A Canadian Family Story
My story begins in Newfoundland where my brother and I were born during the Second World War. The island of Newfoundland, which was originally a British colony, became the newest province of Canada in 1949, the same year that the Peoples Republic of China was born.
Our mother was born and raised in Newfoundland. During the War , she worked in St. Johns, the capital city, where she met a young Canadian sailor from Ontario. He was a member of the crew of a Royal Canadian Navy ship that was part of one of the convoys that escorted supply ships across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe during the war. They fell in love and subsequently, got married. The rest is history, so to speak. Our family moved to Ontario in late 1945, just after the war ended.
In 1999, acting on impulse, my brother and I decided to take our mother to Newfoundland for a visit. It had been almost fifty years since we had last visited our mothers outport where she grew up. It was also the 50th anniversary of Newfoundlands becoming part of Canada.
In 1950, I was six and my brother was five when we last visited our mothers childhood home. At that time, Irelands Eye was a vibrant, quaint fishing village hugging the rocky shore of a small, enclosed harbour. There was no electricity. There were no roads, no automobiles, and few signs of automation of any type. There were oil lamps and wood stoves in the homes and mere footpaths between the aggregate of small communities on the hilly island, also named Irelands Eye. We can still see and hear the inboard motorboats, putt putting into the harbour, hauling their days catch of fish. The image of hardy fishermen with pitchforks hoisting and tossing the codfish up to the stilted platforms from the bowels of the boats is still quite vivid. The aroma of salted, drying codfish, lingers still.
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