After reading The Shipping News and later the excellent novel by Wayne Johnston – The Colony Of Unrequited Dreams, Newfoundland was high on my list. It is the most eastern province of Canada yet exudes its own personality and character. You get the feeling it is not really part of anything or anyone but an independent Island with its own unique culture.
In 2010 I took a road trip from east to west and then flew from the capital St John’s in a small plane to the tip of the Northern Peninsula spotting icebergs drifting below. I was overwhelmed by the grand beauty of Newfoundland. I was expecting it to be desolate and barren but in the summer it was teeming with wildlife, the roads were wide and empty and the people endearing with their peculiar dialect which sounded like a mixture of Irish and Old English.
Since that road trip, I have only ever flown over Newfoundland en route to other parts of Canada and usually in the winter. Then you look down and see a land covered in snow and ice and realise how harsh life is for the people who live there.
