Confederation and Resettlement

Join Canada?

Since tomorrow is the opening of the Off-Broadway Players' (OBP) play "1949" (a play about Newfoundland joining confederation), I've been really thinking about the pros and cons of being amalgamated with and assimilated by Canada.

Reaction to joining confederation was mixed in 1949, and apparently it still is. Still there are those who believe the referendum was "fixed." I mean really, with a race as close as 51 to 49 percent, you have to remember that half the people were "poisoned" (excuse me for using a newfie-ism) with the outcome, and the other half of the people were celebrating a victory. Some still are.

What did joining confederation do for us? It made us lose our independent status as a country, but we gained so many benefits from being a part of this vast country. We spend the Canadian Dollar, we get all those amazing equalization payments (ha!) and we get to drink Tim Hortons coffee and wear the Maple Leaf on our backpacks!

In all seriousness, I am very proud to be a Canadian. But I'm first proud to be a Newfoundlander. I love our old flag, even though I had yet to be born when it was flown as our national flag, I still have these feelings of longing for something I've never known. What is that all about?

Perhaps it's the upbringing I had, to hear my parents talk of the "old days" fills me with memories that belong to someone else. Memories I've never experienced, but enjoy often. Not all those memories were good though. There were hardships. Lots of them. Who knew if you were going to survive the next winter without enough supplies or food, or survive the next epidemic of TB? This brings me to my next point.

Resettlement

How can a person understand exactly how it felt to be uprooted from the only life you've known and forced to live in a strange community. Maybe a child who has been forced to change schools can understand to a small degree. But these families who were uprooted paid a great price. They were told they were to gain so many other things like healthcare and education.

We certainly gained those things didn't we? There's hardly a soul around now who isn't complaining about long wait times for medical care, or the inability to find a family doctor; or run-down schools, full of under-achievers, or the creation of "Super Schools" when the problems with all these things are MONEY! Exactly what we thought were getting from joining Canada.

Maybe joining confederation and eventually resettling was the best thing. But it changed how we lived. It changed our simple lives of sustenance farming and fishing, to fast-paced lives; from working for what we need to owing for what we wanted; from having more children to having less time for our 1.2 children and our marriages.

Sure, life is so easy, just click the remote to watch TV and spend hours entertained. Click the mouse to pay a bill that gives us light with the flick of a switch. Was there anything wrong with dancing a jig for entertainment and listening to the radio by candlelight? Of course not. I'm not saying I don't enjoy my toilet and public sewer immensely, because God knows, when I go to Fortune Harbour for a visit, I long for that porcelain again. But we never would have missed what we didn't have.

Would progress have come about anyway? Or was it the way we merged to larger centres that brought this push on to become more modern. Who knows for sure. All I know is that there's something inside me that wishes for simpler times, a slower paced life. Something inside me that longs for the moon on the water somewhere that's not brightened by city lights. A part of me that yearns to be back there...our should I say back then. Somewhere I've never been.

Anyway, the following are lyrics to the song West Moon performed by Pat and Joe Byrne. Al Pittman had written a play entitled "West Moon" which actually toured to Ireland as well. That was an amazing show. The setting is a graveyard where the souls of the departed "have a great yarn" one night a year when the moon is just right. It really haunted me. (Just an aside, I think I'm going to be singing this song at the cocktail Hour at the A&CC Friday Night. What a song. The lyrics are amazing as is the imagery they show.) I hope they inspire thought provoking images in your mind as they always do mine.

West Moon by Pat and Joe Byrne
Oh, tonight the west moon hangs over the harbour,
Shines down 'cross the headland and out 'cross the bay,
Shines down 'thru the trees and rests on the graveyard,
The only reminder of a long ago day.

My mind takes me back to a time in that harbour
When stout boats at anchor dozed on the sway,
When the laughter of children sent glad cries to Heaven
And woman looked sea-ward from meadows of hay.

But no longer I see those fish-covered flakes now,
No green rows of garden stretched over the hill,
No punt in the beach gleaming red with fresh copper,
No fine sturdy stick freshly cut for a keel.

For the government men came bribing and preaching,
They convinced all the livyers to just move away.
Now they're scattered like dried leaves from Hell to high water,
But the wind and the west moon elected to stay.

So, tonight the west moon hangs over the harbour,
Shines down 'cross the headland and out 'cross the bay,
Shines down 'thru the trees and rests on the graveyard,

As if lookin' for the souls of the ones moved away.

I think that's enough for today. Thanks for reading! Until Next Time . . .