St. John's, Newfoundland

There's an honest ruggedness to Newfoundland that I've never seen anywhere else. The air of delightful pretention and cultural grandeur of Victoria have not followed me here. This island was settled by some of the first people to ever leave the comfort of Europe. Breaking free of the roots of their lineage that had grown into the soil of that continent for thousands of years, they came to North America to capture a land that was as tough and unconquerable as they were.


The whole place retains that atmosphere from so long ago, that kind of innovative, chaotic, disorderly "do with what we have" philosophy from the people who made it what it was. Rows of houses of all different colors built side by side up hills steep enough to fall down. The city's roads are paved conveniently from the horse carriage trails of 200 years ago; seven way intersections and streets that wind away into nothing. The close-knit, friendly, small town, lay down your life for your neighbor ideal is prominent throughout the province, even in a big city like St. John's. As a Calgarian, I'm not at all accustomed the idea of smiling and waving at the people you pass on the streets, but it's sure something I could get used to.


The landscape itself is spectacular. There's beauty everywhere you look. Windswept forests and wave-pounded cliffs, craggy hills and rocky shores; no such thing as prairies here. The thing I found most enchanting was standing on a grassy drop off overlooking the ocean, watching the sailboats and the humpback whales mingle with the horizon. Looking down at the rock face rizing with a heart stopping abruptness out from under a navy ocean blanket that sets its foamy curl crashing against it as if trying to suck it back in, it's not hard to imagine why the locals call this island simply "The Rock." It's a strange feeling you get when you follow the shoreline with your gaze and watch it curve backwards through the mist to eventually enclose itself against the sea. It's a refuge, a sanctuary in a flowing, heaving, chaotic mass. Substance surrounded by an irregular nothing. It makes you feel like this is the only place in the world, and the only place there needs to be.


I guess this is the quintessence of an island.