TICKLE YOUR FANCY IN FOGO
Newfoundland island delights with wordplay, icebergs and its attraction to `flat-earthers'
Few corners of Canada can raise a smile through sheer will of words better than Newfoundland and Labrador.
Our youngest province — a piker at just 72 years old, having joined Confederation reluctantly in 1949 — is a cartographer's delight with its deliciously named tickles and outports and coves.
Wordsmiths can wallow to their Heart's Content over place names that evoke windswept Ireland, the bitter realities of economic hardship, or the simple whimsy (and a little devilry, no doubt), of the people who have made this region home.
Who can resist being charmed by Joe Batt's Arm, Tilting, Seldom and Little Seldom?
Even more impressive: they are all located on Fogo Island, itself owing its rather offbeat moniker to the Portuguese term for “island of fire.”
Newfoundland's largest offshore island, it is located 15 kilometres off the province's northeast coast and is home to 11 communities — down from 26 at the height of its prosperity — comprising about 2,500 residents. At just 25 km long and 14 km wide, it is easily explored and connected with the mainland by a ferry service from Farewell.
European fishermen first dropped anchor in the 1500s, with permanent settlement beginning in the early 1700s. By the 1960s, moves were afoot to resettle islanders as cod stocks declined, but residents fought back, creating a co-operative society committed to economic development that thrives to this day.
With another downturn in the fishery in the 1990s, islanders again met the challenge with a new emphasis on tourism, promoting Fogo's hiking trails, whale-watching, abandoned settlements and the outport way of life.
The crown jewel in that successful strategy was the opening in 2013 of the renowned Fogo Island Inn. The 29-room luxury hotel and restaurant, the brainchild of islander Zita Cobb, is a social enterprise backed by the Shorefast charity that aims to revitalize the island economy while preserving its singular character.
Named one of the “unique lodges of the world” by National Geographic magazine, the Nordic-style inn, built in eye-catching style on a series of stilts, has attracted celebrities and dignitaries ranging from Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to its “outport chic” and gourmet cuisine.
Visitors to Fogo Island, described by the influential U.S. publication as “not so much a place as a state of mind,” undoubtedly will spend some of their time in Joe Batt's Arm, the largest of the communities that make up the Town of Fogo Island.
Settlers arrived in Joe Batt's Arm as early as 1712, according to Memorial University in St. John's, but it was several decades later that it acquired its peculiar name.
An `arm' typically referred to any settlement that wrapped around an inlet, while legend states that “Joe Batt” was a beloved crew member who deserted his post with the expeditionary forces of Captain James Cook for life on Fogo. Another theory holds that the community was named after one Joseph Batt of Bonavista, who was punished in 1754 for stealing a pair of shoes.
According to Newfoundland historian David J. Clarke, “Jobets” has been a source of mirth from as early as the 1800s, with the British satirical magazine Punch once running an advertisement that read: “Wanted: A Nurse for Joe Batt's Arm.”
Even the name “Fogo” is the subject of debate, with some suggesting it is simply a corruption of “funk,” referring to the malodorous stench given off by the droppings of thousands of island seabirds.
In the hamlet of Tilting, meanwhile, it's not so much the nomenclature but rather the accents that tend to beguile “come-from-aways,” as visitors to Newfoundland generally are known.
With 3,000 km of surly North Atlantic seas separating Fogo from Ireland, the present-day inhabitants of Tilting have retained the distinctive rhythmic lilts of 18th-century immigrants from Cork, Tipperary, Wexford and Waterford.
Now a National Historic Site, the town celebrates its Irish heritage through music, dance and storytelling, highlighted by the Partridge Berry Festival in October and the Féile Tilting in September, a fourday shindig that features “shed crawls,” billed as bar-hopping for a village with no pubs. Irish Times writer Anne Enright has called the town “Irish on the rocks,” while the BBC has declared Fogo “Canada's little-known Emerald Isle.”
French and Indigenous influences also have shaped the accents and language, and with more varieties of English said to be spoken in the province than anywhere else in the world, it's perhaps no surprise that lexicographers have compiled a Dictionary of Newfoundland English. First published in 1982, it contains hundreds of words and phrases found nowhere else.
No come-from-away should go away without a trek up Brimstone Head, a rocky outcropping that juts into the ocean offering unparalleled views on all sides ... and some pretty special bragging rights. The Flat Earth Society has proclaimed this spot one of the four corners of our planet, alongside Hydra, in Greece; the Bermuda Triangle; and Papua New Guinea. A handy map is available for selfies, lest non-believers scoff.
Fogo's neighbour, just across Notre Dame Bay, is the outport community of Change Islands, a collection of three isles connected by “tickles,” or narrow straits. Here you can marvel at drifting icebergs, humpback whales on their migratory journeys and the regal Newfoundland Pony.
“Small community charm and rich fishing culture combine with a prominent sense of history to make this place a tourist and artist's paradise,” the N.L. tourist board states.
Boat, bus and walking tours are available on Fogo and galleries such as the Bleak House Museum and the Marconi Wireless Interpretation Centre bring alive the region's distinctive history.
Or you can just sit back and ponder the mysteries of Newfoundland's wonderful place names. Did I mention Dildo?