Finding Newfoundland

There’s a cluster of people wearing white terrycloth robes in the ship’s lobby. A staffer is pouring shot glasses of Baileys at the front desk, and we are downing them as quickly as she sets them up. A stocky man with silver hair raises his glass to me. “Gird up your loins,” he advises.

Murray is from New Zealand – a sheep farmer, no less – on his first trip here. The annual Adventure Canada circumnavigation of Newfoundland is just about the only way to see the entire coastline. Parts of the island are still accessible only by sea: Fogo Island on the northeast coast and much of the isolated south coast from Rose Blanche to the Burin Peninsula. I was born and raised here, and I’ve been to every corner of Newfoundland a road can take you to. But the most remote communities on this trip will be as new to me as to any of the CFAs (come from aways) I’m travelling with.

We boarded the Akademic Ioffe, a Russian research vessel moonlighting as a cruise ship, on a Sunday afternoon in late October and left St. John’s harbour just after dark. It was an unusually warm evening, and we crowded the upper decks as the ship sailed through the Narrows. Festive lights of houses strung across the cliffs of the Battery, the black black black of the ocean ahead. “I grew up hearing about Newfoundland,” Murray told me. “It seemed like the most exotic place in the world.”

I doubt if his dreams included a dip in the frigid North Atlantic, but he’s willing to take the plunge, along with 15 other hardy souls. The sane passengers, and most of the Russians who crew the ship, are lining the rails to watch, wearing Gore-Tex and fleece-lined gloves. It’s a seasonal 10ºC, the low cloud offering a steady drizzle of rain, the ocean temperature just above freezing. I hand Murray another shot of Baileys, throw back one more myself.

The Ioffe is anchored in the Bay of Islands on the west coast of Newfoundland. In the curved arm of the cove, I can see the abandoned outport we spent the morning exploring. A row of summer cabins on the landwash. Above them, a high meadow cleared of trees by hand generations ago, a horse and two foals that kept their distance while we wandered around ashore.

The gangway stairs have been lowered to the waterline, and I take off my robe, the drizzle stippling my skin with goosebumps. There are two Zodiacs idling five metres from the ship to make sure none of us goes under. At the landing, I say a quick prayer for my bits.

And jump in.

Even to me, Newfoundland has always felt slightly alien, another world altogether.

Since leaving St. John’s, we’ve stopped in at 200-year-old fishing villages and sailed through the foothills of the Long Range Mountains in Bonne Bay fjord. In Seldom Come By and Raleigh and Bird Cove, we’ve stuffed ourselves on bottled moose and caribou, bakeapple tarts, molasses buns, freshly caught shrimp and crab, roasted capelin, fish and brewis. We’ve hiked into the tablelands of Gros Morne National Park, where the mantle that runs beneath the earth’s surface has been forced above ground by the pressure of continents colliding, the high sulphur content in the soil making the plateau glow an eerie orange-yellow. Even to me, Newfoundland has always felt exotic and slightly alien, another world altogether.

The entire south coast is still ahead of us, including François, nestled in the bowl of an 800-metre-long fjord, the rock walls rising 120 metres over the ocean like something out of The Lord of the Rings. And there’s one of North America’s largest seabird rookeries at Cape St. Mary’s, where tens of thousands of gannets, cormorants and razor-billed auks are still nesting on sheer sea stacks.

But at this very moment, still under the ocean’s surface, I’m too cold to think about where we’ve been or where we’re going. Or what day it is. Or what my name might be.

After the blinding shock of the first moments in the water, a kind of numbing relief sets in. I swim out and turn to watch the others come down the gangway in a line. The women wearing plastic leis around their necks. A man with furry dog ears, brought along for a costume dinner, strapped to his head. Whatever gets you through, I guess.

Fifteen minutes in the ocean on a fall afternoon, and my skin feels like it’s on fire. It’s no wonder so many fishermen never bother learning to swim.

There’s a surly Russian sailor on the landing to help lift people out of the water, and most swimmers make their exit as quickly as humanly possible. But I feel a ridiculous urge to stake my claim to the place, as if I could prove my connection with pure stubbornness. I tread water as the CFAs retreat up the stairs to towels, call out to those at the rail who are having second thoughts. I manage to stay in until the final threesome, carrying the Newfoundland flag, stop to argue about whether to jump in from halfway up the gang. Fifteen minutes in the ocean on a calm fall afternoon, and my skin feels like it’s on fire. That’s when I head for the ladder. It’s no wonder so many fishermen never bother learning to swim.

There’s a sauna tucked away on the Ioffe’s fifth deck, and most of the swimmers make a beeline for the warmth of it. The New Zealand sheep farmer is there, shivering and smiling. Murray dove in headfirst before making a quick turn for the ladder. “I don’t mind the cold so much,” he tells me, “but I don’t like swimming where I can’t see bottom.”

Someone has had the good sense to bring along the Baileys, and I raise my two ounces to Murray. “Is it exotic enough for you?” I ask him.

“Hell, yes,” he says.

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