Leaving Newfoundland
by Stephan Nolan

The heart-rending scene of a loved one leaving home is an increasingly familiar one throughout the island of Newfoundland and the portion of mainland Canada known as Labrador. A man or woman, usually young and well-educated, stands outside the family home’s front door and reluctantly bids their cherished family and friends a warm, heartfelt goodbye. With tears streaming down their flushed cheeks the departing one hesitates in order to take one final mental picture of all the well-wishers waving their last goodbye.

The mother and father, brothers and sisters unashamedly weep as the car door slowly closes and an integral part of the family is about to leave their everyday lives, perhaps forever. Then, sadly but with more than a hint of finality, the vehicle’s engine turns over and the occupant begins the lonely departure for the promise of a better life in a foreign land. The sudden panic that at once fills the deportee’s chest almost makes them turn back and return to the safe care of their loving home, but there is no turning back. The road that stretches out in front of the driver must be travelled if there is to be any hope of survival.

The small, unhappy group watches the vehicle drive down the road until even the last hint of it is gone. Finally, with heavy hearts, they slowly turn back to their lives, into a home that suddenly feels so terribly large and empty. The once happy family left behind has been brutally torn asunder by the urgent, primal need to earn a living in a cold and unforgiving world.

Nearly every home in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador has a member of its family earning a living away from where that person truly wishes to be. Unfortunate circumstances have forced tens of thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to reluctantly pull up stakes and leave the land of their birth. All that they once knew and loved dearly had to be cast aside so that their basic needs can be met. Necessity has forced these refugees from their homes, upturned their lives, and tragically thrown them out of the land of their birthright.

Is this tumultuous upheaval all the result of a recent phenomenon or has this Newfoundland diaspora existed for some time? Why have the people of Newfoundland and Labrador traditionally been so ready to pick up their belongings and leave a place with such a logistical and material advantage? Why do the people born here feel so strongly that they have to go someplace else in order to live and prosper?

The most easterly Canadian province appears from the outsiders’ point of view to have everything it requires to sustain a very healthy and prosperous population. The territory has vast stores of clean water, a huge natural resource of hydroelectric power, a wealth of minerals and lumber, large quantities of sea life, and its strategic location on the globe makes it a gateway to North America and Europe. The possibilities for progress and opportunity seem unending.

So why, with all these amazing advantages, do Newfoundlanders and Labradorians daily leave the wealthy land of their birth in order to migrate to other, less fortunate climes in the hope of finding a promising future? Is their homeland so horribly cursed that the people must give up their young sons and daughters in a ritualistic blood sacrifice in exchange for all the natural treasures it offers? Have the people somehow lost all hope in obtaining a good, prosperous existence in their home? Is there some dark, hidden conspiracy that has led to the gradual depopulation of the province’s inhabitants? There are a great number of questions that need to be answered in order to get to the heart of the matter.

The phenomenon of out-migration in Newfoundland and Labrador began not short decades past or even long centuries ago. The out-migration from the land has been a continual happening for more than one millennium. Through the causes of nature, resettlement programs, plagues, famines, wars, sectarian conflict, and political intrigue, out-migration has always been on the agenda in one form or another for more than ten centuries.

Over a thousand years ago there existed an industrious, seafaring people who searched the ocean for new lands to call home. These brave adventurers fought all sorts of trials and tribulations in order to survive their harsh world. One fateful day they at last made their arrival on Newfoundland’s cold, rough shores. These people were from a sturdy stock that was filled with great hope for a bright future and brave enough to ensure that it would happen. These people had happy dreams of settling down and living a good life in their newly discovered land, but soon after they had settled had felt the necessity to flee the island of Newfoundland for more hospitable climes. It would take another half a millennium before others would arrive from the Old World to once again rediscover this brave New World.

When John Cabot arrived on the shores of Newfoundland on June 24, 1497, he could not have possibly imagined that almost 500 years earlier a hearty group of people had already been and gone from the magnificent, sparse land. As the great explorer watched in absolute wonder as his strong seamen strained to pull up impossibly heavy baskets of large, squirming codfish up to the side of his boat The Matthew, he could not have believed a circumstance where, when once found, this wondrous island would have become a secret again for over 500 years.

Indeed the brave Italian explorer, known in his homeland as Zuan Caboto (Pope, The Many Landfalls of John Cabot, 13), could not have known that the legendary explorers known as the Vikings had once arrived on the northern coast of the island. That over one thousand years ago, the Old World and the New stood face to face in the Strait of Belle Isle. The landing of the Norse on the shores of North America was not the result of a sudden journey but the endpoint of a step-by-step expansion stretching over two centuries. The end of Viking exploration had been the island of Newfoundland; they would go no farther (Wallace, The Norse in Newfoundland, 21).

Once there they had set up their own small village on an area of land now called L’anse aux Meadows. At first all appeared promising but then a few years into their stay, on one fateful day, for reasons that even now are still shrouded in mystery, they finally gave up to the inevitable and forever abandoned the island. One explanation for their sudden departure was the occasional clashes between the Viking explorers and the native people whom they called Skraelings.

In the Vinland Sagas it is explained how one of the Viking leaders, named Karlsefni, decided it was best to depart from the island for good. While the land could sustain them the constant fear of native attack made them rethink their decision to remain. The Vikings deserted their village, their homes, their land, and everything they had built in Newfoundland and travelled somewhere else to begin the desperate struggle for survival all over again.

Yet whatever the explanation for the Vikings leaving, whether it was the sporadic fighting with the indigenous people, a frightening, debilitating disease that took too much of a toll, a terrible winter that was too cold, a meagre food supply that left them too hungry, or simply a run of bad luck, their departure set up a pattern of out-migration that would last over a thousand years and which continues on to this very day.

The Vikings’ legacy has endured in the decayed ruins and shattered artifacts that have survived for over ten centuries but their unique cultural influence and their inherent contribution, however, have long ago vanished from the land. They remain in spirit only, drifting like a mysterious fog over the ruins of their abandoned settlement. There they haunt their former land, their relics a continual reminder of how difficult it is for even the very brave to remain strong in such an unforgiving world.

Today, the remains of many cultures dot the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. They tease present-day historians with unique stories of unfamiliar traditions and a way of living now long since forgotten. For centuries people came to the province, lived on the land for some span of time and then, for their own reasons departed, leaving little behind to show that they were ever here. The Norse, the French, the English, the Irish, the Portuguese, the Basques, the Spanish, and many other groups of people arrived sometime during the last one thousand years, and most of them for their own reasons eventually decided to leave.

What is so unique about this island and territory that attracts so many different people to come to its shores but the original lure of the place ultimately wears thin? What sirens’ song lures so many but repels all but a few? Why has out-migration haunted the tiniest of coves to the largest harbours for centuries? Is there some silent mystical curse that prevents families from continuing on for generation after generation without the inevitable loss of some of their members to out-migration? Is there some supernatural entity that prefers to remain on the land alone and unbothered by the distracting noise of the human race?

Today as large planes fill the sky, their metal bellies filled to capacity with tearful occupants fleeing the province for a better life elsewhere, history shows that this tragic story of out-migration began a very long time ago. Out-migration has been a part of the terrain since people first arrived on the land. It is a tale that still has no ending and it is a heart-rending story that must be told.