Where are we?

May 14, 2008, by Natalie

Amazing to realize we have been on “The Rock” for a week already! Right now, I am in the public library in Stephenville, in the southwest corner of the island. I could be anywhere in North America after school lets out when all the kids head to the library, ostensibly to do their homework, in reality to hang out. There are some clues, though, that I am in Newfoundland: the accent of the teenage girls cracking jokes at the next table; the ocean view from the window; the selection of magazines: Saltscapes, Newfoundland Quarterly, Newfoundland and Labrador Journal of Natural History (all three of which are at Rich’s grasp in the reading room where he sits with a baby sprawled asleep in his lap…). Yep, we are in Newfoundland.

My determined intent was to ease into my sabbatical project: give myself some breathing room, say a week or two, to settle out our systems before plunging into the work I have set out to do. No such luck. You can’t very well travel Newfoundland as a CFA (local speak for “come from away”) and not hear about fisheries and tourism. Not sure what I was thinking… Everyone is connected to fisheries somehow (more on that another day) and our little family unit is essentially, for better or worse, a touring family looking to have great experiences on a rock in the middle of the North Atlantic. So, by simple virtue of being here and chatting with people anywhere and everywhere, my sabbatical project has officially begun.