E-mail A Friend Tell a friend about the information found on this page by sending them an e-mail.   Your Name: Your E-mail:   Type an e-mail address, then click add: Add a Personal Message: (Optional)

October 2012 issue

Table of Contents The Grey Cup turns 100 The spell of the Yukon The great green shark hunt Field station woes Futuristic utility poles The Wright stuff Sudbury mine rehab Wind power The coldest place in Canada Nààts’ihch’oh National Park is born Interview with Prime Minister Stephen Harper When the capelin arrive Maps from the past The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Book Reviews Reverberations ----------------------------------------------- Past issues archive Subject index Contributors index

As was my evening custom, I walked from our cabin down to the ocean to view the last rays of the sun as they disappeared behind the line that separates the sea and sky.

I headed for a narrow strip of pebbled land. This area has been shaped by the quirks of the sea, with rocky cliffs shouldering the land beyond which all Newfoundlanders have come to describe simply as “the Rock.” I often lingered there at twilight, quietly considering the mystery and motion of the water. But this evening was different: a raucous flock of gulls had descended on the shoreline, screaming and squawking, and the drab stones were alive with hundreds of iridescent creatures, flickering and flopping on the rocks.

The capelin were rolling. Every year, these tiny sardine-like fish are brought in by the irresistible tidal force of life, to spawn and die on the rocks. It was not only the gulls that knew this secret. Minke whales glided along the surface nearby, emptying their spent lungs with a bellowing blast, then disappearing into the crests and troughs.

Farther out, great humpback whales appeared as ghostly apparitions, like distant barques with plumes of misty spray for sails. Occasionally, one would breach, spiralling upward, its pectoral fins reaching outward as if to balance themselves, then, inevitably, the humpback would crash into the depths like a freight train that has jumped the tracks.

The arrival of the capelin is always greeted with enthusiasm by Newfoundlanders. As the capelin complete their final act, the islanders are there, harvesting the sustenance of the sea. Older men, retired from years of labour, arrive at first light, flinging cast nets into the tide. Later, entire families come, with lawn chairs, coolers and blankets. Some of the children imitate the fishermen plying their craft, as the younger ones wander about the shore, shrieking, laughing and playing together.

When twilight descends, lawn chairs are gathered around a driftwood bonfire. Someone might have a flask, another cold sandwiches or a brick of hard cheese, and as the hours pass, free and easy laughter lifts into the dying light. The small children fall asleep in the laps of parents and grandparents, warmed by the crackling bonfire as the sparks travel aloft, fading points of light disappearing far into the starry realms.

But that evening, I was a solitary witness to the cycle of life — the ending and beginning melding seamlessly into one existence, one generation giving life to the next. It perplexed me that this sequence need be so, that death and sacrifice should be the river through which life and survival coursed.

I stood for some time, alone at the water’s edge, lost in my thoughts.

A storm was approaching, heralded by low scudding clouds rushing to stay ahead of the nor’easter, and the gathering wind, aided by the growing chill and mist, shook me from my solitude.

I turned my back to the sea and began the trek back to the cabin. Slowly, the cacophony of gulls and the visiting creatures of the deep faded from my thoughts, replaced by an ancient scripture: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

As I walked, I pondered the paradox that I could find my true purpose only by releasing those selfish concerns and interests that had driven so much of my existence. I struggled to grasp the concept that we are, as individuals, created for one another, that our strengths and weaknesses exist to complement the strengths and weaknesses of others, that as a body of life, we are incomplete without each and every other and that ultimately, we find ourselves only after we have given ourselves away.

By the time I reached the cabin, the storm had descended with a fury, the darkness pierced by flashes of lightning, briefly illuminating the sheets of rain walking across the hillside. Once inside, I lit an oil lamp and sat down to read, and though the cabin shook in the wind, the lamp burned bright, filling the room with its light and warmth, flickering now and then, but holding true, on into the night.

top