Comments on: On the Newfoundland rock, where federation didn’t go smoothly

By: Bob the builder

Bob the builder — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:25:24 +0000

Oh, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon, part of France, lie 20km off the Newfoundland coast!

By: Bob the builder

Bob the builder — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:23:16 +0000

That was a nice nostalgic trip back to Newfoundland. In the late ’90s I hitched up from Montreal to North Sydney and got the ferry to Port aux Basques and hitched around to Argentia, past St. Johns over a fortnight.
Time didn’t permit more lingering, but I’ve always wanted to go back and spend more time. A place that was the first European contact with North America, modern-day Saint Anthony, still has significant parts accessible only by boat and has a beguiling mix of west country and Irish linguistic influences. A place without fences, with houses placed higgledy-piggledy, a kind of friendly frozen exception to Canada - but in its uniqueness, a place that epitomises Canadian diversity, a diversity so different to Austalia’s grudging celebration of multiculturalism as a bringer of good restaurants, where English, French and Scottish co-exist within a few hundred kilometres, where Irish was still spoken a few decades ago.
Perhaps that’s all a bit florid, but it was nice to reminisce about a special place!

By: Jackol

Jackol — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:57:04 +0000

Nice article.

Small quibble:

The sheer length of the process, the confusing first result — no one cause got a plurality of the vote…

It’s almost impossible to not “get a plurality of the vote” - presumably you meant majority.

By: Migraine

Migraine — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 05:05:04 +0000

Another lovely piece. I can understand why the place called to you, to answer that mystery of national or regional identity and how it can be used, abused, transformed - in this case with the twist of a nation negating itself. This is what I find fascinating about meeting and talking to people from the old eastern bloc, from the once-upon-a-time Czechoslovakia and the former Yugoslavia: trying to understand not only what it was like groeing up in an occupied state, under a monolithic government, but also how it felt to wake up one day in a different country, with everything changed and not necesarily a good idea of how all of this happened … Alien thoughts in Australia, which has never known a real threat to its singleness. Not even from the crazy seccessionist bastards up north and out west.

By: Moving to Paraguay

Moving to Paraguay — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 03:40:51 +0000

Going up to Canada? This is seems a characteristic of the vertically assertive Newfoundlanders. According to Melvin Baker and Robert H. Cuff (‘“Down North”: A Historiographical Overview of Newfoundland Labrador’ Newfoundland Quarterly, vol. LXXXVIII, no. 2, Summer/Fall 1993, pp. 2-12), locals talk about ‘going down north to Labrador’, never wanting to look up to their neighbours.

By: paddy

paddy — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 03:39:03 +0000

Fascinating stuff. Thanks.

By: Guy Rundle

Guy Rundle — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 03:03:12 +0000

yes yes i do damn

By: billie

billie — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 02:25:08 +0000

Do you mean Mayflower, 1620, not Mayfair?