raveninflight

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one morning on a three-day trek into the newfoundland wilderness, a fog settled on the land and made the world small. each step seemed to make little difference; my partner and i were still in the same 30-foot-wide diameter bubble. when the fog lifted suddenly, it was all the more astonishing to witness the depth of the fall of the stream we had camped next to the night before.

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the trek climaxed at the view of a fjord punctuated by a finger of land poking into it in defiance of the water coming so deeply inland.

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drifting south from greenland, icebergs drop anchor in the bays of newfoundland. strangers in a strange land, they come not to sink but to fade slowly taking fanciful shapes.

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the black spruces become more ominous at dusk when their silhouettes resemble the blackened remains of whale harpoons of basque sailors recovered from red bay on the coast of labrador.

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the thick boreal forest wilderness of northern quebec opens onto the desolation of a lake reddened by an enormous iron mine.

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nature’s own desolation: stone too rich in minerals inhospitable to plants have been upturned from deep in the earth’s crust to the surface from tectonic activity. it’s a rare site compared to open pit mines blooming across the planet.

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in appearance more like hieroglyphics engraved in the stone, fossils of some the earliest complex lifeforms linger just above the waves of mistaken point. time has since raised them from their watery grave switching places with the world on land and the world underwater and causing the present to meet the age when life was new.

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trinity village like many newfounland’s shoreline communities have the image of being left behind in time. the simple, clapboard houses in the evening light stand just as silently as they did a hundred or so years before.

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the cape race lighthouse seems like it could have plucked from the shoreline where it left a strangely angular inlet for ocean waves to splash and stumble over each other.

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the blowmedown mountains offer an exquisite view of water and land, giving the impression the latter to be more ephemeral than the former.

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gannets make their own crowded tenement to nest; the closest they come to land favoring the sky and the ocean.

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introspective perspective of newfoundland/labrador

in 2015 my partner, capucine, and i commenced a road journey, driving for hours northeast of quebec city. we followed the north shore of the st. lawrence "river" that gradually opens for hundreds of miles to bleed ambiguously into the atlantic never having a precise end. once i left what could be considered the coast and went north from baie-comeau into the interior, the road was crowded with boreal forest only interrupted by occasional ponds. there are more hydroelectric dams than villages here, and the more abundant two-legged permanent residents are the pylon giants that stand as sentinels endlessly humming with the promise of power for the cramped city centers far south. going against the power current, i went hundreds of miles further north, alternating between gravel and pot-holed pavement, until signs of civilization resurfaced where a massive iron ore mine is being excavated. it's eerie coming out of the spruce forest to a view of an industrial skyline of metal chutes and smoke stacks beyond a lake polluted to a burning red (incidentally named fire lake). it's here i came to the border of labrador where a sign welcomed me to "the big land". at first, i mocked that title as another over-dramatic catch phrase. on the map, labrador is but a modest piece sliced off the bulk of northern quebec. furthermore, labrador pales in size in comparison with the empty of expanses of earth that make up many of canada's provinces. and yet, it was on my latest voyage this early summer to the province of newfoundland and labrador (two places in one province) that i reconsidered my initial assessment of "the big land".

it is not the imposed measures of civilization that make labrador big but the loss of both civilization and its arbitrary dimensions. leaving the border and mining towns behind, the trees thin and shrink. looking from the highway (and there is essentially just the one through labrador), i lose reference points to measure space in my mind. the few mountains could be meager outcroppings or domineering massifs. i lean to the latter because of the sheer sense of open space, although they are really the former. the monotony of black spruce prolongs the illusion (or reality) of endlessness. it's hard to tell the stature of these odd trees on the intermittent bog flats. are the solitary spruces dark skyward twigs garnished with vivid green? or are they oversized, pitched spears cracked and blackened with age with verdant wreaths? the frequent fog deepens the effect. the spruce forest closes in and becomes rows of hoodoo shadows on silent vigil, a grotesque army frozen but prone to unlock at any moment to flood the road and swallow one whole. headlights dispel the daymare until they pass. then the fog resumes its power of putting off a notion of perceivable progress. nevertheless, the days of driving do end, and one finds themselves by the coast. here a sense of scale continues to be lost. the scenery becomes treeless so that a dollhouse on the side of the road may seem like a forlorn home out on the tundra. it is by no means a lifeless terrain. the landscape is well-clothed in a blend of low-lying vegetation: springy crowberry, a vast variety of mosses, and trees that have had to prostrate themselves into pancake bushes to survive. each plant has its own shade of green or gray, and as such the patchwork carpet evokes the haphazard visual appeal of the coat of a calico cat that spreads itself over the hills. upon closer inspection the mosses make up dense, miniature forests that make one feel like a blundering giant. you have difficulty keeping balance as one footfall is like treading on marshmallows. then the next step is rebounded by a bush that pushes back like a spring.

crossing by ferry to newfoundland does not end the illusions. one rarely feels far from the ocean on this island as large as it is. the water creeps surprisingly far inland via fingered inlets and abundant bays. one often finds themselves looking over the waves from a seaside cliff or a coastal mountain where the eyes are deflected from the surface slowly until sight slides to the horizon and the unspoiled infinity it evokes. this is a trick of vision as well as assumption, for the ocean waves are really a porous barrier dividing our human realm based on land with a world under water complete with its own sea-scapes, weather systems, and intense biodiversity that we sometimes know very little about (such as giant squids). the birds daily break the boundary at the top of the sea and the bottom of the sky. this summer i witnessed not only the kamikaze gannets plunging headfirst into the water but also the stubby, penguin-esque murres, razorbills, and puffins that sail more effortlessly under the surface than they do above it. at this point, us humans may fish more even than the fowl. in return for what we take out of the ocean for consumption we put in just as much plastic, propagating our own delusion that what's out of sight and out of mind will not come back to bite us later on. even so, ocean plastic isn't completely out of sight anymore like many environmental troubles, and that's one reason i have a need to figuratively and literally take a breath of fresh air from civilization in some isolated place. fortunately, newfoundland is remote enough to often suspend time to before the industrial revolution was in force. on the eastern coast of newfoundland villages can be as austere as the surrounding wind-whipped grasslands. the simplicity of wood-paneled cottages within sight of docked fishing boats creates distance from a present pregnant with technology, advertizing and mental intrusion. the immigration of the irish doesn't seem so long ago as i meet folks lilting and accentuating so strongly i hear "crease" instead of "chris" when i ask a fellow their name. my place in time is disrupted further as i take in the convulsed crags on the west coast. looking closely there are the fossils of creatures long since extinct before land was even colonized. more dramatic are the pale orange boulder barrens that stand out like an incurable stain on the land. they are in fact the testament of the closing of an ocean flush with trilobites. the collison of continents wrenched up a chunk of mantel normally miles below the surface. the aftermath remains as a spectacle striking in how misplaced it is to its surroundings. the same intriguing incongruity goes for the icebergs that drift and catch in the bays on the east coast. what do these silent, ethereal vessels have to do with the seaside hills coming into their spring attire? it disorients my bearings on time and space, and even so i feel less absent than i do in my apartment in the city pouring over finances and studies. instead, i feel more in the present that is somehow everything at once.

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the scenery is often playing tricks on the eyes. the waves crashing into the island look a lot like the cathedral-like iceberg nearby.

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in newfoundland it can get hard to discern where the water ends or begins or where it’s fair weather or fog.

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size loses meaning when putting island in pond and icebergs in bay side by side.

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the rocks get their revenge: they were marooned by glaciers that carried them to their hang out by the sea. now they chuckle as the icebergs get trapped to melt slowly into the bay. 

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the stones and icebergs work together to make a balanced tableau.