Eric Girard / Rick Leeks – www.ericgirard.com
The Ode to Newfoundland
Sir Cavendish Boyle, 1914
When sunrays crown thy pine-clad hills
And summer spreads her hand,
When silvern voices tune thy rills,
We love thee, smiling land.
When spread thy cloak of shimmering white,
At winter’s stern command,
Through shortened day and starlit night,
We love thee frozen land,
When blinding storms gusts fret thy shore
And wild waves lash thy strand,
Through spindrift swirl and tempest roar,
We love thee, wind-swept land,
As loved our fathers, so we love,
Where once they stood we stand,
Their prayer we raise to heaven above,
God guard thee, Newfoundland.
A World of Difference
These words written by Cavendish Boyle in the early part of the last century are probably the most famous and extensively known words written about Newfoundland. They best express the deep love that Newfoundlanders feel about their native land. They also reflect the feeling Eric Girard and I felt after our fantastic visit to this great land.
Newfoundland for those who don’t know, and I suspect that even s some Canadians, is located off the East Coast of Canada. It’s an island half the size of Great Britain, and has a population of nearly a half-million people. Newfoundland has the oldest and most extensive history in all of North America. At L’Anse au Meadows in the North of the island there is the only authenticated Viking settlement that dates back 1000 years. St John’s is the capital of this Canadian province. Its name was derived from the feast day of St-John the Baptist, because on that day in 1497, John Cabot the explorer sighted the New-Founde-Lande. Newfoundland has the oldest European settlements in North America dating back to the early 1500’s. The first settlements were English Irish and French fishermen and whalers who arrived to fish its abundant waters. It has since grown to be one of the most spectacular locations to visit in all of Canada.
A couple of years ago, Eric Girard, while still living on Maui, told me of his dreams and plans of windsurfing near and around icebergs. I thought he was a little crazy, especially after experiencing the warmth of Maui’s tropical trade winds. I asked him where he would like to do this and he told me he had heard the Newfoundland had icebergs every spring. Being Canadian, I had heard of Newfoundland, but had never dreamed that I might be visiting this unknown and distant island. I often heard jokes about “Newfies”, a not so endearing term used by Canadians for Newfoundlanders. Many Canadians see it as a backwater land, where the people have a peculiar accent and are, at best, unsophisticated.
When Eric spoke to me about taking this trip, I was very skeptical a little afraid. After living on Maui for 15 years and almost exclusively traveling to exotic tropical destinations, I was afraid of the cold and isolation for which Newfoundland is infamous. I would soon find out that my fears were mostly unwarranted. The trip that Eric and I would be taking would begin in my hometown of Montreal and wind its way across Quebec and the Maritime Provinces before a ferry ride would take us to Newfoundland.
Our journey to Newfoundland begins with the anticipation of a 14-hour ferry ride across the often-rough waters of the North Atlantic. The ferry departs from Sydney, Nova Scotia, a depressed and dying mining town in the north of Nova Scotia. We were anxious to get out of Sydney and started on our journey to Newfoundland. To the both of us it would feel like a journey to a New-Found-Lande; a land of riches, laughter, wonder, joy and magic, not to mention great windsurfing.
The ferry was large and seaworthy, which put us both at ease, and Eric was able to drive his van, our home for the earlier portion of our trip, onto the ferry.. We had checked the weather forecast, and luckily, the seas and weather were due to be calm. Right after leaving Sydney for our all-night crossing, we encountered the fog; incredibly damp, bone chilling fog, for which this region is known. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought up enough warm clothes from the van to keep me comfortable through the night. I was soon frozen to the bone and barely able to get any sleep. For me it was the coldest I had been in over a decade. I had to take three long, hot, showers on board the ferry, just to warm myself up. The Newfoundland workers on the ferry were wandering around in short sleeves and some in shorts. But for me, it was a night of torture that didn’t seem to bode well for the rest of the journey. My blood was thin and I wasn’t sure if I could handle the cold that we were bound to encounter. Everyone that we had spoken to before leaving told us that even in July the Newfoundland cold was ever present.
Both Eric and I had spoken of our expectations of Newfoundland, and we had come to an agreement that our expectations would not at all resemble the reality of what we were about to encounter. Before leaving Maui, I had tried to do a little research on Newfoundland; to see what we could expect and maybe find a few images to stoke my creative fire, but I found very little information and virtually no pictures. I was sure Newfoundland was a giant rock with little to photograph and even less to experience, except for perhaps the cold.
Fifteen hours later, sleepless and having braved to cold North Atlantic, we finally arrived in the port town of Placentia on the Avalon Peninsula, one of the many strangely named towns that we would come across. The fog was thicker than the proverbial pea soup as we drove the van off the ferry. From Placentia to St-John’s, our planned destination for the first day, it was a three-hour drive through some of the thickest fog I had ever encountered. I was sure the fog would clear just a little inland, but it wasn’t so. Maybe we would get three weeks of fog with no wind and no images to make our trip successful. I was worried, but I decided to get some desperately needed sleep in the back of the van as Eric began the crossing of the Avalon Peninsula to St-John’s.
Eric woke me up just as we were getting to the city, and to my surprise the sun was out. A quick check with my hand out the window and it didn’t seem too bitterly cold. People were out and about without their winter jackets and “tuques”. Maybe this wouldn’t be so horrible after all.
We decided to drive to Signal Hill, one of St-John’s most popular attractions and vista points. It’s near the mouth of St-John’ bay and overlooks the city and the perfectly sheltered harbor that attracted so many fishermen to call this area home. Driving through the city we soon realized that the people of St-John’s did not fit the images of backcountry folk without any class and ugly looks. Quite the opposite, the city was full of well-dressed sophisticated and beautiful people. It also seemed that there were so many more women than men. Were the men all out fishing? Or was this a paradise for visiting windsurfers from a distant land. The city, too, was surprisingly beautiful, with its mix of colorfully painted San Francisco style Victorian row houses, and a downtown of old red brick and stone buildings reminiscent of old Montreal or Quebec city. It was apparent that the city was old but it was also well kept and clean as a whistle.
The view from Signal Hill was spectacular with the city, harbor and North Atlantic before us. The sky was blue and clear and the air was cool but comfortable and fresh. After our long journey to get here we took in the scenery, got a few images and relaxed for a good while. We were both still exhausted from the ferry ride and the drive and needed the break. Eric while researching the trip had e-mailed “Brad”, one of the half a dozen or so windsurfers that call Newfoundland home and the most avid of the bunch. Apparently, a dozen or so years ago, there was a healthy community of a couple of hundred windsurfers in the area, with weekly regattas in the nearby “ponds”. Unfortunately, like the rest of the windsurf world, that number slowly dwindled with so-called advances and prices of technical equipment that emerged in the early nineties.
Eric had recently decided to move back to Quebec City from Maui with his girlfriend. As a professional windsurfer, his sponsors wanted him to continue his windsurfing competitive career and follow the path of the rest of the professional windsurf community. Eric felt, however, that he might better serve his sponsors and the sport by promoting his them and the recent advances made in the development of equipment, which he felt would bring many windsurfers back to the sport and attract many more to learn and develop a passion for windsurfing. A passion that Eric first experienced 18 years ago when he first stepped on a board in his hometown of Charlevoix, near Quebec City.
What began as a fun weekend activity that all the family could enjoy at the nearby lake or river in almost any wind conditions, somehow became an “extreme” sport with the advent of the short-boards and wave sailing and extreme winds needed for such. We were hoping to get some wave sailing in Newfoundland to round out the whole trip and story, but the main purpose was to get back to the roots of windsurfing with cruising and light wind sailing – fun and adventure. With the recent advent of the Wide-Board, which allows you to reach planing speeds with as little as 5 or 6 knots of wind, we were certain that we would find enough wind to make this a fun and exciting trip. Especially since it seemed that the dreaded fog had cleared.
When I awoke when we entered St-John’s, Eric told me that he had spotted an iceberg in a bay that was visible from the Trans-Canada highway about an hour or so outside of town. After our well-deserved break on Signal Hill, we wet back into town to get coffee and some food.
Eric tried contacting Brad to learn more about the location of the iceberg that he had spotted. He wasn’t able to reach him, but we’d try again later. It was only our first day in St-John’s and it looked like we might be able to fulfill Eric’s dream of cruising on his windsurf-board next to an iceberg. He cautioned me that it appeared pretty foggy in that neighborhood, but we were here for an adventure and after our coffee and a quick check of the map we were off in the general direction of the iceberg.
We soon arrived at Conception Bay, not far from St-John’s and by then the weather had cleared. From the shoreline, we were able to spot a few icebergs some distance away. We decided to follow the enormous bay until we found an iceberg close enough to shore to take pictures, and with any luck, enough wind to cruise with a “berg”. We learned that it is not every year that icebergs make their way all the way to the St-John’s area, so it seemed that lady luck was on our side. Previous to arriving in Newfoundland we thought we might have had to drive several hundred miles north of St-John’s to an area called “iceberg alley” near the village of Twillingate, but happily it was simpler than that.
A couple hours later on the twisting roads of Conception bay, we arrived at Bay Roberts, where the grandest sight of all, it seemed at the time, awaited us. A large iceberg, some 300M across, was apparently grounded, less than a kilometer offshore. And, it was windy enough for Eric to sail with his Wide-Board and his big sail.
The wind-chill off the water made the air considerably colder than at St-John’s. We guessed the water temperature to be about 5 degrees Celsius, (it was actually closer to 3 degrees). Eric rigged his gear, crawled into his thick wetsuit and headed out as I put on my “tuque” and set up my gear to document images of Eric’s dream of sailing around an iceberg.
We couldn’t have happened upon a better location, Bay Roberts was oriented perfectly for the wind direction and the iceberg was accessible from both sides of the bay, and I had several good angles from which to shoot photos. I was still leery of shooting from the water. I’d be submerged to my neck in water that was 3 degrees, and Eric with his Wide-Board seldom fell into the crystal clear blue, but near-freezing water of the picturesque bay. Another day, perhaps, would be better; after I had enough images in the “can” to warrant another angle and brave the freezing water. Eric sailed for an exhilarating couple of hours from two separate “launch” sites. I got a lot of the images I wanted for the conditions we had, and Eric only complained slightly of the cold water. He was used to it somewhat, however, because he often sailed in his hometown in early spring in similar and sometimes colder conditions. He exited the water so exhilarated that he could barely contain his almost overwhelming joy of having lived his dream of sailing around icebergs. He said that he got close enough to see some of the 90% of the iceberg that is underwater, and claimed the water was the clearest he had ever seen with visibility a good 30M.
Only a small portion of an iceberg is visible above the water (10% or so). His only worry that day, were the large chunks of ice that were occasionally breaking off with a loud noise and a big splash that generated small waves. Later that evening we would hear of a tragedy that killed 3 people just a couple of weeks earlier when a boat got too close to an iceberg, a huge piece broke away and swamped the boat carrying the hapless victims overboard. We also heard stories of how an iceberg can suddenly explode from thermal pressure or completely flip around in the water carrying anything on the surface down a hundred meters or more in its wake. We weren’t dealing with benign beauty here after all, (a large iceberg had sunk the Titanic, remember?) and Eric vowed to be a little more careful during his next iceberg encounter.
Returning, exhausted, to St-John’s after an exhilarating day, we got in touch with Brad who, in typical Newfoundland fashion, invited us to meet his lovely family, eat dinner and stay the night at his home. It turns out that Brad owned the coffee shop on the main street in St-John’s where we ended up having breakfast and great coffee every morning and most evenings that we spent in St-John’s. It was the best place in St-John’s to meet people, socialize, and find out what was happening. Needless to say we slept extremely well and showed up at the coffee shop early next morning.
We had checked the surf and wind forecast before arriving in Newfoundland and had seen a possible swell and wind for our second day on the Avalon Peninsula. We decided to head to what they call the south coast to see if our good luck would continue with some wave sailing. We were going blind, not knowing the coastline, or if there was even hope of windsurfing there. Much of the Newfoundland coast is very steep and cliffy, without much access to the ocean.
The drive down was spectacular and picturesque, with many bays with harbors and fishing boats. The land wasn’t really barren at all. There were immense impenetrable spruce forests interspersed with large “ponds”, we might call many of them lakes for their sheer size, but here, unless it is really big, it’s just a pond.
The further out of town we got the smaller the villages became. To my surprise, there were a lot more people than I imagined there would be. There is little or no poverty either, with beautiful large well-kept homes and neat yards planted with flowers and large stacks of firewood stowed for the long winter. Even in July many chimneys were smoking with fires to warm the homes of these kind and generous people. Everywhere we stopped people greeted us warmly with big smiles and even bigger hellos. I’m still not sure what the country folks do for a living, since the fishing industry, which was Newfoundland’s reason for being, is essentially shut down in the hope that this will allow depleted fish stocks of cod, king crab and other species to recover from decades of over-fishing. It’s a common problem that seems to be repeating itself all over the world. Here the move was drastic, with very low fishing limits that keep fishermen in the water for only a few short weeks a year.
Most Newfoundlanders are Irish descent, with some English thrown in there. I can see why they felt at home here, the landscape, the weather; the coastline must be very similar to Ireland. We noticed also that the further we got from St-John’s the heavier the accents became, and on the south coast itself I could, at best, understand about half of what the locals were saying. Until recently, when many of the roads were finally built, the isolated villages have a hard time understanding each other’s accents and dialects. The 9 or 10 months of winter must also add to that isolation.
Even though the air was cold, I was glad to be here in July and not January. We arrived at the south coast a couple hours after leaving St-John’s, only to find the dreaded thick fog, which normally shuts down any chance of sailing. There was a swell running, but only a small one, with the best waves being about knee high. The thick fog made it hard to see most of the coastline; we spotted a few potential surf breaks, but they would have to wait to be sailed and surfed another day. Eric thought the day was going to be a wash and he wouldn’t get to sail.
But at Trepassy bay there was a small venturi effect from the narrow bay with a small cliff on the opposite side. Eric sailed through the thick fog and with the help of the Wide-Board and his big sail managed to reach planing speeds most of his session. Although it wasn’t the best sailing session he had ever had, getting wet and sailing in conditions new to him were reason enough to be content. Brad’s friend Beth, who had come with us to the south coast after a quick introduction at the coffee shop, invited us to stay at her great apartment just a few blocks from downtown St-John’s. Eric and I had planned on camping most of the trip, but the generosity of the Newfoundlanders was overwhelming and they wouldn’t hear of us being uncomfortable camping in the cold damp Newfoundland nights. We would come back to the south coast for more discoveries and hopefully some wave sailing.
We headed back to St-John’s and set up base at Beth’s. A couple of times in Quebec, trying to find out information on Newfoundland, we had heard vague rumors that the Newfoundlanders were famous party goers and that there was this famous street in town that was reputed to be quite a good time.
George St. is renowned in St-John’s and fairly well known throughout Canada for its three blocks of nothing but bars, disco’s and pubs. The street is only open to foot traffic and on several weekends every summer becomes a big three-block festival. Eric and I decided to check it out and see if Newfoundlanders would live up to their partying reputation.
On Wednesday night we happened upon a scene of thousands of revelers listening to bands on the street, Gaelic musicians in the pubs and dancers in the discos. We were amazed at the enthusiasm everywhere around us. Newfoundlanders of all ages, singles and couples, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves with laughter and cheers of joy.
We had seen and were told that the women far outnumbered the men in St-John’s. This was mainly because available work and the fishing industry closures had forced most men to find work elsewhere. They were right, there must have been four gorgeous women to every man there. The women were classy, fashionable, beautiful and ready to have a great time. Big smiles grew on our tired faces as we realized what we were in for lots of fun. It doesn’t seem to matter what night of the week it is; the partying is just as lively and nearly as busy on Sunday’s as on any other day. The dancing, the drinking, the cheers, went on almost all night every night, and as we returned home to get some sleep we were greeted with the light of the next day. It was a great change from the early evenings and slow nights of Maui. It’s a party paradise that could only happen on George St., the gentleness and non-aggression of the Newfoundlanders making it possible. This scene almost anywhere else would likely be chaotic and violent. It’s just another thing to love about Newfoundlanders.
The next several days were spent exploring the gorgeous scenery of the many villages, coves, wildlife, lakes and ponds of the Avalon Peninsula. There’s some 9,000 kilometers of coastline to explore in Newfoundland, not to mention the vast interior lands, forests ponds and lakes. I shot great scenic images and Eric managed to windsurf everyday. We saw moose, caribou, rabbits and many different species of birds and eagles. It’s a wildlife lover’s dream come true.
The villages were quiet and quaint and the people were proud with their beautiful flower gardens. There was beauty and color everywhere. The lupines and dandelions and other flowers transformed the sides of the highways into a cornucopia of color. The beaches had rocks of every color from white and red to green and gray. The houses were painted red and yellow or purple and white. It was, again, not the drab, cold, gray, empty, isolated land that I had envisioned. It was surprising, refreshing, and beautiful, shattering our preconceived image of Newfoundland. The people were more colorful and giving and friendly than I could ever have imagined.
Eric sailed bays in several ocean locations, some of which had whales frolicking in the distance, some with shipwrecks visible, a clear sign of the dangerous seas that surrounded us. You have to admire the fishermen that still work here, and those of days gone by. They fish in all the varied conditions of the bitter cold and foggy North Atlantic waters. They are some of the bravest people on earth.
The interior “ponds” (there are, literally, tens of thousands of them) had some of the best windsurfing conditions of all, with winds on a few days reaching 30 knots. The water, of course, is much warmer than the ocean and all Eric needed for comfort was a neoprene vest and swim trunks. Eric practiced his freestyle moves on the windy but smooth waters of these lakes and ponds of the interiors, surrounded by huge forest or the caribou’s vast tundra lands. Sometimes you might see a fisherman on these ponds, but it’s a vast resource for water and wind that mostly goes unused through the short summer season.
Most nights found us back in St-John’s exhausted from our long days. We got ready for the longer nights with coffee and dinner. Our nighttime host showed us around and introduced us to dozens of people that helped make our stay memorable and eventful. We ventured to the south coast a couple more times in search of wind and waves, but without much luck. It always seemed to be foggy, and the waves never really lived up to the forecast. That is probably because of the Grand Banks 50 or so miles out, that made the area one of the best fishing banks in the world, but cut down the swell size and power before it reaches the coast. There’s lots of potential, with several point and beach breaks that must get epic during those big hurricane swells that move up the east coast of the U.S. in the fall. We did find a great surf spot where I got my chance to fulfill MY dream to surf Newfoundland. The last place on earth I thought I’d be surfing, if you had asked me a year ago. The waves were small and the water was cold but the setting made up for it all.
Talking to Brad in St-John’s one morning, he told us that he had been contacted by a movie production company to serve as a stand in for a feature movie about a surfer from Vancouver Island, B.C. that falls in love with a Newfoundland girl and follows her back out to Newfoundland. They were filming the last scene to the movie, where the guy goes out surfing near icebergs with his buddy (sounded like us, minus the love part). Well, we happened to be in town with surfboards and wetsuits, so why not take the opportunity to make a little money in the meantime, so we agreed to do it. It ended up being the best luck we got the whole trip. We ended up back in Bay Roberts at our original iceberg for the filming. It was a beautiful and very warm day (28*C-luckily), I convinced the director to use Eric a windsurfer in the background. Brad and I were the surfers doing the scene. I think we spent 3 hours in the water that day.
Half way through the day, a male Narwhal started following Eric around. Narwhals are small arctic whales that are rare enough in arctic waters, but near St-John’s!? There hadn’t been a Narwhal that far south in over 25 years!! It was following Eric sailing all over the place, he was a little frightened and bewildered at first, but soon realized that it was just being friendly. It ended up being around and near him for a good 2 hours. We were stuck filming and my camera was back at the van. I needed those images…this was unheard of, we were being paid and I couldn’t just leave. Suddenly the production crews camera broke, which gave me the perfect opportunity to run up the cliffside to the road, flag down the first car and recover my camera from the van. I paddled out on the surfboard and got Eric and the Narwhal to pose for me. I think the Narwhal even smiled for the camera. I reloaded my water housing and went back out to shoot another roll. By this time, the Narwhal had vanished back into the deep blue waters of Bay Roberts. The electric atmosphere of the encounter was overwhelming and once again we couldn’t believe our luck. For the rest of the trip, we joked, when we would see a perfect location for windsurfing, that this time we would get shots half-in/half-out of the water with Eric doing a front loop over a moose with a beautiful Newfoundland girl in the background in a bikini fishing for our dinner. I think I – I don’t remember – got pretty drunk the night after the Narwhal encounter.
The days and nights went by and our luck continued. Eric windsurfed the battery of St-John’s harbor with no wet suit one day, it looked inviting, but can you imagine falling in 5*C water without a wetsuit? Eric said it was the most scared that he had been in his long windsurfing career. The Wide-Board came through for him once again and he barely got his ankles wet.
The whole trip, Eric and I got along famously. Sometimes traveling in a cramped van with the same person can be testing. However, there was never a disagreement between us and I don’t think that I’ve ever laughed as much as I did on this trip. It was a miracle, of sorts. Now there was only one thing left to do on what had become our epic adventure, Eric wanted to wave sail and I wanted to surf some waves of some consequence. We had seen an area that received north swell with several good setups for surf and wave sailing potential, and I had been checking the forecast on the Internet, even if it wasn’t the season for north swell. There was always that hope.
Near the end of our stay in Newfoundland, it finally seemed that the conditions were coming together for a head high north swell and the right wind direction. “Back on the road again”, as Eric almost always said as we headed out again for another 3 hour drive to search for the ideal wave conditions that we had patiently waited for during our three weeks in Newfoundland. On the way there we went by a town called Dildo, where it always seemed to be “blowing hard on Dildo pond”. It had become a running joke with us, when we would be back in St-John’s and the coffee shop girls would ask us how our day went, we would say that it was “blowing hard at Dildo”. They informed us, and this is no joke, that the town of Dildo is somewhere between the towns of Backside and Spreadeagle. I guess it was a little bit difficult to be entertained back in the day when women were scarce. Eric posed for a picture with the roadway direction sign that had been changed from Dildo 12 (km) to Dildo 12”.
We arrived to the sight of waves and wind and frigid temperatures. It was cold and cloudy; the waves seemed to be building along with the wind. Eric set out on his wave gear that had been stowed since our journey began in Montreal almost a month earlier. Eric caught a handful of head high North Atlantic swell before the wind started changing direction and dying quickly. He landed on the beach excited to have accomplished all of his goals and dreams for his Newfoundland journey. Cold and exhausted we rejoiced in the amazing luck that had brought us to this distant northern shore. The wind backed off completely, the sun came out to warm our cold bones and the surf continued to pick up. I would also get my chance to surf these Atlantic waves, completing my own dreams of overhead surf in my home country of Eastern Canada. We explored the nearby coast and found several excellent surf spots with points, reefs and cloudbreaks that had all the potential of epic surf during the right season. We vowed to return someday for the fall season when the water was warmer (sort of) and the points were pumping.
Our drive back to St-John’s again took us by Dildo pond where it was still “blowing hard”. All along the way the locals would continue to give us the “wink and nod” greeting that perplexed us for the longest time. It seemed they were telling us they weren’t sure of us, but it ended up being their way of being friendly and greeting us warmly.
Later the next day, after another long night of partying and celebrating in town, we said goodbye to all of the great people we had become close to on this trip. We left with trepidation and sadness that all of this would soon be coming to an end. All that remained was the long cold ferry ride back to Nova Scotia. Newfoundland was a “World of Difference.” It was different from what we had expected and different from the impression that other Canadians have that have never been here.
I’ll tell you this, if you haven’t been to Newfoundland, you haven’t seen Canada. Go, bring your sailboard, and experience this “World of Difference” for yourself.
God bless Newfoundlanders.
Many thanks to Brad, Dan, Beth, Lorne, and especially the coffee girls who always had a big smile and a warm cup of Joe ready for us.
Texte et photos / text and pics: Rick Leeks
Visitez le site d’Eric: www.ericgirard.com
©2003 Éric Girard. Tous droits réservés. info@ericgirard.com
