A touching tribute to Canada's tenth province, this book tells the story of a ruggedly beautiful landscape through the words of its people and the photographs of two exceptional photojournalists.
Between 1892 and 1930, American photographer Edith S. Watson made repeated trips to outport Newfoundland and coastal Labrador,getting to know the rugged land and its extraordinary people. Along the way, she explored, recorded, and compiled a treasury of captivating, dignified images of life at the turn of the century. In doing so, she has left a rich collection of images seen nowhere else.
Since joining confederation with Canada in 1949, Newfoundland has experienced huge industrial and economic progress. At the same time, development of the province's natural resources has put increasing pressure on traditional outport culture. To exacerbate matters, the last decade has witnessed a dying fishery, the lure of economic prosperity in the west, and the attraction of larger urban centres. As a result, outport communities are feeling the brunt of vast outmigration. Much of the distinct heritage that has characterized Newfoundland for so many years has changed drastically. However, the uniqueness of outports, nurtured by centuries of isolation, will always remain. Outport is a snapshot in time between the years 1969-1985, vividly capturing the life of one of these communities. Through dramatic photographs and personal stories told by the people themselves, this book takes a look back at a lifestyle that has changed forever. Candace Cochrane first came to Newfoundland in 1967 to work in a children's summer recreation program run by the Quebec-Labrador Foundation (QLF) on the Northern Peninsula. The landscape and its people inspired her to develop her photography skills in order to document her experience of outport life. Since then, she has divided her time between working as a photojournalist, a teacher of photography, and a cultural heritage program director for QLF. Her photographs have appeared in numerous magazines and books in Canada and the US. Some of the photographs from this book are collected in the National Archives of Canada. For part of each year, Cochrane lives and works out of her house on the Northern Peninsula, where she first fell in love with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
As the body of First World War literature continues to grow, women’s experiences of this period remain largely obscure.This innovative collection addresses the invisibility of women in this literature, particularly with regard to Canadian and Newfoundland history. Drawing upon a multidisciplinary spectrum of recent work – studies on mobilizing women, paid and volunteer employment at home and overseas, grief, childhood, family life, and literary representations ?– this book brings Canadian and Newfoundland women and girls into the history of the First World War and marks their place in the narrative of national transformation.
In over 220 drawings and photographs, Robert Mellin presents the development of architecture in the decades immediately following Newfoundland's 1949 union with Canada. Newfoundland's wholehearted embrace of modern architecture in this era affected planning as well as the design of cultural facilities, commercial and public buildings, housing, recreation, educational facilities, and places of worship, and Premier Joseph Smallwood often relied on modern architecture to demonstrate the progress made by his administration. Mellin explores the links between Smallwood and modern architecture, revealing how Smallwood guided the development of numerous architectural projects. He also looks at the work of two innovative local architects, Frederick A. Colbourne and Angus J. Campbell, showing how their architecture was influenced by their life-long interest in art. The first comprehensive work on an important period of architectural development in urban and rural Newfoundland, Newfoundland Modern complements Mellin's award-winning book on the outport of Tilting, Fogo Island.
The true story, drawn from official documents and hours of personal interviews, of how Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation and became Canada's tenth province in 1949. A rich cast of characters--hailing from Britain, America, Canada and Newfoundland--battle it out for the prize of the resource-rich, financially solvent, militarily strategic island. The twists and turns are as dramatic as any spy novel and extremely surprising, since the "official" version of Newfoundland history has held for over fifty years almost without question. Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders will change all that.
A compelling true story of the author's desperate attempts to save an eighty-ton fin whale trapped in a Newfoundland lagoon. As he tries to persuade wildlife authorities and the Canadian press to help him in his quest, he must fend off curious and uncaring locals, who want to harvest the helpless whale for sport. As it tells one of Mowat's most personal and moving stories, this book becomes an impassioned plea to save a species that seems doomed to extinction. A classic nature book now back in print. In the 1960s, Farley Mowat was living in the tiny fishing community of Burgeo on the southwest coast of Newfoundland. When an 80-ton fin whale became trapped in a nearby saltwater lagoon, Mowat rejoiced: here was the first chance to study at close range one of the most magnificent animals in creation. Some local villagers thought otherwise, blasting the whale with rifle fire and hacking open her back with a motorboat propeller. Mowat appealed desperately to the authorities, but it was too late-ravaged by an infection resulting from her massive wounds, the whale died. A plea for the end of commercial hunting of the whale, this moving account blends all the tension of the life-and-death struggle for one animal's survival with the drama of man's wanton destruction of life-bearing creatures and the environment itself.
For twelve generations, the inhabitants of a remote island in Newfoundland have lived and died together. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, they are facing resettlement. They have each been offered a generous compensation package to leave the island for good. There’s just one proviso: everyone must go. Gradually, all of the residents surrender to the inevitable. All of the residents, that is, but one: old Moses Sweetland. Motivated in part by a sense of history and belonging, and concerned that his somewhat eccentric great-nephew will wilt on the mainland, Moses resists the coercion of family and friends in order to hold onto the only place he’s ever called home. As his options dwindle, Moses Sweetland concocts a scheme to remain the island’s only living resident. Cut off from the outside world, with the food supply diminishing and weather shredding away the last evidence of human habitation, Sweetland finds himself, finally, in the company of ghosts . . . Written with incomparable emotional power and depth, Sweetland is a story about loyalty and courage, about the human will to persist even when all hope seems lost.
The Dictionary of Newfoundland English, first published in 1982 to regional, national, and international acclaim, is a historical dictionary that gives the pronunciations and definitions for words that the editors have called "Newfoundland English." The varieties of English spoken in Newfoundland date back four centuries, mainly to the early seventeenth-century migratory English fishermen of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, and to the seventeenth- to the nineteenth-century immigrants chiefly from southeastern Ireland. Culled from a vast reading of books, newspapers, and magazines, this book is the most sustained reading ever undertaken of the written words of this province. The dictionary gives not only the meaning of words, but also presents each word with its variant spellings. Moreover, each definition is succeeded by an all-important quotation of usage which illustrates the typical context in which word is used. This well-researched, impressive work of scholarship illustrates how words and phrases have evolved and are used in everyday speech and writing in a specific geographical area. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English is one of the most important, comprehensive, and thorough works dealing with Newfoundland. Its publication, a great addition to Newfoundlandia, Canadiana, and lexicography, provides more than a regional lexicon. In fact, this entertaining and delightful book presents a panoramic view of the social, cultural, and natural history, as well as the geography and economics, of the quintessential lifestyle of one of Canada's oldest European-settled areas. This second edition contains a supplement offering approximately 1500 new or expanded entries, an increase of more than 30 per cent over the first edition. Besides new words, the supplement includes modified and additional senses of old words and fresh derivations and usages.