FROZEN IN TIME, FULL OF WARMTH
Remote island no longer has to fish for compliments
Ice cream always tastes better with my feet in the sand. I perch on a rock, dig my toes in deeper, and take a taste of the partridgeberry jam tart treat. As I look out across the deep blue water, at least 15 white clumps float on the horizon, like bleached rocks out at sea.
Icebergs. Maybe I’ll skip the swim. Off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, Fogo Island is a window to the immense North Atlantic. It may be the largest island on Newfoundland and Labrador’s vast coast, but it feels far, far away. It’s a 45-minute ferry ride from Newfoundland, an island itself. In the summer, remote Fogo feels timeless and primeval. In the winter, surrounded by ice, it feels like the endless Arctic.
Fogo Island retains a small-town feel in its 11 communities, and it’s easy for visitors to find themselves
being invited to dinner in an island home, learning to row one of Fogo’s little wooden boats, investigating old fish stages along the waterfront, or walking the trails throughout the island to forage for berries and catch a glimpse of caribou herds.
The partridgeberries in my ice cream are among 15 indigenous berries found on Fogo. A beloved ice cream shop, Growlers takes its name from the pieces of ice that calve off larger icebergs as they travel on the way south from the Arctic. Smaller “bergy bits” are used to cool summer beverages.
While Fogo Island’s remoteness is what draws visitors here, it quickly becomes clear that the best experiences center on the moment when you begin to feel like part of the community, too.
Doors held ajar
The Flat Earth Society believes that Brimstone Head on Fogo Island is one of the four corners of the Earth. Standing at the top of the wild rocky outcrop and overlooking the Atlantic Ocean dotted with icebergs, I understand why it seems an easy choice. There may be cars on the island’s roads, electrical power and cell service, but wherever I look, sea and sky dominate and there’s a presence of something much bigger than the self.
Fogo Island is a place where the past is present in everything. The way people fish, make boats, prepare food and tell stories shows a love of the island that stretches across generations. But the industrialization of the cod fishery caused the near extinction of the fish near the end of the 20th century, and islanders began to leave Fogo for more prosperous job opportunities.
Led by their love of the island, a small group of residents established a foundation to fortify local culture, giving people not only a reason to stay, but also to showcase the Newfoundland lifestyle. That’s the reason the Fogo Island Inn offers its guests the opportunity to experience the destination beyond the luxury nest overlooking the North Atlantic. Community hosts give personal tours of the island, allowing a far deeper view into life here.
My guide, Al Dwyer, lives in the village of Tilting. Descendants of the island’s first settlers from England and Ireland retained elements of their old dialect, and as we encounter people near his home, it becomes hard for me to remember that I’m in Canada.
With more than 125 miles of trails, there are plenty of ways to see much of the island — ancient footpaths steeped in history, jagged cliffs to the edge of the Earth, or paths following animal tracks into the untamed wilderness. Dwyer leads me along one path to an art studio, and he tells me of a poem that describes how hospitable Fogo Islanders are.
“I don’t have the whole thing in my head,” he says. “But the last line is about ‘doors held ajar in storms.’ Out here, when people need help, you help them. There’s no thinking about some argument you can’t get over.”
Back in the Fogo Island Inn library, I find the poem “Newfoundland” by E.J. Pratt. I read it over and over again during my stay: in the dark of night, when the fresh breeze whips into my room’s open windows, and while watching the icebergs drift through Iceberg Alley in the Labrador Current. The final lines could easily have been written about the people I’ve met here:
“And the story is told Of human veins and pulses Of eternal pathways of fire Of dreams that survive the night Of doors held ajar in storms.”
Aidan Penton’s shed is cluttered with a treasure of tools, white spruce timbers and a wooden boat that he made himself. He pulls a piece of wood out from a corner of the shed and shows me where the sweeping shape of a gunwale can be found in a tree trunk.
In winter, builders find naturally curved wood to dry and shape into the final product, which can take up to eight weeks of work.
Punting culture
The punt was once the workhorse of Fogo Island and the other “outports” along the northern coast of Newfoundland, and islanders had punts for fishing, school, market, church and racing. Today, there are no more than 10 punt-builders on the island, but the little wooden boat remains an important symbol of local culture and takes center stage during the annual Great Fogo Island Punt Race to There and Back.
Just as Penton and I finish talking about boat-making, members of the race committee stream into his shed to discuss preparations for the July event. In between planning, they take the time to show me how to craft traditional knots from scraps of rope. The next day before my punt-rowing lesson, I find an envelope of intricate rope creations waiting for me at the inn’s front desk.
They become my first Fogo souvenirs.
I’m dressed for the water when I meet my instructor at an old fishing stage in Tilting. Dwyer, who trains three to four days a week during the warm season and competes in the punt race, shows me how the punts are rowed — propelled by oars attached to the boat by a woven rope circlet, called a wit. Then he leans back in the little wooden boat’s stern and observes my paddle strokes.
Because I’m a kayaker, the act of adding a second paddle makes me feel uncoordinated, and it’s difficult to keep both arms at the exact same speed. I soon get the rhythm down (mostly) and tour Dwyer along the waterfront.
“You’re good,” he observes, kindly. “If I don’t have a partner for the race next year, you’re hired.”
Icebergs and whales
Since being on Fogo Island, I’ve viewed icebergs from shore and tasted them in the form of small bergy bits in my cocktails. At this point, the only thing left is to heed the call of the icebergs and head out to sea on the M/V Ketanja to get a close-up view.
Once the boat turns away from land, there are only two types of things I can see on the
horizon: huge icebergs and the Little Fogo Islands. As we approach the hunks of frozen freshwater, their fantastical shapes become clear. Here, one looks like a turreted castle. There, a blinding white pyramid sports a racing stripe of deep sapphire. A loud rumble and explosive splash in the distance come from an iceberg that has now become two.
In the Little Fogo Islands, an archipelago of footholds in the North Atlantic, there are four “puffin” islands: Long Puffin, Short Puffin, Round Puffin and Western Puffin. Clouds of clown-faced Atlantic puffins fly from one island to another, just as humpback and minke whales emerge above the water’s surface.
These islands were once home to a yearround fishing community, as evidenced by the remnants of homes, fishing stages and tiny St. Anne’s Church on the islet where we dock. I roam through the thick grass dotted with wild iris that surrounds the buildings at the edge of the Earth, and imagine what it would be like to live here, in a small community, during a storm.
After returning to the Fogo Island Inn, I choose a cocktail with a mini-iceberg and a cozy seat near the bar. The last sunlight of the day streams in the floor-toceiling windows, casting shadows across the room.
As people find comfortable corners, chairs and tables, it feels more like a family gathering than a hotel of tourists. A musician strums her guitar, and then sings a song that, like the poem, could have been written about Fogo Island.
I was born down by the water It’s here I’m going to stay I’ve searched for all the reasons Why I should go away But I haven’t got the thirst For all those modern-day toys So I’ll just take my chances With those saltwater joys
I’m not the only person who asked her to sing it again.