Settling in...

I went for a run today along a great trail that followed the coast, and ran for probably 3 miles until I reached the end. This adds to the network of wonderful trails around Corner Brook, making for some great day-to-day walking/running. As for the surrounding area, it seems pretty limitless. I stared at a map today hanging at the college, completely blown away by the scope of the wilderness here. It's like Alaska, I think. Actually, I guess it's like most of Canada.

My apartment is coming together. While clean and spacious, I was initially horrified by the overall beigeness, which I have (almost) successfully banished to the background. I'm actually offended by the color. I mean, if you like beige, more power to you. Strut around in those khaki Dockers all you like. But every shade of beige, no matter how J. Crew describes it, is awful to me.

Here's the living room, with my lovely little love seat, now covered in Indonesian tapestry.



Thanks to Jess for the stationery that inspired the kitchen cabinets:



I'll post more pictures of both the house and the college soon. My office (my own office!) is actually quite nice, with a curve of windows and a couple of pretty sweet pictures.

We have branches across the west coast.

Of Newfoundland, of course. I forgot who I was talkin' to.
-Newfie bank teller

When people here refer to the west coast, they are talking about the west coast of Newfoundland, as opposed to the population center of St. John's, over on the east coast. On the radio: "a band from the west coast," at an art gathering, "I'm from the west coast." The west coast of Newfoundland.

I've been here nearly a week, and I'm getting a feel for the place. The streets wind around steep hills, but the town is centered on the bay (north, down), which conforms to my Dallesian sense of direction (river, north, down) and if I get lost, I look for the smokestacks of the pulp and paper mill.

I went for a hike this morning with Marvin, across marshy bogs (need to learn the distinction between a marsh and a bog, I suppose), my foot occasionally sinking in muck up to the calf. We walked down a majestic valley, with the Blow Me Down mountains on either side. We found a great swimming hole, probably ten feet deep in one spot, and as I was taking my shoes off, I heard desperate, flailing swimming from below. Marvin had jumped in off the rocks and couldn't get out. No worries, I grabbed his collar and he was much more careful after that.

The Blow Me Down Mountains:


We hiked back several kilometers (ahem, metriphiles) and as we were gazing over a pond, I saw a large black shape duck behind a shrub. I watched it emerge the other side, a huge black bear. Then I saw the two cubs, running behind her. They lumbered away from me, so I watched them for a bit, holding Marvin close. They were far enough away that I wasn't too worried, but then the mother turned around and looked right at me, and reared up on her hind legs, just watching me. I was scared enough and backed away slowly, then picked up a large rock to carry. Why a rock? Would it help me in a bear attack? No, but it made me feel tough.

In the afternoon today, I went to an art show and gathering at a neighboring town called MacIvers. The gathering was at a farm/art collective, with a giant meadow where they'd displayed in huge white letters the name of the collective: Full Tilt. I didn't get a picture, as I'd forgotten my camera, but the scenery was strikingly similar to the Gorge, with steep hills around a large body of water. And here's a link to a photo collection from one of the artsy young guys there. The meadow had a few art installations and I chatted with some local creative types, and once again ran into several people I'd met from Grenfell.

A few quick notes:
Good coffee at a place called Brewed Awakening. And a pretty good crowd. It's not Interzone, but no place is.
Terrible beer everywhere, with fake IPA available and nothing better than an insipid lager. The wine isn't too bad, and I've been sampling the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland varieties. Seriously, not too bad.
The hiking is amazing and regal, but so remote and boggy. Everyone is already talking about winter, which makes me nervous. E, a history prof at Grenfell, said that many of the houses are completely snow-covered in winter because of the plows. He said you could just walk between the roofs of some neighborhoods.
People seem pretty laid-back, but not sickly sweet. It's a nice attitude. A lot of "m'love" and "m'dear" in everyday speech.
Nobody knows anything about Oregon. Nor have most people been particularly interested. It's insular.

I found the Newfoundland flower today while hiking. It's a pitcher plant, and it's a strangely lovely little rust-colored thing. I still haven't seen a moose.

Oh, ye'll be gittin' yerself a newflender, then, ye will

Mom and I had a rather harrowing journey from Nova Scotia, and arrived after 1 am. We then drove the half hour to a town called Doyles, where I had reservations at a B&B. We'd heard horror stories about the moose (Newfoundland has the highest concentration of moose in the world) and what they do to your car and/or person, so we were crawling along, getting passed by semis off the ferry on a dark, rainy, 2-lane road. Almost at our wits end, we turned the corner to find our inn, where our extremely friendly inn-keeper, Gerald, greeted us with two rooms, "'cuz I dooble booked tha room fer ya by accedent an' I'm sawry 'bout thet, hope thit this works, here, fer ya." But he said it really really fast. The next day, at breakfast, he greeted us with eggs and great coffee and after some discussion about why I'm in Newfoundland and all that, he said, "Have ye got a man?" To which I said, "a what?" "A man, have ye brote a man?" "Oh, no, I haven't." He then said, "Oh, ye'll be gittin' yerself a newflender, then, ye will." Which is when I realized that he was not, in fact, an Irish man. He was from Newfoundland. And that is how they speak.

In Corner Brook, many people have just a bit of a lilt, but as you meet more rural people, or poorer people, or just about anybody working in a store, you have to just nod and smile and hope that picking out every fourth word is sufficient for comprehension. One night, over Chinese food, mom and I found ourselves in fits of laughter, doubled over, tears in our eyes, as the group of seven men behind us carried on a conversation. "Yaa, tha dook mait bea threw eet" and so on; we had no idea what they were talking about. At one point, mom suggested that they might be speaking French, to which we both laughed silently, hiccuping now and then. The men looked over, so I tried to make my face look normal, to no avail. We just laughed and laughed, until mom took off her glasses and wiped her eyes and said, "well, let's just stop that now [hahahahahaaaaaaaa]. Okay, now stop laughing. Seriously."

Everyone seems to have an Irish name here; everyone seems friendly but not sweet (more like a hospitality, but not a lot of bullshit); and most people seem a lot like small-town Oregonians in their appearance (overwhelmingly white, lots of obesity) and vehicular preferences. I had an interesting conversation with a woman named Jacey in the cell phone shop today. She kept asking me questions "about Americans" and so we alternated between discussing land lines and high-speed internet and talking about the U.S. Of course, her speech was all with a heavy lilt, and lots of Newfie slang, but I'll just type it as I remember it, content-wise:

J: "So, isn't America pretty violent, then?"
E: "Some places, but I don't think Oregon is more violent than here."
J: "But aren't people just carrying guns around?"
E: "That depends on the state. But you can carry a gun in Oregon; if you have a permit, you can carry it on yourself in your coat or your car or whatever."
J: "Oh, that seems a bit much."

And so on. Definitely a small-town girl, but there might be some different views on guns around here.

Mom left yesterday and I've spent the day trying to get a cell phone and bank account and running into one bureaucratic hurdle after another. Cell phones are really tough here! So I'm out and about, walking Marvin around and now sitting in a coffee shop next to a bike shop... could be Corvallis.

Sigh.

As for Nova Scotia: it was designed to embody the term "bucolic." In fact, if you look up bucolic, you'll see this:



It was adorable. So was our B&B, run by a woman whose great- great- great- [something] aunt was a giant. This land is populated by eccentric characters from a novel. Mom kept saying I should blog about all the "characters" and I'll try and get around to it. Right now, I'm going to return to my apartment to continue unpacking. Luckily, I have a bed, which I've covered with the most beautiful blanket of all time.



It also has a great view of the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Mill, and the amazing mountains beyond.



Mom and I went kayaking yesterday in Gros Morne National Park, about an hour and a half from my house. It was a great end to a really great road trip. Now I'm back to "real" life, whatever that means for me here. I'm glad mom got to be here, and we had another adventure together. It was tough sometimes, as my definition of "driving fast" and hers don't exactly mesh. But she was a great sport, and how many people have a mom that they can laugh with until they cry?

St. John: A lil' piece of Europe

Mom and I had lunner in St. John, New Brunswick. We drove in without expectations. I mean, who has ever heard of St. John?

It was more than adorable. It was adorriftastic. Some of the greatest brownstones I've seen on the whole trip, and adorable shops:



We've been firmly committed to eating seafood with every meal since arriving in the Atlantic region; last night in Bangor, it was lobster and scallops. Lunch in St. John was scallops, mussels, and fish. I'm feeling very proteined.

Also seen in New Brunswick, in honor of my dad, Johnny Law:



Tonight we're in a hotel in Amherst, Nova Scotia. We walked around looking for a beer [me] and dessert [mom] and it started pouring on us. I didn't get beer, but we got cheesecake to go and now we're sitting in our hotel, eating and watching a TV show about bridal dresses. Our B&B for the night fell through, so we're in a hotel which is certainly... roofed. Rolling with the punches here.

So, here we are in Canada. Speed limits posted in Kilometers per hour ("Oh, you can drive 110! Doesn't that seem fast?"), all the signs in both English and French. We both try and say every sign in French. Good thing they're not too defensive about linguistic purity.

It's fun to see Canadian license plates everywhere, though we have yet to see a Newfoundland license plate. Eek.

And so I'll name my first baby "Aggie"

Aggie [Canadian border patrol agent lady]: "So you're going to work in Canada?"
Me: "Yup." Starting to get a little nervous. The documents didn't come before I left Oregon.
Aggie: Looks at my passport. "Do you have a signed contract?"
Me: "Uhhh, no. I have this letter." I Produce a slightly dog-eared, coffee-stained letter from the university. It says they're offering me a job.
Aggie: "This is it?" She reads it, turns it over. "Do you have any more documentation? Like your qualifications?"
Me: "Maybe in the car..." My voice trails off. "I guess I could..."
Aggie: Smiles. "Just tell me if you don't."
Me: "Yeah, I don't think so."
Aggie: "I don't want to be rude, but you're really unprepared."
Me: "Yeah, I'm sorry."
Aggie: "I'll see what I can do."
[Time passes, Aggie fills out some paperwork]
Aggie: "Can you call someone and have them fax us things?"
[I call the university and just get an answering service]
Aggie: "Do you have an address in Newfoundland?"
Me: "Yeah, but... uhhh... I don't know it."
Aggie: "You are a challenge."
Me: Nervous laughter.
Aggie: "You know, other people probably wouldn't have let you do this. But I'll give you a work permit. I'm going to trust you to fax me your documents."
Me: "Oh God, thank you so much."

The ghosts in this machine

So we're staying outside of the sprawling and vaguely ridiculous town of Rumford, Maine. It's a small town, but it never ends; first the little villages, miles apart: Rumford Point, Rumford Center. Then the long, sad, strange town of Rumford, all boarded up and sagging. We kept driving through it, as the town meandered from little downtown to little downtown, to its real centerpiece: the huge pulp mill in adjacent Mexico, Maine. The three-story apartment buildings around it were caving under time and mold, with asbestos siding and hastily built porches atop yards of plastic toys and dirt. With a nod to C. Bailey, where there are pulp mills, there is poverty. The town was heavy with it: a teenage girl pushing her baby in a faded stroller, young men smoking and walking aimlessly across the street, old men hunched and weaving. The streets were full of life, but the ghosts hovered just above.



I walked up to a giant statue of Paul Bunyon and took a picture, and a man nearby said: "don't tell me you're a tourist." He was about 60, wearing a Harley vest and sitting next to his friend, their motorcycles nearby. I said yes, and we got to discussing Oregon, and my road trip. "How's the mill doing?" I asked. "Oh, it's doing pretty well," said the first man, "I'm a wood buyer there." After a bit more discussion, I found out it was owned by a subsidiary of Cerberus, a private investment firm. And more: "Nobody wants their kids to work in the mill. There's no pride in that anymore." He was critical of the owners, and critical of their short-sightedness and the decline of the town. Of course. The story of small-town America. Our ghosts in the machine: decay pokes through the thin veneer of civilization, and we recoil at its primeval stench.

We ate at the Chicken Coop, where the sweet waitress spoke to us without the use of the letter "R" at the end of words. "Yo'ah from out of town? The Lobstah he-ah is excellent!" It was an old logger bar, I think; lots of food, some of it not very good but some of it great, all for a very low price. And we drank "Shipyahd" beer. I mean Beah.



Mom and I are staying in an actual haunted house. It says 1885 on the front, and it's got a giant red barn and the most beautiful wood floors I've ever seen, some of the planks a foot and a half wide. Music is playing somewhere and I sit in this room, faux candles blazing on the wall next to a gilded mirror. It's so quiet outside that we could hear the drip of a faucet under the screened porch as we played Scrabble. Marvin is sleeping, tired from our hike up Mt. Eisenhower in New Hampshire today.

He met his first pigs today, and stared at them like he does with cats, backing up on his haunches, his tail wagging in excitement and uncertainty.

New England is just so goddamn cute

And I'm including the Adirondacks in that statement. Mom and I struggled a bit through two long days of driving, and finally made it to Keene Valley, NY. It was so damn cute. We kept pointing out the "colonial" houses; anything that we liked earned the moniker "colonial." I think we have officially changed the meaning of the word "colonial" to include anything with brick and a porch. We also kept pointing to the churches, and saying something profound like, "look at that church!" and then driving on. Or perhaps, "look at that barn!" followed by a short squeal. We were instantly ten years old, looking at doll houses.

We had our first northeastern hike, which for mom was kind of short-lived, as these hardy people enjoy placing a trail directly up a rocky mountain. I made it to the peak of Slide Mountain, after scrambling up giant rocks with Marvin, often pushing him up as his claws slipped around the granite, attempting to find a hold. We looked over the mountains, all the biggest peaks in New York, and spoke with several New Yorkers: the young man who'd gone to boarding school in the area, where he'd worked on a farm and said he hated the term "character building," and who told me about the 46-ers, people who attempt all of New York's 46 peaks over 4000 feet; the father and daughter from Rochester, who pointed out the names of the peaks nearby and talked about how "nice" Oregon seemed. It was all so damn pleasant. Mom said she thought that all of New York would be crowds and noise, and here we were in the heart of quiet mountains, gasping over the cuteness.

Mom and I played Scrabble that night, drinking Bloody Marys made with pickled asparagus we bought at the local store and cursing our draws: "I've got nothing but I's," "You just can't make a word with these letters." We had a perfect dinner, outside, our second night of sea scallops and wine from the Northwest. Mom said that New York was the prettiest state she'd seen, and I thought it was close. I'd put it behind Oregon, Montana, and New Mexico.

Now we're in Waterbury, Vermont, surrounded by steep mountains and old buildings. We went to Stowe today, to the Ben and Jerry's factory and then to some rocky, steep cliffs at Smuggler's Notch. The B&J factory was cute enough, with its giant silos marked Milk, Cream, and Sugar, and its flavor graveyard. But the children were a bit much for us; I overheard a woman demanding to her 8 year-old: "you better smile for this photo or you're not getting any ice cream!" We drove to the cliffs of Smuggler's Notch and walked around birch trees clinging to the sides of rocks, their smooth bark pulling back to reveal layers of reds and pinks. Mom loved the rocks themselves, which had a strangely metallic look and chipped into knife-blade edges.

Now it's time for more Bloody Marys and Scrabble, and the eternal quest for the perfect draw. Tomorrow we go through New Hampshire to Maine, in pursuit of the cutest goddamn place we can find. God forbid these states should have something less than charming.