I’ve picked a dull day to tour the bays of north central Newfoundland today. At least the place names connive to raise a wry smile … Little Bay, Big Bay, Loon Bay, Bayview, Baytona.
To say nothing of all the various arms and tickles I’m gently feeling my way around, in increasingly prevalent shades of grey which are uniformly lowering themselves over me, without ceremony or pause for breath.
And my thought is: there isn’t much subtlety in the etymology on this hulking great rock.
The study of how Come-by-Chance, Conception Bay and Heart’s Delight all came to be named is surely worthy of a university module (evening tuition a given), or a comic strip in Viz.
I’m sticking with my nautical arms and saucy tickles up north, for now.
Where Dildo Run Provincial Park is a sight for sore eyes.
Or so my special interest guidebook tells me. I figure looking at the pictures is sometimes better than being there, so I buzz right past, at speed.
As I do so, I’m wondering … who’s running from what in there – bears? moose? mounties?
With what, and why … ? Some kind of bacchanal animal-rights bender. Maybe I should have slipped in there to find out.
Right now, I’m on the Road to the Isles, past Lewisporte and through endless trees, trees and more trees, over the causeway to a healthy island life – and vigorous with it, no doubt.
Captain Dave will show me the ropes. The only problem is, he’s not in. Too busy sorting out whales, by all accounts – he speaks their language.
Or maybe he’s on a clandestine trip to Comfort Cove, popping in on the way there to oversee his affairs in Exploits and Happy Valley.
Captain Dave’s wife and Captain Dave’s mate will have to do.
The former tells me how it is – you’re on an up-and-down island, me ol’ cock – while the latter plays me like an ugly stick. Or more accurately, he plays an ugly stick for me.
I’m half-expecting a reincarnated Benny Hill to pop out from behind the velvet curtain at the back there, and while I’m waiting for this, I pass comment to Captain Dave’s mate that I wouldn’t want to be accidentally hit by his instrument.
Seeing the look of confusion on his face, I immediately clarify: hit by your ugly stick!
Captain Dave’s mate throws me a look of dismay, bordering on disgust, as I attempt to clamber out of the hole I’ve dug.
It’s as if I’ve just uttered the worst insult ever know to man; gone well and truly beyond the pail.
I can’t tell if he’s doing this for show, but then he wanders off and we never talk to each other again.
I carry on my tour outdoors, alone and unaccompanied, corpsing past the fisherman mannequins and onto the floating pontoons.
Whale skeletons, a means to a dead end … step inside this way please!
I am stood upright in the belly of a sei whale, just over the causeway which divides opinion. Mummers on one side, ne-er-do-wells on the other.
Captain Dave is stuck in the middle, sorting out the blubber.
Although around here, there is no fat of the land – you make good your own destiny, with your own hands. Even if that means storing a whale carcass on a private island for two years.
Five bucks is not enough for this.
Father’s Stage is a drifting house, pulled across the ice. A permanent mooring with a VCR recorder of how we used to live. A certain kind of love shines through.
The tools, the workings, the fish baskets and shrimp attractors, I can take or leave.
The baleen, on the other hand, is a whale comb, a ridiculous shed-sized monument to the dregs, the low-life.
My silent awe is quickly shattered by the sound of someone playing Good Vibrations on an ugly stick and a harmonica.
It’s funny – and slightly mystifying – what comes out in the wash around here.
The story of cod, for one – and I can believe it; there’s enough bloody evidence.
On my way out, I strike up some chat with Captain Dave’s wife: a straight talker with a straight face – difficult to get her to turn a smile, in fact, although somehow I briefly manage it … most likely through my arrow-straight vacationist ignorance.
When Captain Dave’s wife slowly realises that I won’t be buying anything, I sense I’m only adding to her air of resignation, which I can only guess has been building in pressure all afternoon.
Captain Dave, you’d better bring back a good haul for supper, or your guts will be for garters!
I sail onwards into the real Twillingate, via Little Harbour, and the Natural Arch which needs a sign and two very enthusiastic ladies from Toronto to stand by the entrance, while one of their husbands loiters up top.
I swear that man is holding a tickling stick, although difficult to tell from down below. Whatever floats your boat, I say.
The ladies giggle. They will sleep well tonight, whereas me I’m only semi-hypnotised, and wondering how I end up mixing with these people – the retired.
I take a cold hike around to Jonas Cove, to see a remote semi-circular bay surrounded by trees and, being so secluded, presumably sparks of seedy Newfoundland euphemisms.
I jog on – someone’s got to.
In town, my car takes me over the Tickle Bridge and pulls off at my digs, where bizarrely I’m met by Where’s Wally – plastered, on one side of the building.
And right at the point when I think the day can’t possibly get any weirder, I’m having a conversation inside with someone I’ve just met, about who will be screaming the loudest here come 5am.
Yes I guess the odds are it will likely be the hyperactive kids with the life-threatening glut of allergies, with whom I can’t compete, but hey I throw my hat into the ring in another stillborn pursuit of humour.
Outside, talk of motorbikes with Justin, the father of the picky kids, the driver of the mean-looking off-roader. They’ve taken the long route here from NYC, via Labrador – which is barking, if you ask me.
In a bid to comprehend the events of the day, of course I end up in the brewery tap over the road for fresh beer and live music and a plate of hot food.
Once again, a beefy crooner is singing songs everyone else seems to know except me, even the Harry Potter fan in the witch’s hat.
Yet when the guy inexplicably plays Wonderwall, I fall off my stool and float off into another world … all the time hearing the folk around me speaking in riddles.
G’wan b’y!
(I don’t say)
An Outside World 