Now that there is such pronounced interest displayed by both people and politicians regarding the possibility of Newfoundland coming into Confederation, we are all stirring in our sleep, waking to the wonder of our hitherto indifference to the attractions of our splendid little Sister of the Seas. As Canadians, we are asking ourselves why we have “holidayed” so persistently to the United States, the West Indies, Mexico, and even Alaska, while here at our door, rugged and regal in her isolation, lies the very oldest colony Great Britain possesses, a colony teeming with beauty, novelty, and every attraction one can name to allure the holiday-maker and the sight-seer to her shores.
Until a very few years ago, Newfoundland was comparatively inaccessible to the tourist. It was an overlooked corner of civilization, undesired because unknown; but the sturdy little colony continued to thrive all by itself, scintillating in its setting of north Atlantic waters, a small but rare jewel in the British Crown.
Then came a new era, when the Reid capital spanned the Straits of Cabot with the rapid ocean-going steamers, and traversed Newfoundland with the luxuriously equipped railroad, the comforts and service of which are not to be outdone by any similar system in America. Thus were the doors of the colony opened. Its Canadian cousins began to think of visiting their relatives; Newfoundlanders exchanged the visits, and wherever you may find a Newfoundlander in Canada, you find a sturdy, industrious, genial gentleman, who is never at the foot of his class.
The first impression one receives upon landing at Port aux Basque, is the politeness of “the natives”; and, marvellous to state, even the customs officials, usually such bears elsewhere, are the personification of gallantry and courtesy. In the small seaport village clustering about the cliffs, beautiful flaxen-haired children meet you as they hurry schoolward. They smile, but do not stare, and without exception, the tiny boys lift their caps to you, it matters not whether you are man or woman. The politeness and beauty of the Newfoundland children I have never seen equalled; in the remotest fishing village, or the streets of the capital, it is identical. They are independent children, too, with not a servile bone in their little bodies, but possessing that peculiar inbred deference to elders and strangers that charms you instantly. Their little faces are like flowers, wind-blown, with cheeks of roses, skins like cream, and hair like a curly maze of yellow floss.
On a recent trip through Michigan, I observed that out of every twenty school children, about twelve wore glasses and eight had weak eyes. In the six weeks I spent in Newfoundland, I never saw one single child who wore glasses, and only one with weak eyes, and he was a tiny cripple.
And these little fellows are splendid students, attending school daily, and standing well in their examination. The schools of the entire colony are “Separate” to the greatest degree. Each tiny fishing station has its three or four schools, not Roman Catholic and Protestant, but Protestant denominational schools.
Thus, in a village of three hundred inhabitants, there will be the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, and the Baptist schools, all under Government supervision, and all teachers fitly qualified. One never hears of “school question” there: things are amicably arranged, and there is no friction.
The second thing that impresses the outsider is the oddity of the place-names. For example. Heart's Content (where the great Atlantic Cable Station is), Heart's Desire, Heart's Delight, Oar Blade, Toad's Cove, Ireland's Eye, The Bat, Tom Cod Rocks, Seldom-come-by, Old Harry, Young Harry, Happy Adventures, etc., etc. And it charms you to be in a wild coast village named Heart's Ease. The prevalence of the name “Tickles”—such as Leading Tickles, Indian Tickles, etc., owes its christening to the fact that such harbors are difficult or “ticklish” to enter, and a vessel needs good piloting to make these ports.
The third impression you gain is the utter superiority of the Newfoundlander, in his own estimate, to the average Canadian. He will always ask you “where you are from.” You reply, with pardonable pride, that you are a Canadian. He smiles politely, but patronizingly, jerks his thumb over his shoulder, and says, “Oh! yes, I see. You come from Up Along.”
I know of nothing that causes you to feel so insignificant as the knowledge that you have come from “Up Along,” which, I surmise, is an abbreviation of up along the coast. Then they speak of Labrador as “The Labrador,” which reduces that territory to a suburb.
All the men-folk in the fishing villages hie themselves to “The Labrador” for the cod-run. They are paid by the weight of their entire season's catch, and November brings them home with bulging pockets of the season has been good. On the dollars obtained by three months' industry, the fisherman and his family must subsist for the remainder of the year; and there is woe in the land should the cod fail for even one season. Manitoba with ruined harvests, or Australia in a drought, cannot reflect the poverty that assails the masses in Newfoundland when its staple food and occupation fails.
But march comes, and with it the sealing season, when, with much ceremony, the high-bowed ice-impervious sealing craft leave the harbor of St. John's, storming their way outward, “on murder intent,” as one old sealer expressed it to me. He was a hardened, seasoned old “hunter,” but he said a man never overcame the feeling that he was murdering something, when he traversed the ice-floes “clubbing” the pretty creatures that lay so easy to his hand that the souls in great brawny men turned sick and shivered when the little seals' soft brown, almost human eyes looked up at them.
Newfoundland is the veriest sportsman's paradise. The royal catches of salmon (we give an illustration of one day's noble sport), the caribou, the moose, the ptarmigan, are attraction for many a gun from overseas. The accompanying illustration of “The Monarch of the Topsails,” is one of the splendid specimens shot by a surveying party during construction time, when the railroad was being laid across country.
The entire atmosphere of the colony is nautical. The huge inland mountains are called “topsails,” the smaller hills, “gaff-topsails.” Marine terms are used everywhere, and the native-born describes all things, from personal ills to regal scenery, by his quaint fisher-folk jargon, his rich Irish accent lending color to his expression—for never, even in Queenstown, have I heard such a brogue as that which slips off the tongue of a Newfoundlander.
With all his wanderings seaward, our hardy Maritime compatriot is a domestically inclined person, He has his little flock of goats (the island is simply overrun with goats), his two or three great dogs, and his rough little Tor Bay nag, all clustering about his door; but, strange to tell, one never sees a really thorough-bred Newfoundland dog. The blood has become “colliefied,” and the hair has lost its curl, and the animal its erstwhile size.
A seemingly cruel law obtains throughout the colony regarding these dogs, every one of which must have attached to its neck a wooden clog, weighing seven pounds, and measuring eighteen inches in length. These clogs are frequently fastened by a length of heavy iron log-chain. The poor creature goes through life hampered by this monstrosity. Its gait becomes marred, and its forelegs battered and bowed. In the ancient Capital of Harbor Grace, they have these lines as a common saying:—
“Eighteen inches of wooden clog And seven pounds, or I'll kill your dog.”
When Sir Henry Arthur Blake, now Governor of Ceylon, was “His Excellency of Newfoundland,” Lady Blake made a special pilgrimage about the colony, trying to induce the various municipal magnates to abandon this “dog law,” but the gracious lady met with no success. The little colony is too conservative to change even for the sake of one of the sweetest women known in British governmental circles.
But if poor Mr. Doggie is hampered, the little shaggy Tor Bay nag has freedom. He is a wonderful creature, bred at Tor Bay, and appears indigenous to the soil. Through long generation, his sires have climbed the precipitous streets and road, until now their offspring are actually born “toeing in,” their tiny hoofs clinging to the rock and shale, shod only with their native agility.
When one thinks of the city of St. John's, one sees the hurrying, motley mob of genial islanders, gay soldiers, rollicking blue-jackets, in its hilly streets. Their lightsome hearts know nothing of those bleak days, when the beautiful city lay in ashes, and later, when “Black Monday” closed the doors of every bank with its fingers of death and dread.
How bravely, how heroically Newfoundland struggled through these two calamities no one can ever realize; but she did struggle through, lifting her valiant little head above fire and failure, retaining her individuality, preserving her pride in a manner that many a larger, wealthier country might envy. When you have been privileged to see her glorious sea-board, her ships, her merchandise, her rich forests, you cease to marvel at her pluck, for she has mothered men who turn these things to good account, and whose loyalty to her never lessened throughout her dark days.