A Brief History of Newfoundland, Part Deux

So here's a brief aside before I start in with a little Newfie history. I recently visited Edmonton for a conference, and I have to admit that I was blown away by people's friendliness. There were little things, like everyone seemed so nice to waitstaff, and people would smile and say hello when you passed them in the street. In the past, I have professed my belief that Oregon must be the friendliest place in the world, but now I am reassessing that stance. Maybe Canadaland can be tied with Oregon.

I was mostly impressed with Edmonton. It had a great park system built around its waterways, and I spent several hours exploring the trail systems. I happened upon a ski area in city limits, and found out there are several. Awesome! My favorite neighborhood in the city was China Town, which I was told is the "sketchy" part of the city. Eh. At least it had some character. In general, the buildings and neighborhoods of that city are a sprawling, faceless mess.

On to Newfoundland. I will give a sense of my lost-edness by relating this sentence verbatim, from a little website I found:

"In 1854 the opposition to responsible government, composed of Protestant-Conservatives and led by Hugh Hoyles, was defeated by John Kent and Philip Francis Little's Catholic-Liberal coalition."

Where to start? Who are Protestant-Conservatives? And Catholic-Liberals? I'm kind of fascinated by the idea that the two are in opposition, with Protestants on the one side and Catholics on the other (how European!), but I'm really confused about the concept of "opposition to responsible government." I'll just assume it's a term of art and move on.

It seems that Newfoundland struggled with integration with Canada during the late 19th century, and also struggled economically, though the beginning of the 20th century brought some diversification, including lumber and iron mining. A pulp mill opened in Corner Brook in the 1920s.

Looks like there was a political party called the Fishermen's Union Party. I loves it! I will be on the lookout for anything that says those words. Also, Quebec really wanted Labrador, which is the mainland portion of the province. But Quebec was denied, and there was some vote and a guy named Joseph Smallwood argued for union with Canada. Smallwood's wiki entry says he worked for a Socialist newspaper in NYC. In 1949, the 10th province of Canada was created, called Newfoundland and Labrador, and Smallwood became the first premier of the province, a post he held for 23 years. he was in the Liberal party, and was defeated by someone from the Progressive Conservative party, which wiki says is "centre-right." How cute! Can you say "cen-tray?" Because I will. Repeatedly. The wiki goes on to say that, while aligned with Tory parties in Canada, the Progressive Conservative party in N&L is not economically neoconservative. Thank the gods. Anyway, the Red Tory movement is more about allowing individual participation in the marketplace, and the Red Tories are apparently supportive of certain welfare policies. At any rate, while Red Tories still defend social inequity, there's some undercurrent of "common good" running through their philosophies, at least according to wiki. This is in stark contrast to the American brand of conservatism, which would have half the population as soylent green. I need to sort out the conservatism of Canada, but so far it seems like a more pragmatic form of conservatism than in the U.S. And by "so far," I mean in the last few minutes that I've been researching this topic.

Like most Canadian provinces, N&L remains heavily dependent on natural resource industries. This is good and bad, in my mind. Good because I think it's a hideous injustice to export our environmental exploitation while patting our own backs about our supposed environmental awesomeness. This is the primary flaw with the Environmental Kuznets Curve, which rests on the assumption that as places become wealthier, they also become more environmentally aware or benign or "improved" or some such nonsense. It is true that the U.S. has implemented more strict environmental standards as its wealth has increased. Europe and Japan have, as well. But before we applaud ourselves, we should examine what has happened to production (exported) and consumption (continues to rise). Back to Newfoundland: there are drawbacks to remaining economically dependent on natural resources. Places like Newfoundland go through periods of boom and bust, as we (humans) first learn to exploit local resources for trade in a world market, then walk away from resultant problems. This happened in Newfoundland with the collapse of the cod fishery in the 1990s, after the invention of "super-trawlers." The cod industry has had a decade-long moratorium, during which the fishery has not recovered. Huh.

I just ran across some articles about Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who lent his name to the college where I'll be working. Since he was a missionary, this continues my life-pattern of involvement with small liberal-arts institutions named after missionaries. My undergrad college, Whitman, was named after Marcus Whitman, whose family was killed by Indians. Our sports teams, such as they were (since we had no football) were the Missionaries. Our ski team cheer was "Missionaries, Missionaries, we're on top!" Clearly, we were a deeply religious bunch.

So, the Doctor Sir Grenfell was a missionary and a humanitarian, and I guess he opened up some hospitals and whatnot to the souls of N&L. And he was on this incredible stamp:



Look at that postage stamp! Icebergs! Am I seriously going to a place known for its icebergs? And a place that uses the term "centre" and where people presumably use the metric system in everyday speech? An adventure, to a foreign land! How exciting.