One is the Loneliest Number
Round Harbour, Newfoundland
49° 55’N 55° 44’W
August 4, 2009
It’s easy to look back on the past with rose colored glasses and totally forget the backbreaking work it took just to survive. Charlie Foss reminded us of that as we sat in his kitchen sipping tea and telling stories. I asked him if he’d played around the cliffs as a young boy.
“Oh no,” he said, “You couldn’t wander away from the fish flakes in case it rained. We yong ‘uns would have to cover up the drying fish before they got ruined. When we weren’t doing that it was watching the sheep and pigs or any number of chores. My six year old sister worked like a 16 year old.”
Charlie went to the one room schoolhouse through 8th grade but didn’t learn much. There was never time to do homework but when he missed spelling something right, the teacher would hit them with a ruler or stick. He wouldn’t cry and in the 2nd grade the teacher hit him so hard it raised blood welts and he had the scar to prove it.
Kind of takes the rosy glasses off . . . but doesn’t blind us to the beauty of this spot today. Round Harbour is exactly that an almost perfect round bowl with houses built up all around. There are pictures of fish flakes, large flat structures used to dry fish, filling up every available space and all of it covered with drying cod. Today it’s a mix of colorful houses but most are empty and Charlie is the only full time resident. Yep, come winter he’s the only one here. So far the government keeps the road plowed so his mail can be delivered but as he put it, it’d be cheaper for them to pay him to move!
Nice hike out to the cliffs and we met a few more residents. There’s a beautiful Anglican Church and a nice place to stretch your legs. The anchorage is open to the swell and we were rocked to sleep at night.
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