' A captivating tale....Claire Mowat writes with warmth and sensitivity.' -Winnipeg Free Press Claire Mowat and her husband, Farley, arrived in Baleena by schooner. There were no roads, no cars and no telephones. The tiny village that nestled among the rocky hills of Newfoundland's desolate southern coast had existed for generations with ancient customs and patterns of speech that still endured-while the modern world waited impatiently in the wings. Drawing on a wealth of first-hand experience-the Mowats lived in the outport community for five years-Claire Mowat has written a fictional memoir that beautifully recreates an almost vanished world. A world where life revolved tightly around the home and neighbours watched over one another. A world where one's kitchen was open to anyone who might drop in, day or night. A world that Claire Mowat grew to love.

The years after Newfoundland’s confederation with Canada were ones of rapid social and economic change, as provincial resettlement and industrialization initiatives attempted to transform the lives of rural Newfoundlanders. At Memorial University in St. John’s, a new generation of faculty saw the province’s transformation as a critical moment. Some hoped to solve the challenges of modernization through their rural research. Others hoped to document the island’s “traditional” culture before it disappeared. Between them they created the field of “Newfoundland studies.” In Observing the Outports, Jeff A. Webb illustrates how interdisciplinary collaborations among scholars of lexicography, history, folklore, anthropology, sociology, and geography laid the foundation of our understanding of Newfoundland society in an era of modernization. His extensive archival research and oral history interviews illuminate how scholars at Memorial University created an intellectual movement that paralleled the province’s cultural revival.

Since joining confederation with Canada in 1949, Newfoundland has experienced huge industrial and economic progress. At the same time, development of the province's natural resources has put increasing pressure on traditional outport culture. To exacerbate matters, the last decade has witnessed a dying fishery, the lure of economic prosperity in the west, and the attraction of larger urban centres. As a result, outport communities are feeling the brunt of vast outmigration. Much of the distinct heritage that has characterized Newfoundland for so many years has changed drastically. However, the uniqueness of outports, nurtured by centuries of isolation, will always remain. Outport is a snapshot in time between the years 1969-1985, vividly capturing the life of one of these communities. Through dramatic photographs and personal stories told by the people themselves, this book takes a look back at a lifestyle that has changed forever. Candace Cochrane first came to Newfoundland in 1967 to work in a children's summer recreation program run by the Quebec-Labrador Foundation (QLF) on the Northern Peninsula. The landscape and its people inspired her to develop her photography skills in order to document her experience of outport life. Since then, she has divided her time between working as a photojournalist, a teacher of photography, and a cultural heritage program director for QLF. Her photographs have appeared in numerous magazines and books in Canada and the US. Some of the photographs from this book are collected in the National Archives of Canada. For part of each year, Cochrane lives and works out of her house on the Northern Peninsula, where she first fell in love with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

There is an almost elemental appeal in the rural fishing villages of Nova Scotia, Maine, and Newfoundland. Their intimate connection to nature, to the land, water, and (often harsh) weather; their reliance on ingenuity, on-hand materials, and craftsmanship; and their values of thrift and endurance serve as inspiration and as touchstones for those of us caught up in the hubbub of modern life. Tilting, Newfoundland is a celebration of all these virtues and an eclectic documentation of the buildings, landscape, and lifestyle of this remote community on a small island far off the Canadian coast. Through photographs, firsthand historical anecdotes, and delicate pencil drawings, author Robert Mellin presents a personal account of Tilting's houses, outbuildings, furniture, tools, fences, and docks, and, in the process, the way of life of Tilting. Mellin describes how houses are built for mobility and then "launched," or moved; how houses are detailed and constructed; how cabbage houses are built out of overturned boats; and the difference between picket, paling, and riddle fences-with diagrams in case you want to build your own. Part journal, part sketchbook, part oral history, Tilting, Newfoundland is a treasure chest of a book that offers new discoveries with each reading, and a reminder of the simpler aspects of life and building.

In 1957, Farley Mowat shipped out aboard one of Newfoundland’s famous coastal steamers, tramping from outport to outport along the southwest coast. The indomitable spirit of the people and the bleak beauty of the landscape would lure him back again and again over the years. In the process of falling in love with a people and a place, Mowat also met the woman who would be the great love of his life. A stunningly beautiful and talented young artist, Claire Wheeler insouciantly climbed aboard Farley’s beloved but jinxed schooner as it lay on the St. Pierre docks, once again in a cradle for repairs, and changed both their lives forever. This is the story of that love affair, of summers spent sailing the Newfoundland coast, and of their decision to start their life together in Burgeo, one of the province’s last remaining outports. It is also an unforgettable portrait of the last of the outport people and a way of life that had survived for centuries but was now passing forever. Affectionate, unsentimental, this is a burnished gem from an undiminished talent. I was inside my vessel painting the cabin when I heard the sounds of a scuffle nearby. I poked my head out the companionway in time to see a lithesome young woman swarming up the ladder which leaned against Happy Adventure’s flank. Whining expectantly, the shipyard dog was endeavouring to follow this attractive stranger. I could see why. As slim and graceful as a ballet dancer (which, I would later learn, was one of her avocations), she appeared to be wearing a gleaming golden helmet (her own smoothly bobbed head of hair) and was as radiantly lovely as any Saxon goddess. I invited her aboard, while pushing the dog down the ladder. “That’s only Blanche,” I reassured my visitor. “He won’t bite. He’s just, uh . . . being friendly.” “That’s nice to know,” she said sweetly. Then she smiled . . . and I was lost. —From Bay of Spirits

This richly illustrated study profiles one of the most colourful and distinctive forms of regional furniture in North America and demonstrates the skills of Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans as natural innovators, clever designers, practiced recyclers, and masters of adaptation.

"Some people are born lucky, some are born rich, but most of us have to struggle for a living. One of the lucky ones is the outport 'millionaire' of Newfoundland. "This millionaire has nor money to speak of; he is endowed with the special gift of being able to get along without it. H lives and dies in the village where he was born, and from the start is firmly rooted as if his mother had actually found him under a stump . . ." The late Ron Pollett has left a timeless legacy of richly-textured literature on outport life. He was born at New Harbour, Trinity Bay, in 1900, but like legions of Newfoundlanders before and since, immigrated to foreign shores in search of work. In the last ten years of his life he felt compelled to describe in detail his outport heritage. He was ever mindful of its drawbacks, but in his essays, vignettes and stories, concentrated on the virtues of living as outharbour people. At the same time, Ron Pollett also let Newfoundlanders know what life was like in crowded, dirty and noisy towns and cities, where life was measured in numbing increments by the incessant factory whistle, instead of by the leisurely pace of the four seasons of nature. "The Outport Millionaire" was the title of Ron Pollett's first published article, appearing in Atlantic Guardian in July of 1946. This collection is one of two volumes incorporating his writings. The readers of the Atlantic Guardian voted Ron Pollett "Newfoundland's Favourite Storyteller."

An impressive study of the important role common people play in reviving faith.