands are totally dependent on “la metropole” (which is the local French people’s way of referring to the other, bigger stronger France across the ocean) for most aspects of their existence, along with container shipments from Halifax and St. John’s, though even these seem unreliable.

All these societal challenges, however, were totally lost on us as we hiked through the spectacular barrens of St. Pierre Island with our new friends Christelle and Yanis, and one of their two boys Oihan. It was the other son, Elouan, stuck back at home and not allowed to hike, who unintentionally helped foster this friendship. Back in June, Elouan had a ruptured appendix that went from bad to worse and he was shipped to the Janeway Children’s Hospital in St. John’s. Elouan ended up spending several weeks in the room next door to Anouk’s when we were in for her burns. Our two families were pretty intrigued by the fellow Francophones next door and struck up conversations. It is hard for friendships to flower under hospital circumstances but Rich and I commented several times “they seem like our people” (our perhaps not very PC code for anyone who appears to have a similar lifestyle and political views, anyone with whom we’d love to spend more time, given the chance).

Christelle and her family welcomed us into their homes and lives as if we were long lost friends. Her Papa provided the shuttle service after the hike, her sister Janick and brother-in-law Geroges offered wine and dinner of caught-that-day mackerel, and Oihan and Elouan offered Anouk true friendship that has her still smiling days later (if we say the name Oihan, she gets the warmest, cutest little happy friend smile, a smile she had not shared until Oihan!)

I love St. Pierre. When you wander the streets, which we did both by bike and on foot, there is no sign of economic challenge and I would not have known had our friends not explained. Instead, La Place Charles DeGaulle is crawling with flirting teenagers (including two girls who taught Anouk how to kick a soccer ball) and mothers pushing baby carriages. The stores, when they are open before and after lunch, are full of activity, and the bookstore (the one store that emptied my wallet) has an adult and children’s selection that implies the populace is active, and thriving. Lunch at the café was packed with residents and tourists alike enjoying a delicious taste of the old country: gallette aux pallourde – or savoury scallop crepe – pour Natalie, steak frite pour Rich, et salade de tomates pour Anouk…

A great time was had by all. For me this three-day trip was like a vacation from sabbatical, if that makes sense. I did not take a single note, did not speak into my recorder to capture a single detail, did not type a line, and asked only limited questions about tourism or fisheries. Instead, I enjoyed a few days in France in the company of new friends, and gathered through conversation and experience that St. Pierre, though very much France in the New World, is faced with similar issues that resource dependent cultures face the world over. Transitions and trepidations about the future are the norm. But the hiking is fantastic. The wine is pretty good too!

Traveling fools

As several of you fine readers and vicarious adventurers have pointed out in emails to Nat and me, it has been quite a few weeks since our last posts. Hopefully Nat’s posts of earlier today went some distance in alleviating concerns that we might have fallen of the edge of the Earth (granted, it is not far from here) or may have been abducted by aliens (although I did see some sort of unidentified flying object a few weeks back – it was flying and I did not identify it…) or that we entered the witness protection program or that we had a catastrophic failure of our Local Access Portals That Obviate Personal Struggles (LAPTOPS) or some other equally time-wasting reasons for getting on with this missive.

Since my Tilting Rare Bird report we have traveled countless kilometers (well, not entirely countless, we have the COW’s odometer’s trip meter set), visited St. John’s, Come By Chance, South Brook, Fleur-de-Lys, La Scie, Jackson’s Arm, Port au Choix, Birds Cove, Pistolet Bay, Bide Arm, Green Point, Barachois Pond, Burgeo, Francois, Red Indian Lake, Davidsville, Musgrave Harbour, and Gambo, some for the first time, some for the second time, St. John’s for the umpteenth time, to name more than a few.

The slow start I got with my bird list has been improving along with all this travel. And although I have not had much dedicated birding time, my binoculars are always strapped around my neck or within reach, so I would like to think that few birds escape my notice.

A quick sketch of the avian highlights thus far: Snow Geese flying over Rose Blanche; a Port aux Choix King Eider; hundreds of Sooty Shearwaters pushed in ahead of the oncoming fog bank at St. Vincent's, perhaps to feed on the capelin which had recently arrived; Great Blue Herons in the Codroy Valley (according to a recent newspaper article, they were actually documented as nesting, a Newfoundland first); a Cooper's Hawk in St. John's; a dark phase Gyrfalcon in Port aux Choix; hundreds – more likely thousands – of shorebirds (perhaps my favorite family of birds, especially Ruddy Turnstones) in the past few weeks; a Parasitic Jaeger off Fogo Island; Bonaparte's Gull in Port aux Basque; a Roseate Tern in Elliston; a Dovekie, that littlest of Atlantic alcids (the family that includes puffins); Red-necked Grebe and Bank Swallow in Burgeo; Common Grackle on the road between Port aux Basques and Rose Blanche; and Northern Harriers, Sharpies, and Merlins aplenty. I regularly see both crossbills, especially the White-winged, which I always enjoy. A surprise has been how long it has taken me to see Pine Grosbeak this trip; my first one was not until 19 August. This is said to be a common bird hereabouts.

In Burgeo last week we camped at a Sandbanks Provincial Park, which is nestled in "tuckamore", a scrubby natural community of nearly impenetrable Black Spruce and alder. For three days the warblers were nearly dripping off the branches: Palm Warblers were the most abundant, with hundreds visible in the span of 15 minutes. It was a good test of my fall warbler identification as there were so many warblers, eleven that I identified: Tennessee, Yellow-rumped, Palm, Bay-breasted, Blackpoll, Black-and-white, redstart, waterthrush, Mourning, yellowthroat, and Wilson's!!!

After a few fog-bound days in Francois (I am glad Nat ‘fessed up about her outbound sea-sickness), the weather finally cleared (which is a relative thing here in Newfoundland) the morning we took the coastal boat back to Burgeo. The three of us spent almost the entire ride on the exposed bow, taking in the sights that were hidden from us just a few days earlier. As the boat steamed a few kilometers from shore, we saw quite a few raptors, mostly Sharp-shinned Hawks and Merlins, but we also had a Peregrine Falcon. (These off-shore sightings just further excite me for a future project to study the role of off-shore islands in migration – Little Mount Desert Rock, 25 miles south of Bar Harbor, out toward the middle of the Gulf of Maine, complete with a lighthouse and a refurbished light-keepers house, is the perfect site.)

As I have long espoused, the trick to seeing birds is to look for them, and spending so much time in the great outdoors helps.

Total Newfoundland birds: 136

Return from the media blackout!

We are back in St. John’s for doctors appointments (again) for both Rich and Anouk. We’ve been in a bit of a communications blackout so here is the update and hopefully we’ll be back in internet writing mode for awhile!

Let’s start with health…. Anouk is a happy camper. Her burn site is stable, a fully closed wound. Not so pretty to look at and still very itchy at night, but otherwise, doesn’t limit her in any way (unless you consider waking up every couple hours to scratch limiting…perhaps more for her parents, sigh). She’s been wearing the pressure garment for a couple weeks now and seems to have gotten used to it. I am resigned to the fact she probably has permanent scars…she seems un-phased by the whole thing. She knows when we are talking about her arm, her burn, her scar, any of it (in either language, English or French) because she promptly points to it with a very serious look on her face.

She is a comprehension sponge right now! I tell her a word once and then she seems to know it and can point to that thing immediately (this morning it was etoiles, or stars, in a book, which she then recognized in another book). These last couple weeks, she is all about tickling, she especially LOVES to tickle her daddy’s belly when he changes into his pj’s at night! Big teeth are coming in. Hair is covering her head (curly in back, straight on top, white-blond all over). And she only has a couple inches left before she won't be able to stand in the camper’s bed anymore! She loves looking at the pictures of our friends and family back home. (Those of you involved in making that awesome photo book for us, she loves it!! Lately it is the picture of herself in Joel Avila’s backhoe that has her attention. She points to it, then herself, then it, then herself, and on and on, and gets awfully excited whenever she sees anything resembling a tractor or backhoe now….) Dogs continue to elicit the highest pitched squeal, with motorcycles a close second. Any words you ask? She’s got "Non" down pretty well, with the correct French accent and everything. Ma and Da are new discoveries too, which make her really smile big when she sees that she got it right. And the best of all, she loves to give us hugs, real honest to goodness I love you hugs. Last year when we came up to Newfoundland for the course I co-taught, Sean (one of my co-teachers) was once holding her as a baby and sighed peacefully saying, “Ahh, better than valium.” I think toddler hugs may be even better!

Speaking of Sean, I think Rich had mentioned earlier that we had a wonderful time in Bonavista with Sean, his wife Carolyn, daughter Sarah, and his in-laws Minnie and Lyndsey. We’ve had the good fortune of seeing Minnie and Lyndsey a couple times since then. And in fact, they are babysitting the boat for us. Yes, you read that right. We have left the Sea Grant 18-foot Lund in their driveway. Yes, I know, I was so so so excited to spend lots of time on the water this summer, so what gives??? Well, health and safety prevailed. Given Anouk’s burn, and Rich’s limited motion (he is ok, don’t get me wrong, but he IS slowed down a bit, though he would probably rather I keep my trap shut about it), it felt unsafe to head out to sea…. I wasn’t sure I felt confident enough to be skipper with a limited co-skipper and a very-eager-to-move toddler in a very small boat in unknown waters. Call us wimps. We’d rather think of us as safe and alive! Yet, I must admit, it was pretty sad driving away from the Russel’s waving goodbye to Minnie and Lindsey and the boat for a few months. The boat has never touched Newfoundland waters (though it was getting pathetically familiar with Newfoundland roads, another reason we left it behind). Sigh....

As a result, we are taking every opportunity we can get to get on the water other ways. The most recent foray was a ferry ride out to Francois, a tiny outport accessible only by boat tucked among the fjords of the South Coast. This was SO cool! Before I get to the cool part, I might as well admit before Rich gives it away, that I did indeed get sick as a moaning dog on the ferry out. Big seas, according to my belly; not so big according to the engineer. Anouk, too, revisited her goldfish snack…. Daddy alone kept his lunch, and managed to take care of Anouk while I took care of myself. So much for priding myself on being a seagoing chick (reminded me of another time I got sick on my sister’s boat about ten years ago, but that’s another story). Anyways, it was a four-hour ferry ride to a community that never has seen a car. Concrete and wooden boardwalks spider their way throughout the community of 130 year-round residents, houses nestled at the base of huge cliffs. Had the community not been there, already settled into a vertical stacking of homes, I don’t think I would have imagined this landscape ever could have been settled. I went for a short evening walk and, though Francois is literally in the middle of the Newfoundland coastal wilderness, the community is so compact and boxed in by the cliffs that as I was walking along a path right by windows and doors, I felt like I was in a fish bowl. By the end of two days, I beleive we had seen nearly every resident, and were certainly on friendly chatting terms with several.

Boomerang to the other landcape extreme…. Now, it is city-living for a week. We are back in our oh-so-familiar campsite at Pippy Park and taking advantage of the University Library and the internet connection at the bookstore. A veritable cornucopia of communications options! We are hoping this is our last city visit for the rest of the sabbatical, but who knows what the doctors have in store for us this week. We’ll keep you posted! Cheers to all.

Northern Peninsula, Family Style!

The following post was written by Natalie August 22 in anticipation of Internet access which, obviously, never happened at that time:

Greetings from Burgeo on Newfoundland’s south coast! It has been three weeks or so since Rich or I have taken the time to update the blog, not least of which because we haven’t had access to the internet all that much. We’ve been too focused on being present in Newfoundland to seek out public access sites! Were to begin when I know I only have about 20 minutes available before the Burgeo public library closes? How about a few highlights of the last weeks….

We’ve had a wonderful visit with my brother Renny, his wife Edie, and three of their sons: Mark, Liam, and Matthew. Anouk absolutely loved having her big cousins to play with -- a gang of three perfect toddler entertainers! It was a blast touring around with the family, including visiting L’Anse aux Meadows where remains of the Viking settlement of 1000 years ago have been found; a bike ride into Raleigh, a small Newfoundland outport attempting to make a go of tourism by showcasing their fisheries and craft heritage; a roller-coaster ride of a whale watch tour that netted my second ever sitting of White-beaked Dolphin (the first had been the night before from the St. Anthony Lighthouse!) and lots of Humpback Whales which look larger than life when you see them surfacing within 5 foot swells; a visit to the Grenfell Mission celebrating the work of a turn-of-the-century doctor who single-handedly affected the health and spiritual well-being of northern Newfoundland and Labrador; “Little Neddy on the Heady,” a gut-splittingly funny theatre production of Newfoundland song and stories for kids; a boat ride up the once-was-a-fjord-but-now-is-a-stunning-freshwater-pond West Brook Pond in Gros Morne National Park; about 23 Moose in just 5 days (Edie I hate to admit defeat but I do confess your vehicle count was higher than ours…); and finally, a visit to Conche, a French Shore community that artistically celebrates its French ancestry though no French is spoken by residents today.

When I say artistically, you need to understand that this town inspired me to take up embroidery, something I told the women working on the immense tapestry depicting their town history that my mother would practically faint upon reading (um, I guess it is safe to say that I, unlike my very talented mother, have never been real active in the domestic arts, but what these women where making was so cool that even 17-year-old Matthew was inspired to try his hand at it).

From a sabbatical project perspective, though the visit meant I cut back on writing time in order to play and cook and hang out with family, the running commentary that any family has about visiting a new place together netted really great observations for my project that I may have otherwise missed. A great time all around! Ok, the library lady keeps glancing my way. I am off. Hoping you are all having a safe and fun filled summer!