That seems to be a common theme among a lot of Newfoundlanders who have ventured abroad in chase of opportunity, prosperity and happiness. However, for far too many, happiness eludes them. For those, their happiness is hinged on their eventual, inevitable return to da rock. For those, the word home is synonymous with the word Newfoundland. They can live anywhere, have prosperous careers, raise families, but home will always be Newfoundland.

The internet is full of Newfoundlanders proclaiming their love for, and desire to return to, their home. One of those, this post’s namesake, chronicles the life and observations of Nadine and her family as they manage their way through life somewhere on da mainland, yearning for the day when they can reasonably provide for themselves back on da rock. She says, “There is something about the Island that seeps into your soul, and never allows you to truly leave.” Nadine is not alone. It may not give her any comfort knowing there’s more of us out there, but there are. I was once content being away, but lately I’ve had a strong desire to be a CBFA. (Come Back From Away) Maybe someday the opportunity will present itself (fingers crossed).

Just this morning, I received an email from a colleague of mine, another Newfoundlander who has built a life and career off the rock and who truly appreciates all things Newfoundland.

So my daughter sends me these….They’re from some companies web-cam I’d guess, and they are real time this morning. Between Quidi Vidi and the Narrows, I don’t know what makes me feel more homesick this morning. You know the beauty of Newfoundland, like most things is wasted on the young. She just wanted to show me, or prove to me that it was a beautiful day in St. John’s. How do I explain that every day in Newfoundland, at home, or ‘on da rock’ is a beautiful day.

I just thought I spread the home sick virus…

If you are a Newfoundlander and you are somewhere other than home, I dare you to look at these pics and honestly say you don’t wish to be back there, if not now, at least someday… and for good.

I know I’m supposed to be offended by the term “Newfie” and disparaging jokes about Newfoundlanders. I know. But THIS joke made me laugh out loud.

Three dead bodies turn up at the mortuary, all with very big smiles on their faces.

The coroner calls the police to tell them what has happened.

The Coroner tells the Inspector: “First body: An Italian , 60, died Of heart failure while with his mistress. Hence the enormous smile. Second body: Scotsman, 25, won a thousand pounds on the Lottery, spent it all on whisky, died of alcohol poisoning, hence the smile.”

The Inspector asked, “What of the third body?”

“Ah,” says the coroner, “This is the most unusual one. Danny Earl, the Newfie, 30, struck by lightning.”

“Why is he smiling then?” inquires the Inspector.

“Thought he was having his picture taken.”

Thanks Ian!

There’s no place like home.

This week, the Hebron deal was signed and is expected to bring thousands of jobs and billions of dollars into Newfoundland. This is supposedly going to change our fair rock into a “have” province. Many are hoping, myself included, that this is good enough news and a financial reality that is solid enough not only to stop the population bleeding out of Newfoundland, but will actually lure many back home.

Others, like my buddy Dave who recently left Newfoundland for Yellowknife to advance his career are remaining tentative. Dave carefully wonders if this is hype, similar to the buzz surrounding the Hibernia deals from a couple of decades ago.

Maybe cautious optimism is in order. But, to those of us who wouldn’t be heartbroken if presented with an opportunity to prosper in our home province, it’s hard to reign in that optimism. A friend and colleague of mine reflected this to me this week. It’s easy to be hopeful:

I remembered back in the early ‘90s working at the College trying to convince Fisher-folk in Gaultois, Hermitage, and Harbor Breton to train to be Computer ‘fixers’, Hair dressers, or ‘double knot spies’. That was part of the NCARP and then the TAGS program. Remember the news stories about the boys taking the rocks and towing them from one part of the bay to the other on the upside down roof of an old pick-up??

Brian Peckford was almost castigated back in the day when in his Nostradamic way he said “some day the sun will shine, and have not will be no more”.

My son, the sun came up first in NL today. The arse is back in ‘er.

I hope he’s right.

Well… back from vacation, and what a vacation.

As usual, we drove back to Newfoundland for our vacation. What was unusual was that we decided to tow our trailer and bring our four-wheeler along. We knew it would cost a little more in gas, we knew it was going to cost more on the ferry from North Sydney to Port aux Basques, and we knew it was risky to drag a trailer for such a long distance, but we tackled it anyway.

Just as we were about to hit the road, I realized our new trailer did not have a safety inspection completed. It was licensed and insured, but the necessary safety inspection sticker was not in place. I rushed the trailer over to a local business to get inspected, and luckily they were able to inspect it without forcing me to remove all the cargo. Loading the four-wheeler and other stuff, along with tarps and bungee cords stretched all over took me about two hours. The trailer got inspected and we were off.

We arrived in North Sydney a little later than we wanted to… around 9:30 pm. When we got there, we discovered that our boat, which was scheduled to leave port at 1:00 am, was going to be slightly delayed. It didn’t leave until around 3:30 am.

Leaving North Sydney late meant arriving in Port aux Basques late. We had hoped to make up the time, but we ran in to some issues with the trailer. (Side note… we had a 4×8 stake-side trailer that we sold so we could purchase a galvanized 5×8 trailer from Costco. The stake side trailer only had 9 inch wheels and the new one had 13 inch… more suitable for distance travel.) By the time we got to Marble Mountain, about two hours into a 9 hour drive on the Newfoundland side, I noticed that one of the tires on the trailer was low. I pulled it over the an air pump to fill it up and noticed that the problem was with the air filler stem. The metal was separated from the rubber. A quick check of the other tire revealed to me that it was also running a little low. I had one spare tire, but not two. So, Deer Lake was only 60 kms away… we hoped we could make it there to find a garage to help us with our issue. A little searching and we found a place to help us. They squeezed us in right away. Once they replace both (yes BOTH) valve stems, we were off again.

Luckily, there was no more excitement. No mechanical issues, no moose, no major construction delays. We arrived in Witless Bay around 7 pm, only about 3 hours later than expected.

RDF. Rain, drizzle and fog. That summarizes the weather for practically the whole time we were in Newfoundland. But that didn’t stop us from having a good time. In two weeks, we put 600 kms on the four wheeler (pretty good considering that much of those kms were at a crawling pace over very rough terrain). I managed to get it stuck several times, once REALLY good. My son had gotten stuck and needed to be winched out. When I followed in his path, I decided it would be best not to drive in his tracks. So, I figured I’d straddle them… my right wheels between his tracks and my left wheels to the left of his tracks. The right wheels were fine. The left wheels went straight into a deep puddle of water. It turns out that moss that is growing on top of water looks exactly like moss growing on top of the ground! I immediately jumped onto the right running board and leaned hard, holding the handle bars. I had to. Otherwise the bike was going to roll right over into the water… that would be disastrous. It took three bikes, pulling with engines and winches about 20 minutes to get me out. The new bike was officially christened.

Besides that, I found time to shingle a roof, install crown moulding, build a deck, fall off a set of scaffolding and generally kick the shit out of myself. Yes… I said fall off a set of scaffolding. It was a home-made set, screwed together, and attached to the side of the house. I was up about 6 feet and the scaffolding fell apart, sending me falling into a pile on the ground. I buggered up my ankle, both heels, my right elbow and my shoulder. The funny thing, is the sciatic nerve problem that has been nagging at me since April 2007 suddenly went away! I can hardly walk, but my back doesn’t hurt.

The whole trip, driving from Moncton to St. John’s and back and all around while we were there. 4500 kilometers of highway driving and didn’t see one moose. Ok, I saw one moose, but it was a baby and about 50 feet off to the side of the road. But driving up and down the dirt road of Gully Pond in Witless Bay, we saw 5 moose. I’d rather see them there than on the highway anyway.

And now… we’re back. It’s Saturday night and we have to go back to work on Monday. Seems like forever since vacation started but it also seems to have gone by in a flash. So, back to reality and looking forward to the next time we set foot back on the rock.

I’ll end my rambling now… and leave you with this: one of the coolest license plates I’ve seen.

According to CBC.ca, there were four separate moose vehicle collisions last evening in a span of about 45 minutes, all of them within a few minutes of our normal vacation destination of Conception Bay South, Newfoundland. The article says that three of them were in the Fowler’s Road area on the Manuels Access Road and the other near Paddy’s Pond.

That’s a pretty scary statistic. When we were there just this past Christmas, we came across one such collision within minutes of it occurring about 7:30 pm Christmas Day.

It’s quite a problem back there. With an approximated moose population of 120,000 on the island and with the hunting season and old age about all that can kill them, it’s no wonder that so many of them end up with cars wrapped around them. There’s about 700 moose-vehicle accidents per year on the island. In my own travels I’ve had several near misses, countless sightings, and I have two brother-in-laws who have had collisions with them (one was very serious and the other was so close that it took the mirror off his car!).

We are heading back that way fairly soon for vacation. The moose on the roads is always an additional stress added to the strain of driving for 15 hours across a 24-hour timeframe. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Well… now and then you come across something totally original and imaginative. I’m not exactly sure if this is one of those things, but it certainly is hilarious!

Check out these YouTube vids from The Motion Show:

There’s the legend of Donnie Dumphy, Newfoundland Dirtbike Rapper and his latest album “I Loves Doing Wheelies” with the hits “Your Mudder Had It Coming”, “Ankle Bracelet, Schmankle Bracelet”, and “Brenda’s Got A Few Things Wrong With Her But That’s Alright”.

Then there’s The Newfoundland Scam. Worth Watching too!

Super stuff! Thanks Nadine!