Extolling rural solitude
Paul Sparkes writes of old parks brochures
“Overcrowding has added to the stresses and strains of urban life. In the hectic environment of a large city one can feel entirely cut off from the refreshing influence of Nature. At the same time, as a result of the shorter work week, people have more leisure time than ever before.
“In this situation it is not surprising that many are turning to the peace and beauty of the countryside for fulfillment. The woods, rivers, lakes and shores offer surroundings in which to relax, forget and enjoy ...
“Go down the side roads; poke into the bays; stand among the spruce trees and breathe their fragrance. Turn toward the ocean and ‘test’ the breeze, smell the salt, the wave-torn kelp, the spray-washed air, the saturated, aged sand.”
It is pure “prose-poetry” and it comes to us from a 40-yearold booklet produced by the Government of Newfoundland in order to draw attention to our provincial parks. Published under the great seal of the Minister of Tourism at the time, Thomas Valentine Hickey, the booklet works. At least it did for me when I found it last week buried in a stack of old leaflets. I began to spot-read. I wanted to go back there, to the network of some 50 parks, each with its own characteristic, its own attraction.
While the 22-page booklet starts rather abruptly with a list of fees and regulations (like, “pets should be leashed, caged or confined in some other way”) within a few pages it does get into the attributes of the different parks as they were then. Consider these two lines on Mummichog down around Cape Ray:
“A nature oriented park, it is named after a small killifish found in the brackish waters of the lagoon. A variety of birds, some rare in the province, can be seen by the avid birch watcher.”
By the way, killifish refers to a huge piscatorial family tree (so to speak). All members of that family are noted for the fact that they lay eggs. They often thrive in what is referred to as “ephemeral” waters, likely the same as our “brackish.” These are temporary pools which seem (to my way of reading it) to become the petri dishes of little things, bugs included, that would otherwise be homeless.
Birds, fish and, generally, wildlife that does not include skunks, snakes or porcupines; there was so much to experience here. And this is a hidden lesson for the park visitor intent only on entering, hooking up, unfolding the garden chair, opening the beer and talking to his neighbour about trailers.
The booklet sings the praises of Big Falls at the Squires Memorial Park on the Humber River, the picnic park at Sandbanks and the long, sandy, saltwater beach at Piccadilly Head and other jewels.
All this brings to mind the reactions of at least two New York cousins who came here some summers now long gone. They had grown up in Brooklyn, the children of our diaspora; the fresh air and outdoor life of their parents who had left Newfoundland behind during the Depression things of storybooks. They were unknown and unreal.
One of the cousins, a young woman, was terrified at the Cape St. Mary’s seabird sanctuary. Perhaps because there was no protective rail as might be
found on the Brooklyn Bridge. Another visitor, a middle-aged man was cast into wonderment that, out around Conception Bay, we usually didn’t bother to lock our cars. At Topsail Beach as we sat facing the sea, another visitor, a young girl, kept throwing nervous glances back to the
wooded areas behind, later confessing to being unsure of what might emerge from there, especially as we were unprotected – our backs were turned.
Knowing of those little reactions from visitors, the wording of this booklet from the mid1970s can be fairly well understood. Although perhaps not realistic today, recommended diversions like the following were no creative writer’s pipe dream:
“Meet the people! Stop and chat! Smile and they will smile back. Let them tell you where the caplin spawn, where seals lie in the sun, or where the berries grow thick on the hill. See the fishermen knitting their nets, caulking their boats, or building a wiggly garden rod fence. Listen to their tales of pothead drives, of ghostly lights, or of schooners sunk in a storm.”
A sad note but an essential part of the story: the mother of the cousins mentioned above never quite overcame the shock to her system after she had been mugged on a Brooklyn street near her home. She had left her apartment in the middle of the day with her purse clutched tightly to her breast. She scurried along toward her destination, as much as an octogenarian can scurry. But she could not avoid the two muggers who relieved her of that purse.
None of this, mind you, means there is no peace in metropolitan New York. Nor does it mean there is no crime in rural Newfoundland.