“Yeah, We’re Cousins”
“Are you related to
Alan Doyle?” my daughter was asked throughout high school in St. John’s and
later at Memorial. “No, no relation,” she would sigh – for a couple of
years. Later it became “not that I know
of” and “very distant relatives.” Then, finally,
“yeah, we’re cousins.”
Becky’s answers
evolved along with the fame of that other Doyle, the success of his band Great Big Sea, and her own Newfoundland
storytelling skill. Like all good
stories, each of hers had a bit of truth, and like all Newfoundland stories,
they mixed growing confidence with wistfulness, a wink, and a smile.
This blend of nostalgia
and pride flows through the pages of Alan Doyle’s charismatic memoir, the 2015
Leacock Medal finalist Where I Belong:
Small Town to Great Big Sea. Doyle’s
book attests to the Newfoundland (and Labrador)’s love of story. It’s a collection of, just slightly polished,
childhood reminisces that reminds us of what makes the province (that was once
a country and colony) special.
I needed this
reminder.
Pieces Falling Off into the Sea
In recent years,
flying into Newfoundland, I imagined pieces of “The Rock” breaking off and
falling into the sea to take away the things that set the place apart. St. John’s, in particular, keeps growing and
changing. The increasing affluence, the cultural tsunami of the Internet, offshore oil, the foot prints of millions of tourists, and branches
of international business give the city the feel of a – well, uh – a city.
I loved it when you
could walk down George onto Water and up to Duckworth and pretend it was just a
big fishing village with crazy stores that you saw nowhere else, with pub music
that you heard nowhere else, and with people that talked like no one else. You can still find all this, but you need to
look harder, and it seems surrounded increasingly by Newfoundlanders with
“Canadian accents,” concerns about real estate prices, and an interest in high
tech stocks. I shiver with the thought of
someday meeting a Newfoundlander who can’t sing, play an instrument, or tell a
funny story.
Jann Arden says in
the Foreword to Where I Belong that
she “didn’t want it to end,” and I don’t want the old Newfoundland to end.
Alan Doyle’s book gave
me comfort that the day may still be a ways off. His Newfoundland still recalls a time when
kids made spare change cutting fish on the wharf, Catholic boys regarded
Anglican girls as exotic, fun came from your own voice box, and family was
everything. His stories are vivid, and
though he confesses little experience writing dialogue, I thought his account
of kids teasing each other and debating the facts of life to be authentic. It’s easy to lose yourself in the pages, and
that’s the way I like written stories.
Though this was all
reassuring and fun, I recognize my desire to keep Newfoundland in a stereotype box
as selfish. At least part of its
culture flows from years of isolation, dangerous work, and limited means that
no fellow Canadian could want as enduring circumstance for their East Coast
cousins.
Newfoundlanders deserve better.
Farley
Mowat once described Newfoundlanders as epitomizing “all the qualities that make the human species viable ... worthwhile
... durable.” They can and have demonstrated the
noblest attributes of creativity, bravery, and, surprising to some, a
nationalistic commitment to learning.
When WWI broke out,
Newfoundland, as an independent Dominion, mustered a great swath of its young
men into a national battalion-sized force to fight for Europe. The First Newfoundland Regiment suffered
horrible, 90-per-cent casualties, close to 700 soldiers, piled up in some of
the worst fighting including the opening clash of the Battle of the Somme and
earlier, as the only North Americans, the catastrophe at Gallipoli.
After the War, despite
heavy debts incurred in fighting for England and a decimated workforce, the
people of Newfoundland were determined to honour those who sacrificed. The national consensus was to do something in
education – to build a university – it would be the ideal - “Memorial.”
After its entry into
Canada, through very challenging times, and despite tremendous pressure to do
otherwise, the Province and Memorial University have kept this commitment to
the fallen with the lowest tuition fees in our country. This, to me, is the substance of a great
society.
I see a direct line
between the blood stained battlefields of France and Alan Doyle of Petty
Harbour’s opportunity to move out of his poor childhood and earn a degree in
literature so that he could someday, not only pursue his dreams, but share that
experience with you and me in written words.
The
Boy on the Bridge
to the Past
In his book, Doyle
often calls himself “The Boy on the Bridge” in reference to his bit part credit
in the 1980s TV Movie A Whale for the
Killing. After reading his book, I
think his “bridge” is the one that connects that proud and rough, no toilets,
fish cutting, and rags past to a new era.
Great
Big Sea certainly does that by linking traditional Newfoundland folk songs
and sea shanties to rock music in a way that respects the past and makes a
better present. You can’t stop the world or
Newfoundland from changing. The only
thing you can ask is whether it is for the better. Though some things have slipped away, today
we are better off because we have Great
Big Sea and books like Where I Belong.
This year, 2015, two young Newfoundlanders took the top prizes at the Montreal International Guitar Festival – Canada’s prestigious classical guitar competition. They have taken their Newfoundland love of
music and the priorities of Memorial into yet another realm. One of them is my son-in-law, who is
pursuing his doctorate in music in Toronto, and my daughter is happy today to answer
questions about her relation to this other Newfoundland musician and to be
recognized for her own work in marine and evolutionary biology.
 |
| Ocean Sciences Centre - Logy Bay |
When the now famous Alan
Doyle Tweeted last month about her husband’s classical guitar successes, my
daughter was only mildly impressed.
“Yep, a Newfoundland
guitar player promoting another Newfoundland guitar player,” she said. “That’s
a very Newfoundlander thing to do, you know.”
So in a way, I guess they really are related to Alan Doyle from Petty Harbour.
So in a way, I guess they really are related to Alan Doyle from Petty Harbour.
Writing Exercise
It's the summer of 1981 in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland. Write a conversation between two girls who check out the boys on the wharf on their way to the Anglican Church.
DBD
June 2015