The Second Part of Chapter 8: Eileen and Her Province

On the first of September, Margaret received a letter from Clarissa and James; it was a letter rather than an e-mail because, as Clarissa said, she would rather not have been burdened by electronics, and she really didn’t want to carry an awkward laptop around; for this reason, James and her­­­­––the letter bore both signatures––had used pen and paper:

Dear Mom and Dad,

The trip to Newfoundland went okay, but
there was unfortunately a large amount of rain when throughout the road trip. This was to be expected, as the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence surround us on all sides, thought it would have been nice had there been a bit more sun. It wasn’t as warm as we were hoping either, and swimming on the west coast was quite chilly.

What the province finds lacking in terms of weather, it makes up in terms of the kindness and hospitality we found in its people. When we went hiking from Cape Spear to St. John’s, for instance, we were able to arrange overnight stays in people’s houses; there is so much trust, and it is so touching!

I am writing this on a dinner table in Stephenville, and I took some beautiful pictures in St. John’s but unfortunately, one of us forgot to pack the battery charger with the camera, so we could only take pictures of St. John’s; the battery ran out before we left the Avalon Peninsula. It must have been a minor breakdown in communication, or simply bad luck. Anyways, I have enclosed the photos that I did manage to have developed before we left St. John’s.


Love,


Clarissa Miller.


Sincerely Yours,


James Miller.

Margaret removed the five photographs from the envelope, and examined them. The first was of the two hiking, and she could see in Clarissa's handwriting that it was just west of Cape Spear. The second photo showed a picture of a humpback whale, and on the back, a spidery hand had written, “whenever we could see the coast, we could see a whale. Either they’re that numerous or this one was stalking us”. The third showed them standing on the shore of the harbour opposite Signal Hill; a brown stone tower was just visible crowning the naked hill. The fourth showed them at a cove with a few brightly painted houses, and the note on the back said its name was “Quidi Vidi”. The final picture showed them together at a restaurant, evidently posing. How sweet, she thought, as she recalled her own honeymoon with Hyram; they had gone backpacking across Europe, as Margaret, who in her youth had a forceful personality, wanted to see a different part of the world, and was then something of a hedonist. It would be nice to get away from the mugginess of the summer; even in the Kawarthas, it can get oppressive, she thought, contemplating the cool fog of Newfoundland. That Clarissa had changed her name from Varrette to Miller did not escape her; it was a part of growing up in a woman, she supposed. She was ambivalent about it; it was nice that she was happy, but on the other hand, Margaret had a strong feminist streak, which she had attempted to imbue in her two daughters; her son, on the other hand, was a different case, and she had simply taught him to respect women as equals, which was typically feminist for the period in which her children were raised, in the 1970s. Margaret took the fact that Clarissa had implicitly rejected this by taking her husband’s name as something of a rebuke of her indoctrination, and she simultaneously admired her daughter for her independence, and turned her nose at that same single-mindedness.

On the same day, Ryan and Patricia received a letter from the couple:

Dear Mom and Dad,

We had a few unexpected, small mistakes in our trip to Newfoundland. For instance, I forgot my toothbrush, and had to buy a new one in the airport at St. John’s; we also forgot the battery charger for the digital camera, which means we didn’t take any pictures west of the Avalon Peninsula. Such is life, which one must take one day at a time. Speaking of bad luck, Clarissa sprained her ankle while hiking in Gros Morne, and now she’s limping; but of course, she’s too proud to tell you this. I love her very much, and the love she has returned is most heart-warming, as have been the welcome we have received from the locals. How hospitable they are! I have also enclosed some photos.


Love,



James



Sincerely,



Clarissa.

P.S:
It’s not true about the sprained ankle; I must have just pulled a tendon. I am
all better now, really.

The postscript was in a much neater hand than the body of the letter; Patricia could only assume that it was Clarissa’s writing. The same five photographs that they had sent to Margaret were enclosed. Ryan thought the picture of the humpback whale was very beautiful, coming out of the blue-grey Atlantic, with the rugged Newfoundland coastline just visible on the left corner of the picture. The picture of Quidi Vidi was charming as well, and they reminded him of the trip he took to Nova Scotia as a young married man; it had been a summer trip, a sort of all-Canadian affair. The houses in the picture looked similar to the ones he had seen in Lunenberg: they were of wood, and all brightly painted in contrasting colours, and not a speck of chipping paint in sight. They were nice pictures, but he noted a lack of candid shots of the kind that so well revealed one’s personality. Patricia took the photographs and put them on the mantle above the fireplace, for all to enjoy.

“We really must get those framed,” said she, “they are wonderful pictures. I especially like the one of the whale, as well as the one of them in a restaurant.”

“I wonder who’s taking them,” wondered Ryan.

“I think they’re using the auto-timer,” said Patricia.

“Let’s just be careful these don’t fall into the fire; we'll need to use it in November,”

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The First Part of Chapter 8: Eileen and Her Province

The weather in Newfoundland in the latter part of August was in general disagreeable; it was consistently cool and windy, rarely did they see the sun, and fog and rain were frequent; for this reason, they did not encounter any crowds, but rather had the run of many restaurants they dined in and hotels where they stayed. Thus, Clarissa and James enjoyed top-notch service from the start of the trip, in St. John’s until Deer Lake, when the weather warmed up somewhat. From there, there was a side trip up the western peninsula of the island. Compared to Ontario and even most of the rest of the island, it was virtually uninhabited, and thus they passed many nights without seeing anyone, and they reached the end of their journey in L’Anse Aux Meadows. The most obvious benefit of the side trip was that they had the opportunity to pass through Gros Morne National Park, which James said and Clarissa agreed was the most beautiful park in the province. It was in this park, and this province, that one could get an unspoilt view of the side of the country that was untamed wilderness, and it made an impression on the couple.

The Honeymoon was not purely for pleasure; Venneris had their operations in Corner Brook, and Maurice had asked James, very politely of course, to incorporate a tour of the paper mill into the trip. When they reached Corner Brook, they checked into an elegant inn overlooking a pond; their window faced in the opposite direction, and they could see the chimneys of the mill, and they could smell the fermented pulp; the inlet visible behind the mill and the town looked beautiful.

Clarissa had stubbed her toe on the leg of the bed in the morning, and James woke up with a headache after too many drinks at a pub. It occurred to him that the party at Marble Mountain, which should have excited him, simply left him irritated, and he did not know why: the people were friendly enough, he thought, so it can’t be that. The honeymoon had not gone exactly as expected, as he had not brought along enough underwear. Clarissa reminded him that this was not necessarily a bad thing, as she did not mind him going commando. Secondly, several things had somehow been misplaced: a book they had both wanted to read, and the battery charger for the camera, which meant that they were limited in the pictures they could take. As it turned out, they were limited to just taking pictures of the Avalon Peninsula.

They would be eating their lunch at a park on the waterfront, where they agreed that they would meet Eileen, who James knew as a contact from work: his firm was doing consulting for the newsprint maker, Venneris, where she was the accountant and financial officer. It was a very warm day by Newfoundland standards: twenty-five degrees, and there were a few clouds scudding across the sky. James looked at his watch, but found that it read 10:15, which annoyed him; that’s what his watch had read over an hour ago, meaning it had stopped. They sat on a picnic table and got out their lunch, which consisted of sandwiches and juice boxes. Two minutes later a plump woman of medium height with a friendly face, wearing a flowery blouse and black pants joined them.

“You must be Eileen,” said James. She looks attractive and has kind eyes, he thought.

“Good day to you; you must be James and Clarissa. Welcome to Corner Brook,” said Eileen. James did not tell me Clarissa was this attractive, she thought to herself. “You two look so happy together; it feels right, you know?”

“It’s very nice to see you, Eileen. We have lunch if you would like it.” Eileen had already eaten, but took Clarissa up on her offer.

“We have turkey sandwiches,” said James.

“There’s also soup in the thermos,”

James looked in their lunch bag, and his face fell; actually, there was not any soup in the thermos, or any thermos, which was a shame, because he had made his favourite just before leaving the hotel room: French onion.

“Corner Brook looks like a beautiful place in which to live,” said Clarissa.

“Oh my, of course it is; we have beautiful weather in the summer, the air’s very clean, the people are friendly, and there’s so much wildlife. On the other hand, don’t shout this around, but we get a lot of snow here, and I mean a lot: I lost count of the number of times that my car’s been buried by snowstorms.”

“Then it’s a good thing we came in August rather than January,” said James.

“How’s Marble Mountain in the winter?”

“It’s great skiing; there’s always fresh powder, and there are few enough people around to ensure that it doesn’t get crowded. There’s a problem, though.” She indicated the mill, which was producing a lot of steam and a sweet smell that reminded one of the aromas that freshly cut fir trees gave. It was a pleasant aroma, far better than the smog that a large part of Ontario experienced. “Specialising in newsprint isn’t doing us a whole lot of good, and Corner Brook is essentially a mill town; we’re the largest employer, and one fifth of households here have a family member working at the mill. That the market is shrinking is unhelpful. Newspapers are going out of business, and those are our only real customers. Everyone else uses either glossy paper or letterhead, and unless you count the occasional publication of a really long book for which they decided to use a cheaper paper––and those don’t come along often––that’s it.”

“You could make egg cartons; there’s always a market for eggs, you know; people are getting wealthier around the world and with more money, they will buy more protein-rich food, and eat more eggs for breakfast. The cartons are recyclable, so there won’t be any complaints from environmentalists, and the stuff from which you make egg cartons is an intermediate step in making newsprint,” said Clarissa.

“I think you could make the cartridge paper you suggested; it wouldn’t be that much more expensive.”

“You’re right; we just purchased the moulds for making egg cartons last week, as per your suggestion, and we’re actually scheduled to start making them on Friday; they’re just being installed now. It was a good move, thanks for the advice. You, Courtney, and Maurice make a really good team.”

“We’re looking forward to dinner with you,” said Clarissa.

“It will be my pleasure; anything to welcome a couple of travellers into our town,” said Eileen.

James and Clarissa finished their lunch, and then went back to the inn in preparation for their next excursion, which was a short afternoon trip to a place called Blomidon, which James said was named for the strong winds. This was among the many funny names that abounded in Newfoundland. Since their trip east, they had been to Conception Bay, Placentia, and in Norris Point, they had seen a road with the unfortunate name of Hiscock’s Lane.

The hike went okay, though Clarissa tripped at some point, while James encountered a lot of rocks and various trees, which were not friendly to him: he repeatedly snagged his pants on short trees and sharp twigs that had been tortured into stunted forms by the wind, and he nearly fell into the cold and swift-running waters of Blow-Me-Down Brook

Eileen lived in a large house at the south end of town, which meant it commanded a stunning view of the inlet, and they could see nearly every rooftop. It was much less fortunate that she had managed to burn a large portion of the turkey leftovers that she had been cooking into a stew onto the bottom of her Dutch oven. In the end, however, dinner still tasted nice, and the dog would see to the Dutch oven, licking off the sticky remnants before she washed the rest of it.


They stayed the night at the inn, and left the next afternoon after touring the mill. The plan was to continue to Port-aux-Basques, get on the ferry, and continue to Halifax, where they would fly home.

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