This is the second in the Newfoundland series. Scroll down to find Part 1, Gros Morne.
On a lonely highway in a tempest on Newfoundland’s remote Northern Peninsula, we finally spotted our first moose. Luckily, before moose met grill, the big bull stepped off the road into the ditch and I was able to keep the rig down the centerline, avoiding the frigid Gulf of St. Lawrence to our left and a frightfully deep fen to our right.
We had set out that morning from Gros Morne National Park, 350 km south ‘up’ the coast. The night before had been clear and 7 degrees. By early morning it was rain and 17. This was the muggy aftermath of Hurricane Irma, which long after devastating Key West, was now bringing high winds and warm rain to remote—and distinctly non-tropical—Newfoundland.
L’Anse aux Meadows is located on the remote west coast of Newfoundland.
We were bound for L’Anse aux Meadows, on the extreme tip of northwest Newfoundland where lie the remains of North America’s oldest European settlement. It was October so, although we arrived before 5 p.m., twilight was nigh as we settled in at the Viking RV Park. We were the only campers. The office was closed. In the morning I deposited cash in the “off-season/$25 per night” bucket by the abandoned office and drove the remaining few km to the National Historic Site.
One of the advantages to a late fall motorhome trip is that, with darkness extant by suppertime, it’s early to bed—and early to rise. (The healthy wealthy and wise part I won’t comment on.) So, uncharacteristically, we arrived at L’Anse aux Meadows first thing in the morning, just as the park gates were being unlocked.
“…Both are horrible!” said the Leif look-alike…”
Leif Ericsson, a Norse explorer, together with his small group of intrepid fellow Viking seafarers, landed here around 1000 AD. They strategically chose this spot near the Straight of Belle Isle, within sight of Labrador. They called the place Vinland, the land where wild grapes grow. Setting up a sturdy encampment of turf-walled buildings, they explored for hardwood lumber, iron ore and arable land.
From the visitor center we followed a Parks Canada interpreter down the winding boardwalk toward the sea. He showed us the faint remains of the original sod buildings: the Leader’s Hall, labourer’s quarters, a women’s workshop and the smelting hut where a charcoal kiln produced iron from bog ore. But the terrain was unwelcoming—as perhaps was the indigenous native population—and after only a decade or two, the Vikings abandoned the site, burning everything as they departed.
“….I die at you, she said laughing….”
The interpreter’s talk ended at the ruins and, with somber thoughts, we continued down the trail to where the National Park service has artfully reconstructed a series of replica sod huts by the cold sea. The Norse may have been fierce warriors but they couldn’t have been very tall—I had to stoop as we entered the longhouse. The room was dimly lit by a smoky peat fire. When our eyes adjusted to the low yellow light, we noticed a man and a woman clad in Viking attire seated by the comfortable fire. The man, a Leif Ericsson doppelganger, whittled a talisman while the young woman wove fabric on a traditional loom. They explained in detail how the first Viking explorers had lived, eaten, slept and toiled here 1000 years ago, eking out a meagre existence on this inhospitable shore by the frigid north Atlantic.
The replica sod huts are very realistic and come complete with period-costume Parks Canada personnel.
Newfoundlanders are the friendliest, most outgoing of people, so when I asked the young woman if she lived nearby, her Parks Canada persona evaporated like ‘tick fog’ and the talk immediately turned to the upcoming weekend, her two hard-earned days off and fall berry-picking. “I was born just over that side of the ‘arbour. My father ran trawler ‘til the fish ran out.” (In Newfoundland ‘fish’ means cod. Everything else, haddock, flounder, plaice, etc. is known by its usual name.) She winked and said, “Growing up, it was always cold in the house. In winter me mom would open the fridge to warm the place.”
I then inquired about the merits of partridgeberry vs. bakeapple jam. We had been looking for souvenir gifts and both berry varieties were available at the Dark Tickle Chocolate store just down the road. “Both are horrible!” said the Leif look-alike, unable to resist joining in. Our new lady-friend disagreed and told him so in no uncertain terms. “Oh me nerves, he’s got me drove.” Apparently, partridgeberry-picking was number one on her weekend agenda.
In an effort to segue the subject I asked whether the town of Quirpon or Great Brehat—each just down the coast—were worth a visit. She and Leif chuckled at my accent. “I die at you,” she said laughing. Nothing will more quickly label you a tourist in Newfoundland as the mispronunciation of local place names. Quirpon is ‘Car-poon.’ Great Brehat is pronounced ‘Great Bra’. Happily, I didn’t inquire about the town of Ferryland.
“Where are youse from?” our Viking-ess asked. “Alberta,” we replied. “Alberta,” she continued. “I’ve got a brother in Ft. McMurray.” (I can report that we didn’t meet a single Newfoundlander who did not have at least one family member working out west. But, no matter where a Newfie might live, a trip ‘home’ is always in the works. Famously, it is a 63-hour drive from Ft McMurray to the Rock.)
I tried to get her back on Viking track—but to no avail. All pretense of the 11th century Norsewoman was abandoned. She continued, talking about her husband, the small family garden, the incessant rain. “And there was himself last night,” she continued. “Luh, standing in a downpour, coat wide open, staring at lord knows what, sopped to the skin and stunned as me arse.” Then she politely adjusted her bonnet and resumed weaving.
CBC radio had gravely informed us that morning that the Doomsday Clock had been moved to two minutes before midnight. The world was closer to self-destruction than it had been at any time since the Cold War. I asked her if she was worried.
“Why, not a bit. After all, with the half-hour time change here on the Rock, us Newfies got ‘til 12:30.”
I love Newfoundland.
Arches Provincial Park glows at sunset.
Gerry Feehan, QC is an award-winning travel writer and photographer. He lives in Kimberley, BC.
Special thanks to Kennedy Wealth Management for supporting this series.
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The man charged in Sunday’s terrorist attack in Boulder told law enforcement that he had no regrets for his actions and would “do it again” if released.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national illegally in the country, is being held in the Boulder County Jail on a $10 million bond.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the attack at Tuesday’s White House briefing, calling Soliman a “monster” and the attack “pure evil.”
“He had been planning this attack for a year,” said Acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell for the District of Colorado. “He acted because he hated what he called ‘the Zionist group.’”
The attack started at 1:26 p.m. when multiple people were set on fire during a pro-Israel event organized by Run for Their Lives, an organization that advocates for the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza.
“Witnesses reported that the suspect used a makeshift flame thrower and threw an incendiary device into the crowd,” the FBI stated. “The suspect was also heard to yell ‘Free Palestine’ during the attack.”
Twelve people were injured, with two remaining in the hospital, as of Monday evening.
The criminal complaint filed on Monday by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado alleges that the attack could have been much worse.
“At least fourteen unlit Molotov cocktails and a backpack weed sprayer, potentially containing a flammable substance, were found nearby,” a press release from the attorney’s office stated.
It also stated that Soliman told law enforcement that “he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”
The city of Boulder released a statement on Monday calling it a “targeted, antisemitic attack.”
“We are united in condemning this hateful act of terror against Jewish people,” it said. “We understand that for our Jewish community, dread and insecurity, backed by a history of persecution, are all too familiar. We cannot – and will not – allow antisemitism to become normalized here.”
Soliman was arrested at the scene and now faces multiple felony charges, including a federal hate crime charge involving actual or perceived race, religion, or national origin. If convicted on all charges, Soliman faces hundreds of years in jail.
Multiple law enforcement agencies are working together on the investigation and to bring charges against Soliman.
“What you see here today is us standing shoulder to shoulder, ensuring that justice is done in response to this tragic and terrible attack,” said 20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty on Monday. “We are united in our commitment, both at the federal level and the state level, in pursuing and securing justice for the victims of this mass attack and for the communities that we serve.”
Elyse Apel is a reporter for The Center Square covering Colorado and Michigan. A graduate of Hillsdale College, Elyse’s writing has been published in a wide variety of national publications from the Washington Examiner to The American Spectator and The Daily Wire.
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion programs are billed as making society more tolerant, compassionate, and harmonious but actually have the opposite effect, according to a recent study by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs are billed as making society more tolerant, compassionate, and harmonious but actually increase hostility in workplace and educational settings, according to a recent study.
The study, by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute, focused on “diversity training interventions that emphasize awareness of and opposition to ‘systemic oppression,’” which has “seen widespread adoption across sectors like higher education and healthcare.” It was conducted by exposing 423 Rutgers students to influential DEI training materials authored by far-left activists like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, then surveying their reactions.
“Across all groupings (race, religion, and caste-based), instead of reducing bias, they engendered a hostile attribution bias,” the researchers found, “amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice.”
“This research raises critical questions about how many individuals, as a result of these programs, have experienced undue duress, social ostracization, or even termination of employment,” said the researchers, who called for further research into “the potential for a far broader scope of harm than previously considered.”
“Importantly, the intervention did not produce any measurable change in warmth or coldness towards persons of color,” the report noted. “Educational materials from some of the most well published and well-known DEI scholars not only failed to positively enhance interracial attitudes, they provoked baseless suspicion and encouraged punitive attitudes.”
Kendi dismissed the findings as “pseudoscience” that “will end up in the historic landfill,” and likened it to attempts to give “scientific legitimacy to racist propaganda” for slavery and against civil rights.
But the findings align with widespread beliefs that “woke” efforts to see all aspects of society through identity-based lenses and root out presumed “systemic” bigotry, generations after achieving full equality for both sexes and every race, are more likely to foster division and resentment by keeping old wounds open and attributing prejudiced motivations where none exist.
More than 30 states have introduced legislation eliminating DEI programs from education as part of a broader push against so-called “woke ideology” spearheaded by Republicans such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Conservatives have long criticized DEI and other forms of identity politics for stoking rather than curing division and focusing education toward left-wing political indoctrination at the expense of learning.
Last year, insiders from the University of California-Los Angeles’ (UCLA’s) prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine warned that the school’s diversity fixation had led to a crisis in which more than half of students in various cohorts admitted since 2020 fail standardized tests for basic medical knowledge of subjects ranging from emergency medicine and family medicine to internal medicine and pediatrics.
There has been a similar backlash in the business world, where DEI and “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) standards to encourage major U.S. corporations to take favorable stands on political and cultural issues such as homosexuality, transgenderism, race relations, the environment, and abortion.
Political and customer backlashes to such activism has translated to business woes for companies such as Disney, Bud Light, and Target. Former President Donald Trump’s defeat in November of outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris for the White House has also been seen by many as further evidence of the general public rejecting woke ideology, signaling to corporations and activists alike the lack of popular receptiveness to such projects.
