The couch swimmers

I have now been on couchsurfing dot org for two weeks and I have met: a guy who cycled from BC to Northwest Territories to Newfoundland; a Quebecois who lives in the cold north of the province and works to help rural places retain French culture; five girls who bounced in and giggled a lot and had been cycling around the Maritimes; one girl who cycled here from Vancouver; and a French citizen who lives on an island called St. Pierre and Miquelon just an hour ferry ride from Newfoundland.

Newfoundland is one of the ends of Canada in a country with a lot of edges. At the edges, the roads run out and the people grow sparse and the industries that define modern third-world places assert themselves. There is an Asbestos, Quebec. Coal and diamonds and gold and tar sands mark the far north. The far east, the Maritimes and Newfoundland, rest on a diminishing marine ecosystem that is being fished out from the top down, the biggest down to the smallest. Newfoundland has anachronistic tendencies, the result of being isolated and proud. It has retained a diversity of dialects and the odd customs of a place that nurtures its past, keeping it around for consultation.

I have been very impressed, in general, with the quality of the CBC and with the pride that Canadians have toward their own music. At least in Newfoundland, radio stations play local artists and people of all ages are familiar with the same music; it is a generational uniter, rather than a divider. Weird.

I will think of things that I don't like about Newfoundland. But now I am concentrating on the things I do like. Probably the things I don't like include the weather. But I have yet to be sure about that.