howard zinn at tiff tonight

Movie fans lucky enough to be attending the Toronto International Film Festival tonight have an opportunity to see someone more important than any film being shown there.

Radical historian Howard Zinn will attend the opening of "The People Speak".

Howard Zinn taught us to look at history with fresh eyes. His landmark book A People's History of the United States, first published in 1980, has sold one and a half million copies around the world and inspired innumerable fresh approaches to reflecting on the past.

Now comes a unique documentary collaboration between Zinn and others. They have enlisted an extraordinary lineup of actors, including Viggo Mortensen, Danny Glover, Marisa Tomei and Kerry Washington, who contribute live stage performances of historical testimonies. The actors portray labour leaders, civil rights demonstrators and other activists, whose stories are drawn from Voices of a People's History of the United States, an anthology edited by Zinn and Anthony Arnove that was published in 2004.

In their introduction to the book, they wrote, "Whenever injustices have been remedied, wars halted, women and blacks and Native Americans given their due, it has been because 'unimportant' people spoke up, organized, protested and brought democracy alive."

Zinn and Arnove are bringing this work to film with the support of Matt Damon and Chris Moore, who previously collaborated as producers on the television series Project Greenlight, and whose formidable powers as producers enabled them to greenlight such a unique project.

In this special Mavericks presentation, the audience will be treated to a sneak preview of clips from the documentary The People Speak, along with a discussion on stage between Zinn, Damon, Moore and actor Josh Brolin (who performs in the project) about the process and their motivations. This continues a Mavericks tradition of giving Festival audiences a sneak peak at works-in-progress. In 2006, Michael Moore tried out early clips of Sicko, and in 2007, Larry Charles and Bill Maher showed samples of Religulous, which premieres at this year's Festival.

The People Speak combines archival footage with new performances, the actors embodying voices full of courage and passion. For anyone who found school-book history dull, this version is an invigorating change.

If you haven't read A People's History of the United States, I hope you will. It's history told from the point of view of Native Americans, slaves, workers, women, war resisters, gay people - everyone who has struggled for freedom and equality, and whose struggles have advanced democracy. It's also a history of people's movements, and a primer on how people, united, can - and do - change the world.

I often recommend reading this book a bit at a time. Read a chapter, put it down, read other things, live your life, go back and read another chapter, put it down, and so on. The beginning chapters are very heavy. Painful. But it's tremendous. It's also an indispensable reference work; Allan and I both take it off the shelf periodically when we need facts and evidence.

I also highly recommend Zinn's memoir, You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train. I feel a personal indebtedness to Mr. Zinn from this book, which I shared with him. After the 2004 US "election", I fell into a real funk. Although we had already gotten the thumbs-up from the CIC, and we knew we were leaving no matter what the outcome of that farce, it still depressed me. Another stolen election. Fascism staring us in the face.

Luckily I was already reading Zinn's memoirs. He reminded me of what is most important - not who is in power, but how we challenge that power. The book brought me back to myself. I posted about it here, here, here and here.

I look forward to being similarly inspired by this film.

Howard Zinn's wife and life partner, the artist Rosyln Zinn, died in May. They were married 64 years. My condolences to Mr. Zinn and his children. I know that while Ms Zinn was ill, Zinn wasn't traveling or speaking. I'm glad to know he's back.

the most profitable "disaster" on earth

An ongoing theme of wmtc is disputing the notion that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq have been a failure.

For humanity, of course it is. For the dead, the disabled, the haunted, the homeless, the shattered families, the broken lives: a disaster. And if for some reason you believed the intent of the invasion was to find weapons of mass destruction, or to spread democracy, or to combat terrorism, then yes, the war is a disaster on that level, too. But you didn't really believe that, did you?

When you consider the actual, but unstated, goals of the invasion - and when you consider them in historical terms of other US invasions - the occupation of Iraq has been a spectacular success.

Some weeks ago, James sent me this excellent post from Business Pundit: The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers. It begins:

The Iraq war is many things to different people. It is called a strategic blunder and a monstrous injustice and sometimes even a patriotic mission, much to the chagrin of rational human beings. For many big companies, however, the war is something far different: a lucrative cash-cow. The years-long, ongoing military effort has resurrected fears of the so-called "military-industrial complex." Media pundits are outraged at private companies scooping up huge, no-questions-asked contracts to manufacture weapons, rebuild infrastructure, or anything else the government deems necessary to win (or plant its flag in Iraq). No matter what your stance on the war, it pays to know where your tax dollars are being spent.

Following is a detailed rundown of the 25 companies squeezing the most profit from this controversial conflict.

I take exception to the phrase "media pundits are outraged at private companies...". I haven't seen a lot of outrage in the media. Regardless, this is a great little primer. Go here to read the list.

sir! no sir!

Last night we finally watched "Sir! No Sir!". We've owned it for a long time, but never got around to watching it. Red Sox night off + rain = movie, so its turn finally came up.

This is an excellent film. Talk about an untold story! "Sir! No Sir!" reveals the massive military resistance to the Vietnam War - the peace movement within the military. It's an excellently made film - gripping, powerful and revelatory. Don't miss it.

I want to highlight a few bits that were particularly striking to me.

Military resistance to the war in Vietnam was spread and fed through an underground press. What was once called pamphlets, later called 'zines, and are now called blogs, were written, mimeographed and distributed by and among enlisted men. GIs who had already been to Vietnam told the truth about what they witnessed (and participated in) there, and encouraged resistance.

Googling, I found a book on the subject, Protest and Survive: Underground GI Newspapers during the Vietnam War, out of print, but perhaps I can find it used.

Writing or distributing these newspapers was a court-martial offence, and people served serious prison time for it.

It was brilliant to see people making connections between the civil rights movement at home and what was going on in Vietnam. To see African-Americans realizing that they were being turned into tools of oppression - the same oppression that their ancestors had experienced - was very powerful. White soldiers realized it, too, and stood in solidarity with them.

The Army was used to violently put down riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and to attack peaceful protestors at the Pentagon. African-American soldiers rebelled and organized against this. When troops were called in to bash heads at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Black troops were held back.

A generation earlier, African-American soldiers' experience in World War II gave rise to the civil rights movement, as returning men questioned why they fought for something in Europe that they didn't enjoy at home. Now their sons and daughters were advancing that fight.

It was beautiful to see Jane Fonda's personal contribution to the peace movement celebrated. Fonda's appearances in Vietnam have been so distorted and mocked that wingnuts fling her name at us as an epithet. But she was part of a movement that brought peace-loving, subversive entertainment to GIs hungry for that affirmation. Tens of thousands of US soldiers came out for these "anti-Bob Hope" shows. Rita Martinson sang "Soldier, We Love You." They felt that love, and they wanted peace.

It was similarly thrilling to see and remember that powerful symbol of defiance and solidarity: the raised fist.

At one point during the Vietnam War, more than 500,000 soldiers were AWOL. This number does not include draft resisters. There were half a million deserters.

I've blogged about my own memories of the 1969 Moratorium against the Vietnam War; it's one of my earliest memories of political awareness. I never knew that 1,400 active duty soldiers signed a petition in support of the Moratorium and the March on Washington, and wore black armbands to show their support - in Vietnam.

As the war escalated, military resistance became more widespread, more intense, and more desperate. Spies and translators made false statements, attempting to thwart US plans to bomb civilian targets. Enlisted men conspired to attack their officers, so companies couldn't move into "battles" that were really just suicide missions.

Right around this time, the US started to bomb Cambodia. One former soldier says, "Many of us were convinced that Nixon had to go to an air war because he couldn't trust us on the ground. And for good reason - we were shooting his officers and refusing to go into direct combat whenever we could."

When the US war against Vietnam changed from primarily a ground campaign to primarily an air campaign, military resistance surfaced in the air force and navy.

Finally, there's another connection for me. Ron Kovic - who you probably know as the author of the autobiography Born On The Fourth Of July, and the subject of that movie - is one of the fathers of the disability-rights movement.

Paralyzed Vietnam Veterans have been at the forefront of the independent living movement (and the wheelchair sports movement) for decades. Many of those veterans, however, cling to their beliefs about why they are paralyzed: they were serving their country, they were fighting for freedom, the US are the good guys. Kovic and many other paralyzed veterans knew that their sacrifice was unnecessary, and completely preventable, as were the deaths of 58,000 Americans and probably 1,000,000 Vietnamese.

Kovic is still active in the peace movement. He is a living connection between military resistance to war and a movement which demands equality and justice for all living people.

* * * *

"Sir! No Sir!" stirred all my intensely negative feelings about the nation of my birth and the many evils it has perpetrated. But I wept in admiration and awe of people's courage and strength and determination to do the right thing.

We haven't watched all the DVD extras yet - which total a longer running time than the film! - but we did see one. There is a short piece on Camilo Mejia, an Iraq War resister who was court-martialed, sent to prison, and given a dishonourable discharge. Standing next to Mejia was his lawyer, who we recognized from "Sir! No Sir!" as Louis Font. Font graduated from West Point Military Academy; the Army was sending him to the Harvard School of Government when he himself became a military resister.

The fight continues.

what i'm reading: the book of negroes

I'm reading a remarkable book, one that Canadian readers are likely familiar with, but that I hope everyone will read: The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill, published in the US as Someone Knows My Name.

Hill is the writer who co-authored The Deserter's Tale with Joshua Key, and because of that - and excellent reviews - I was curious about this book. I am utterly engrossed.

The Book of Negroes is a historical novel about slavery. It begins in a village in Africa, where a girl is kidnapped, and follows her story, told in her own voice. The reader comes along on her forced journey, first overland, then in the unimaginable horrors of the ocean voyage, and to South Carolina.

From there the narrator will journey to Manhattan, and then to Nova Scotia, as part of a contingent of Black Loyalists who fought for the British against the American colonists. The military ledger of that ship is the historical document known as The Book of Negroes.

The woman's story doesn't end there, as she will join of a contingent of former slaves who actually travel back to their homeland. Later she will live in London, where the British abolitionist movement will use her as a prop for their work.

It's not easy to read about slavery, to imagine what it might have been like. Certain horrors of the world are easily avoided; I feel those are the ones we must force ourselves to visit in our minds. War, genocide, slavery, executions.

The best books I've read that deal with slavery have all been novels: in addition to The Book of Negroes, Toni Morrison's masterpiece Beloved (one of the great US novels) and the excellent Middle Passage, by Charles Johnson. I also loved Cloudsplitter, Russell Banks' novel about the radical abolitionist John Brown. Each of these books deals with slavery from a different angle. The Book of Negroes is the first book I've read that brings you this close to the heart of the horror, step by step, through the eyes of a person forced into slavery.

I have also read parts of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs, one of the four slave narratives that were edited and published by the historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. I see they are listed in Hill's extensive bibliography.

The Book of Negroes is narrated in the first-person by an elderly woman, looking back on the fantastical journey of her life. Her voice sounds, to me, completely authentic - and that is the greatest compliment I can think of.

On a personal note, I met Lawrence Hill at a War Resisters Support Campaign event in January. He attended with one of his children, and spoke at the event. He's a very friendly, soft-spoken, caring man who has done a lot for the Campaign. I always say that The Deserter's Tale is our single best organizing tool.

I had been reading The Book of Negroes from the library, but once I discovered how good it is, I went out and bought it. Whichever you choose, don't miss this book.

what i'm reading (updated for clarification)

As I finish up Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow, I want to again recommend it as a must-read for understanding US foreign policy. And that means understanding it in a way that most USians will never do.

On the evening of March 19, 2003, shortly before announcing that the United States was about to launch its long-expected invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush sat behind an antique desk in the White House and practiced reading his speech. It struck all the appropriate notes, including a declaration that the purpose of this invasion was "to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger." Some would later point to it as the speech that ripped the United States away from a long tradition of cooperative diplomacy, turning it into an arrogant power that assumed the right to determine which foreign governments could live and which must die. The man who looked down on Busy from a large oil painting on the wall behind him would have understood better than anyone how wrong that was.

Bush rehearsed this speech in the Treaty Room, at the same desk from which he had announced the invasion of Afghanistan seventeen months before. It was one of his favorite rooms in the White House, at least in part because of the imposing painting that is the first thing visitors see when they enter. It depicts President William McKinley, the first great American practitioner of "regime change," watching as diplomats sign the protocol that turned Cuba into a protectorate and Puerto Rico into a colony. . . .

Bush's decision to invade Iraq was no break with history but a faithful reflection of the same forces and beliefs that had motivated McKinley and most of the presidents who would later sit in his shadow beneath Chartran's historic painting.

Read this book. It's fascinating and absorbing, and chances are you will learn a lot.

* * * *

I've been disappointed in how little time I make for reading books now. Although I read more books than most people, I also love books more than most people. When I think of what interests have most absorbed me over my entire life, books must be first on the list, even before travel and dogs, and well before baseball and music.* Yet reading books takes up less and less of my time, as I spend more and more of it in front of a keyboard and monitor.

A month ago I determined to make time for a book every day, a modest goal of one hour per day. No matter how busy I am, no matter what I'm doing, I decided I can set aside one hour of uninterrupted reading. So far it's working beautifully. I feel better for it.

Next up, Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland And Labrador, by John Gimlette. I guess I should have read this before we went to Newfoundland, but I'm sure it will still be very enjoyable.

* * * *

* Apparently this can be misinterpreted. I'm saying that my interest in books pre-dates my love of dogs, or of anything else in my life - that I have been reading and loving books for more years than I have been loving dogs, travel, music or baseball, my other abiding interests. I am not implying that books are more important to me than my dogs!

the first internment: ukrainian immigrants in canada, 1914-1920

Did you know that there was a national round-up and internment in Canada decades before that was done to Canadians of Japanese descent?

I learned this completely by accident while in Newfoundland. We were having breakfast at a little cafe and CBC radio was on, running stories for Canada Day. There was a long feature (excerpts from a new documentary) about the internment of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada.

I don't know the name of the documentary CBC was featuring, and I can't seem to find it. (Someone is sure to post it in comments.) Here's a National Film Board film that tells the story.

Freedom Had a Price tells the little-known story of those Ukrainian immigrants who, described by the Canadian government as "enemy aliens" at the outbreak of World War One, found themselves subject to discriminatory and repressive measures for the next six years.

Between 1914 and 1920, about 80,000 Ukrainian immigrants were forced to register as "enemy aliens," report regularly to the police, and carry government-issued identity papers at all times.

Over 5,000 of their compatriots suffered an even more severe fate, imprisoned in internment camps across the country. Treatment was often harsh, and conditions grim. Some died in the camps, many were sick or injured, and several were killed by guards while trying to escape. By means of archival footage, vintage photographs, the compelling testimony of survivors, and the commentary of such prominent Canadian historians as Desmond Morton and Donald Avery, award-winning filmmaker Yurij Luhovy weaves a moving human story of Canadian history that has all but disappeared from public consciousness.

And as I looked up this information, I learned that a similar round-up - less harsh, but no more just - was perpetrated against Italian-Canadians in 1940.

It's vitally important that we know this history and never forget it.

And lest we become complacent, certain that such injustices could never happen again, we should be well versed in what's happening right now.

roy zimmerman: is america ready?

A history lesson from Roy Zimmerman.

You know I don't think Obama is all that different than the rest of them, lovely skin tone aside, and you know how I feel about US elections. But this is still very funny. I actually laughed out loud at work, with my headphones on.

Thanks Roy, and thanks to James for sending.

overthrow: two brief excerpts

Stephen Kinzer:

Americans have a profoundly compassionate side. Many not only appreciate the freedom and prosperity with which they have been blessed but fervently wish to share their good fortune with others. Time and again, they have proved willing to support foreign interventions that are presented as missions to rescue less fortunate people.

When President McKinley said he was going to war with Cuba to stop "oppression at our very doors," Americans cheered. They did so again a decade later, when the Taft administration declared that it was deposing the government of Nicaragua in order to impose "republican institutions" and promote "real patriotism". Since then, every time the United States has set out to overthrow a foreign government, its leaders have insisted that they are acting not to expand American power but to help people who are suffering.

* * * *

The Cuban revolution, and especially Castro's turn toward anti-Yankee radicalism, baffled most Americans. Few had any idea of how the United States had treated Cuba in the past, so naturally they could not understand why Cubans wished so fervently to break out of the American orbit. Many were astonished, just as their grandparents had been in 1898, to learn that "liberated" Cubans were ungrateful to the United States. . . . .

Castro was a pure product of American policy toward Cuba. If the United States had not crushed Cuba's drive to independence in the early twentieth century, if it had not supported a series of repressive dictators there, and if it had not stood by while the 1952 election was canceled, a figure like Castro would almost certainly not have emerged. His regime is the quintessential result of a "regime change" operation gone wrong, one that comes back to haunt the country that sponsored it.

what i'm reading: overthrow by stephen kinzer

Long ago, several wmtc readers recommended I read Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. I'm about halfway through it now. This book should come with a warning. I might need a chiropractor before I'm done, straining my neck from shaking my head so much.

During the run-up to the US's 2003 invasion of Iraq, I was often frustrated by progressive people calling those events "unprecedented", when in fact they were exactly the opposite. The invasion of Iraq followed a well-worn pattern, in keeping with more than a century of US foreign policy. I remember thinking there were stark parallels between 2003 and 1898, and went back to Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States to check. Now I'm learning that I was more correct than I knew.

One obvious parallel is the role of a compliant media selling a war to an ignorant public. We all have a tendency to portray the mainstream media "these days" as having gone off the rails, abdicating its traditional adversarial role with government. In fact, the mainstream media is doing what it always has done, with a few notable but isolated exceptions. The New York Times didn't start printing government lies to sell wars in 2003. 1903 would be closer to the truth. At least now we have access to other sources and we can quickly disseminate the facts. In the past, citizens had to wait for the truth to leak out, too little, too late.

Kinzer is very clear about placing responsibility for the actions of the US government with the people of the US. I appreciate that, yet I keep thinking, "Yes, but..." The history Kinzer writes of is hidden from most Americans. They aren't taught this in school, and they don't see it reflected in their media. Unless they have a special interest in "alternative" (translation: real) history, they would never know any of this.

Americans hear about world events completely devoid of context. The US intervenes in a foreign country. This touches off a chain of events that, seven steps later, ends with an attack on an American or an American embassy. US citizens then hear about an unprovoked attack. They get no context, and believe there's a justifiable pretext to war.

Even the attack itself is often later proved to be the work of US operatives.

(At the risk of this thread going grossly off-topic, I'll add that this gives me hope that one day, the truth about September 11 will be known.)

For most Americans, the words "the American Empire" are meaningless. There's only one country, right? Fifty states, no colonies. How can that be an empire? Yet a country that controls the governments of dozens of other countries around the globe can only be called an empire. Americans are, for the most part, totally ignorant of their country's history of forced "influence" and "intervention".

Overthrow is not just extremely eye-opening, it's very enjoyable reading. Kinzer tells the story of each "regime change" in narrative form, giving a feel for the suspense and intrigue of the times. Nothing dry or academic here; this history is bright and alive.

From the introduction:

The United States uses a variety of means to persuade other countries to do its bidding. In many cases it relies on time-honoured tactics of diplomacy, offering rewards to governments that support American interests and threatening retaliation against those that refuse. Sometimes it defends friendly regimes against popular anger or uprisings. In more than a few places, it has quietly supported coups or revolutions organized by others. Twice, in the context of world wars, it helped to wipe away old ruling orders and impose new ones.

This book is not about any of those ways Americans have shaped the modern world. It focuses only on the most extreme set of cases: those in which the United States arranged to depose foreign leaders. No nation in modern history has done this so often, in so many places so far from its own shores.

The stories of these "regime change" operations are dazzlingly exciting. They tell of patriots and scoundrels, high motives and low cynicism, extreme courage and cruel betrayal. This book brings them together for the first time, but it seeks to do more than simply tell what happened. By considering these operations as a continuum rather than as a series of unrelated incidents, it seeks to find what they have in common. It poses and tries to answer two fundamental questions. First, why did the United States carry out these operations? Second, what have been their long-term consequences?

Drawing up a list of countries the United States has overthrown is not as simple as it sounds. This book treats only cases in which Americans played the decisive role in deposing a regime. Chile, for example, makes the list because, although many factors led to the 1973 coup there, the American role was decisive. Indonesia, Brazil and the Congo do not, because American agents played only subsidiary roles in the overthrow of their governments during the 1960s. Nor do Mexico, Haiti, or the Dominican Republic, countries the United States invaded but whose leaders it did not depose.

That US citizens can travel abroad at all, without being murdered every time they step foot out of the US, speaks to the goodwill of most ordinary people. For the most part, people do distinguish between a country's government and its individual citizens, and Americans should thank their lucky stars for that.

Now to get that Canadian passport!

port au choix

This is a very interesting place, and a beautiful one. If you are ever driving the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, I highly recommend a day's stop at Port au Choix.

After breakfast at the B&B, we went back to the Visitors Centre for a video and a better look at the artifacts there. These are among the best preserved prehistoric artifacts you will see anywhere, thanks to the area's alkaline soil. Also, the Dorset Indians and the Paleoeskimos were expert toolmakers who knew how to best exploit the rich resources they found. The arrowheads, toggle harpoons, needles (made of antler), sled runners (made of bone), spear heads and all the tools displayed were so perfect and fine, quite impressive.

Excavations began in this area in the 1960s, after a local resident found skeletal remains while digging a basement. It is still being excavated, and the work could continue for decades without ever being complete.

As the climate changed, cooling and heating and cooling again over thousands of years, different peoples populated this area, but all thrived in it. Some were around for centuries, others for thousands of years. All of them - the Maritime Archaic Indians, Dorset Paleoeskimos, Groswater Paleoeskimos, and Recent Indians (recent in archaeological terms, but still prehistoric) - lived many times longer than modern Canada or the US has existed.

All evidence shows that these peoples lived long and healthy lives in sustainable societies. All are gone now. Some of them are the ancestors of the Beothuks, who are now completely extinct. Some are the ancestors of the Inuit. Others, like the Dorset, have no known direct descendants.

After checking out the Visitors Centre, we hiked to the main excavation sites, those of the Dorsets, who left an especially impressive record. Now the sites are quiet meadows of low-lying plants a short distance from a rocky shoreline in a sheltered bay. Thousands of years ago, they would have been alive with human activity.

The digging was going on while we were there, as it is every day weather permits. When we walked over, a young archaeologist came over to greet us. He explained that at the moment they are working on an area between two dwelling areas that was probably used for processing seals. At this location, seals were the Dorset Indians' primary source of food, clothing and shelter.

While we were asking questions and hearing about the work, another archaeologist came over with a piece they had found that morning - a section of a sled runner, made from whalebone. The whalebone was probably scavenged from a beached whale. It would have been connected to the sealskin sled with seal sinew. We asked her how they knew what it was when they found it, and what would happen to it next. It was fascinating.

This is the largest Dorset site in the world. Our interpreter (who is from St. John's) told us that there is enough material here for five lifetimes of excavation and study. It was really fun to see the work going on right before our eyes.

It was cool out today, but not raining, so we were happy. We picked up some food for lunch in the town supermarket, then went for another hike.

This one began with a French oven, a working replica of the outdoor, communal ovens once used in France. These ovens were built in seven Newfoundland towns as part of celebrations in 2004, commemorating 100 years since France gave up its claims on the waters off Newfoundland, a milestone in Newfoundland independence. Although the Treaty of Utrecht [1713] gave Newfoundland to the English, France was still permitted to fish the shores and operate offshore fisheries. The French boats were floating salt-cod processing factories; they fished, salted the cod and sailed back to France without ever coming ashore. We've heard about the French fisheries, and the long struggles between the English and the French over Newfoundland, in several places. This area we're in now is also known as the French Shore. Apparently the first Europeans to fish here were Basque, quickly followed by French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Anyway, this outdoor brick oven was the start of a hike along the coastline that led to the site of an early European settlement. The coast is rocky but low-lying, none of the dramatic cliffs we've seen elsewhere. The plants are all short and scrubby, spongy when you walk on them. Yellow and white wildflowers are in bloom. Seagulls wheel overhead, and the occasional fishing boat chugs by. It was very peaceful. We sat on rocks and watched the water for a while.

The Dorset site and the oven are on opposite sides of a small harbour, where there are a few houses, a few fishing boats, and piles of lobster traps. It's pretty, but not exactly a hub of activity. There's a factory in town where cold-water shrimp is processed. There are a few restaurants and B&Bs - and a lot of boarded up buildings, and for-rent and for-sale signs. Once again, if it weren't for Parks Canada and the cultural work going on here, this town would scarcely exist.

We called ahead and made reservations for the next two nights in Rocky Harbour, a town outside Gros Morne National Park. Please contact your nearest weather deity and request clear skies for us. Thank you.

There are no pubs or cafes within a 100-kilometer radius, at least. The "lounge" in town (a metal shed connected to a motel) has a handwritten sign posted: "Disco Tonight". Scary! I'm tempted to stop by and see what that means, but we have the Red Sox on our laptops tonight.

Random note. We notice that Parks Canada does not use the designations "BC" and "AD" for dates; it uses "BP" for "Before Present". For example, interpretative information will say, "The peoples who lived in this area 4500 years ago" rather than "...who lived here around 2500 BC." Perhaps Canadian readers know about this already, maybe you all grew up with this in Canada? It's new to me. In fact, when I was writing about ancient civilizations for a US and European publisher in 2005, we were using BC and AD.

This "xxx years ago" designation is certainly more accurate, and dispenses with the ridiculous Christian-centricity of dating the whole world according to the supposed birth year of one supposed man-god. I think it's also easier for most people to think about some number of years ago, as opposed to subtracting to the year 1, then adding back to the BC dates, which run backwards.

My only question is what is the baseline for "the present"? When we say "before present time," the present time will keep changing. But perhaps this doesn't matter, because we're talking about centuries or millennium, and 50 years give or take is not important. I'm sure some readers know.

Random note. I was in error: the locals don't say "Port Oh Shwah". They say "Porto Swaz". It sounds like a Salad Nicoise.

Pictures of Port au Choix are here.

st. anthony / l'anse aux meadows

[Wednesday, June 25]

This morning we learned that we can stay in this B&B a second night, if we don't mind sharing a bathroom with our host, which we don't. So after breakfast, we moved our bags upstairs, cancelled our reservation at the motel next door, and drove to L'Anse aux Meadows, about 50 km away. (We passed the turn-off for it on the way to St. Anthony yesterday.)

As you drive out to L'Anse, the landscape becomes very barren - rock, moss, low-lying plants, almost like tundra. We passed a moose on our way to the visitors' centre. He was busy feeding and took no notice of people staring at him from a distance. He was still there, still eating, when we came out.

L'Anse aux Meadows was the first location ever listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was the first point of European contact with the New World, and also the first site of iron-making in the New World. The Vikings came to this place four times over the course of 10 or 20 years, 500 years before Christopher Columbus would make his fateful journey. The Vikings didn't stay. They got their asses kicked by the native peoples and never tried again.

Two Scandinavian researchers, Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad, a husband and wife team, rediscovered the site in the 1960s. They knew the Vikings had traveled from their native lands, to the Shetland and Faroe Islands (off the northern coast of Scotland), to Iceland, then to Greenland. They also knew the Vikings had continued their sea journeys, and the routes they likely took, so felt certain the Vikings must have bumped into North America.

Meanwhile, northern Newfoundlanders knew there were ancient sites on their land, but always assumed they were Indian ruins. Our guide, who grew up on the spit of land that is L'Anse aux Meadows, played among these sites as a child. He said it was lucky for all of us that nobody knew they were Viking sites, or they would have been plundered in search of treasure. The community was flabbergasted when they learned their Indian sites were really the remains of Viking settlements.

The Scandinavian researchers, and later Parks Canada, found the foundations of huts, forges, places where ships would have been dry-docked and repaired, and all manner of tools.

At the site today, there's a good interpretation centre, with information on both the Vikings and the archeology, and a boardwalk and trail that leads down to the sites themselves. Parks Canada re-covered the sites with sod, to preserve them for possible further excavation at a later date. In one small area, there's a recreation of the Viking huts and a forge, but I got a lot more out of the our guide's talk than I did from the fake stuff.

L'Anse aux Meadows was perhaps less thrilling than some other ancients sites we've seen, because the Vikings didn't leave the impressive tangible remains that you can see in some other places. But even so, it's wonderful to think that these ancient people were here, with this ingenious technology - their sea-going boats, their iron-making - trying to establish a new home, so far from the world they knew.

We know that explorations such as these, by other people from other countries, often touched off the most terrible and heartbreaking chains of event for the native peoples. Much of those events were caused by the attitudes and beliefs of the newcomers. (Not all, though. Much was also caused by the native people's lack of immunity to European diseases, and by their lack of European technology.)

Yet the explorations themselves were inevitable. People had the means to explore, and they wanted to use it to enrich themselves and their cultures. Also, they simply wanted to explore. Usually when we visit ancient sites, I think about the people who were conquered and who disappeared. Today I was thinking about the explorers.

* * * *

Our guide had many interesting things to say about the land he grew up in, the very northern tip of Newfoundland. The area didn't have electricity until the 1970s. His family had a battery-operated radio, but his dad wouldn't let them use it; he was saving the batteries for listening to Saturday night hockey. (This prompted an annoyingly long discussion among other people on the tour about various hockey radio announcers.)

Until the 1950s, the people of L'Anse aux Meadows traveled out of their community only by boat or dogsled. St. Anthony's, now a 40-minute drive away, was a full day's journey by boat. In the 1950s, they got "the Bombardiers" - snowmobiles - and people stopped keeping dog teams.

When the Scandinavian researchers came to the village, they were aided by a man who was the unofficial town spokesperson, a kind of unelected mayor. Our guide's description of that role reminded me of how many ancient small societies functioned - by consensus, with a leader who emerged naturally through personality and inclination. I think it's somewhat remarkable that a North American town in the latter half of the 20th Century was still working that way.

Our guide - who looked a lot like as younger Levon Helm and sounded a lot like a Newfie Red Green - fishes, hunts, builds boats, and makes his own tools. His father and his grandfather were both highly skilled fishermen and boat builders. He denigrated his own skills as compared to theirs, but then, he's had to develop skills his forebears would not have needed.

None of his siblings chose to stay in the area, and his children have all left, too. If it weren't for Parks Canada, he said he'd be in Alberta or on a trawler "nort' o' sixty". He is very grateful that he is able to stay in this place that he loves so deeply. "We need people to come here, or we'll all be gone to Alberta."

There was someone on our tour who spoke with a Scandinavian accent, and a Toronto-area man whose father and grandfather grew up nearby. Each exploring some of their heritage, I suppose, which is very nice. The UNESCO ethic teaches that these sites are all of our heritage, as humans. Even nicer.

* * * *

After leaving L'Anse aux Meadows, our day became frustrating and annoying. And wet. We tried to visit Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve, said to be a hidden gem of the Northern Peninsula. It is home to a variety of unusual fauna and geological formations. The park is not marked or interpreted, so it's best viewed with a guided tour from a provincial park ranger. Unfortunately, our timing was off for the tour, and it had started to rain again, and was very foggy.

We drove around the site - on an unpaved, rutted road, in the pouring rain, seeing nothing - and finally gave up. Even if we had snagged a tour, visibility would have been minimal. We're also starting to wonder what the weather will be like in Gros Morne. We're good about not complaining about weather and just going with the flow, but if the rain keeps up, that portion of the trip will be sunk.

The other attraction in the L'Anse aux Meadows area is Norstead, a commercial site that's a recreation of a Viking port and village. We skipped it, although if time was unlimited and the weather had been better, we would have gone.

* * * *

Back in St. Anthony's, it was now pouring. We drove around in search of a pub or tea room or lounge, but found nothing. Nothing! We drove to the very end of town, Fishing Point Park, where there's a lookout for whale and iceberg watching. Despite the steady rain, I insisted on getting out of the car for whatever view there was. Allan reluctantly followed me.

We were standing at the looking point, talking... and I saw a whale! I grabbed Allan's arm and shouted, "Whale whale there's a whale!" and he turned around in time to see it breach.

It was only for a moment, but it was exciting! And maybe a little extra exciting because it happened on our own, without a boat or guide.

We walked on in the rain on the lookout trail and watched and watched some more. We were soaked, and cold, but I kept thinking, one more minute, just one more try. Then, through the rain and fog and my wet glasses, I saw something on the horizon. An iceberg. It was very far away, and obscured by fog and rain, but there it was.

Before this, we had been talking in circles about what to do the next day. There were several possibilities, all fun, but each would mean not doing something else. After catching a glimpse of a whale and an iceberg, I knew we had to take one last boat ride and try again. And even if we see "only" one iceberg or catch a glimpse of just one whale, still, we're here, we should give it a shot.

So tomorrow morning we'll wake up early, take one more boat ride, then head down the coast, halfway to Gros Morne, to Port Au Choix. (By the way, the locals do say "Port Oh Shwa". I half-expect to hear "Port Oh Choicks".)

Random note. All through the Northern Peninsula, as you drive up the highway - a rural route, one lane in each direction - along the roadside, there are little gardens marked off with stakes and twine and the occasional scarecrow. These are people's personal vegetable gardens. Because most of the soil is rocky and not fertile, people plant gardens wherever they can find a patch of fertile soil. So some people drive a fair distance just to tend their garden.

Random note. One feature of the local dialect we find amusing is the addition of a leading H to any word that begins with a vowel. "Haboriginal people," "hicebergs in the bay," "Hindian land". When you add the dropping of initial Hs ("ome", "ardy", "ouse"), you get some amusing combinations. For example, our guide was nostalgic for "hamateur ockey".

People also say "yis" (as in "yis, I agree"). It sounds exactly like the guys from Flight of the Conchords, that is, New Zealanders.

Pictures of L'Anse aux Meadows are here.

bonavista to twillingate

[Saturday, June 21]

Saturday morning, and most of the day, was chilly and drizzly. Everyone here talks about the weather all the time. Even taking into account the usual small-talk, this seems unusual. I imagine when you live in a place where the weather is constantly changing, and where a warm, sunny day is a minor event, and then throw in the influence of a martime culture, where weather could mean life or death, it makes sense.

And everyone has been complaining about the weather, too. It hasn't seemed so bad to me - we've usually been comfortable with a light jacket, and only once had to really bundle up - but when you consider that it's late June, perhaps they've got a point. It was only when fellow guests at the B&B complained that it bothered me. Hell, you don't come to Newfoundland for the weather. And if sunny weather is that important to you, then wait for July and put up with the crowds. Grumble, grumble.

This mild irritation is the perfect lead-in to our breakfast on Saturday. On Friday morning we ate with our hosts, but this morning the table is full - us, a couple from BC, the couple from northern Ontario we met the night before and Teddy-Bear Guy.

TBG is declaiming loudly, holding court, making speechlets. He has a bad case of look-at-me-ism. Plus several disgusting personal habits that make it very difficult to look at him at all. Plus I haven't had my first cup of coffee. I can tell Allan is quietly gritting his teeth.

When TBG finally leaves - he had finished his breakfast a long time ago, and is just hanging around to make speeches - the atmosphere in my head improves considerably. But even making travel small-talk with the other couples (who are perfectly nice people) reminds me why we usually don't prefer B&Bs.

We settle up our ridiculously tiny bill, and thank Albert and Florence profusely. They see us off with directions and well-wishes as if we are family.

The plan is to drive down the Bonavista Peninsula to Clarenville, back to the Trans-Canada Highway to Gander, then turn off towards Twillingate. But first we want to stop at Port Union. Port Union represents a fascinating piece of history, and our stop there leads to one of our funniest travel moments, ever.

Port Union bills itself as Canada's only union-made town. It was founded in 1916 by William Ford Coaker, who began Canada's first fisherman's union, the Fisherman's Protective Union. Through Coaker's FPU, fishers and their families challenged the "merchant system," which was the maritme equivalent of sharecropping. The merchant - the big boss - owned everything. Fishers paid for all their essentials - tools, flour, anything - out of their catch and lived on credit. The system was designed to keep fishers in a constant state of poverty and debt.

Coaker encouraged community self-sufficiency, and unionism, and under his methods fisher communities lifted themselves out of poverty and began to thrive. The union motto was "To each his own".

The FPU formed a political party, and in 1912 ran on a platform of radical social change. In 1913, the FPU held eight seats in Newfoundland's House of Assembly. The FPU morphed into several different unions, but to this day, most fishers and fish-processing workers in Newfoundland are unionized.

It's a fascinating piece of labour - and of course, Newfoundland and Canadian - history. As its home is just down the road from Bonavista, we wanted to stop by. In Port Union, there's a small museum about Coaker, who was knighted in 1923, along with his home and grave. There's also an exhibit about the Fisherman's Adovocate, the union newspaper that was an integral part of its organizing. Sounds perfect for us, eh? That's what we thought.

We purchased tickets, and the women hanging about introduced us to our guide. We'll call him Unintenionally Hilarious Tour Guide.

Now, Allan and I have taken guided tours or ranger talks on our travels together for more than 20 years, and I've been in this habit all my life, first from travel with my parents, then then on my own. Almost without exception, guides are very knowledgable about their subject, offering context that illuminates whatever we're seeing, whether that is natural wonders or political history.

UHTG was in his 20s, and most likely intellectually disabled. Please know that we were nothing but polite and friendly to him. I'm certain no one else in Port Union knew what we were thinking.

As soon as UHTG started his talk, I knew something was wrong. He told a short story, probably memorized by rote, that was disjointed and out of context. The opening sentence: "We don't know what the workers earned, but after the strike, they made fifty cents an hour." What workers? What strike? What year is his? Then the Fisherman's Protective Union is formed. "On November 2, they held their first meeting." I asked, "Excuse me, what year is that?" He didn't know, but thought about it for a minute and decided on 1908. This was strange, but not yet rididculous.

A few minutes later, UHTG told a story about the fishermen's opposition to the war, and how Coaker voted for the war anyway. (I haven't verified that.) The story had jumped around a lot, and we didn't know what year we were in, or even what war he was referring to. Allan asked, "Which war?" UHTG drew a blank. Allan said politely, "Was it World War I, or World War II?" UHTG: "Either World War I or World War II. One of those. World War I would have come first, then World War II would have been later." From the exhibit, we later saw that Coaker died in 1938. Oh boy. That's when I decided not to ask any more questions, so as not to possibly embarrass him.

We followed UHTG around, trying to read the printed material as he chattered. The tour included a walk around the old printing machinery used to create The Advocate, guided by a former pressman. He had a very strong accent, spoke very quickly, and although I have no doubt he was an excellent printer, he possessed no skill as a tour guide. But at least it was a break from UHTG.

After the press room, things really deteriorated. Upstairs in the woodworking area, UHTG read the labels on the display cases. "Here we have some saws, here are some nails, here are some hooks. This is a really big hook." He walked quickly through the room, reading the signs to us. "This table used to be over here, and this one was over here. We had to switch them around. It was really hard to do, the tables are very heavy!"

At this point, I feel a fit of giggles coming on, and I'm afraid that if I start to laugh, I will be completely out of control. (I'm laughing as I type this!) Allan and I had exchanged looks behind TG's back a few times, but now I have to stop looking at Allan altogether. I start biting my lip, and occasionally coughing into my hand when laughter threatens to become audible.

We follow UHTG outside, for a stroll past Sir Coaker's house, small bungalows were workers lived, Coaker's grave, and a walk near the bay, from which you can see the boarded-up fish processing plant and the small, active plant where shrimp is now processed. (The Port Union fish-processing plant was the huge employer of our lovely guide in Bonavista, along with everyone else in the area.)

Outside, UHTG seems to lose all memory of what he's supposed to be doing. It's like we're walking around with some guy we met. I am struggling not to burst out in an uncontrollable laughing fit. It's drizzly, so I use that as an excuse to pull the hood of my windbreaker tightly around my head, and I hang back a few steps, so I can't hear anything. It's the only way.

When I do catch some of the "tour", UHTG is pointing out the overgrown grass - "They really should do something about this" - or the poor condition of the town's sad-looking playground. By the time we're back at the bay, he's pointing to pieces of trash and musing on what happens when you feed seagulls.

On our way back to the gift shop, we pass the small Coaker museum without a word, like it's not even there!

Finally we return. I hope I don't need to say that we had no intentions of telling anyone what just happened. I think the rest of the staff doesn't know what goes on on these tours. Allan disagrees, and is convinced that they must know, and not realize how inappropriate it is. Either way is strange, and kind of sad. This is not an official historic site that gets funding from Parks Canada. The entrance fee is steep, but they're never going to attract more visitors like this.

At the gift shop, I want to get something with the FPU logo, a big red U surrounding a fish. There is nothing, not a pin or a keychain or a postcard. There's not even a pamphlet about the FPU, just stuffed puffins and other generic Newfoundland gifts. When I asked about something with the logo on it, a gift-shop employee said other people have asked about it, and she agrees that they ought to sell those.

We talked a little about the union - her husband was a member for 30 years - and how it changed the lives of so many people. She says, "We did well around here. People owned their own homes, and could even save a bit of money. Who ever heard of a fisherman able to save money? The union was everything to us."

Finally we said goodbye, thanking UHTG, shaking his hand, and managing to drive away before we exploded. The whole way down the Bonavista Peninsula, we couldn't stop talking about, alternating between hilarity and incredulity. We didn't learn very much, but as Allan said, we got plenty of material.

We drove to Clarenville, where my cell phone worked, and called a few places to stay in Twillingate. Our first priority was internet access. Being offline for a short time can be refreshing, but being cut off from our dogwalker, my blog and the Red Sox for days was stressful! A few B&Bs were fully booked, but after some phone calls, we found a room at a larger motel. And after our irritating breakfast that morning, the anonymity and privacy of a motel seems like a plus.

Back on the Trans-Canada, we drive on steep hills, past rock outcroppings and scrubby pine forests. The highway cuts through Terra Nova National Park. Every so often the trees give way to a view of a lake, pond, bay or inlet. There is water everywhere.

We exit the highway at Gander, where, surprisingly, I again don't have cell service, so good job we booked our room from Clarenville. The road out to Twillingate is rutted and slow, but the scenery is amazing. There are dozens of ponds and quiet bays, small white houses perched on the water's edge, a more gentle landscape then we had seen before. The road eventually branches out into causeways, as the end of the peninsula is an archipelago of large and small islands.

Towards Twillingate, the land becomes rugged again, with jagged cliffs and spectacular views. Twillingate calls itself the iceberg capital of Newfoundland. There are tour boat companies out here that are supposed to know where all the icebergs and whales have been spotted. As we approach Twillingate, the sun comes out, and suddenly it's summer again.

We find our hotel, and hooray, we're back online! We managed to pull ourselves away from our computers long enough to eat amazing seafood chowder and admire the sun-drenched scenery, then back inside to write more.

Random note: my feet don't hurt! I have had zero foot pain. It was this trip that pushed me to see a podiatrist and get orthotics, and it's really paying off. There's no way I could be doing this otherwise.

bonavista, second day and night

[Friday, June 20]

After Florence cooked us a full breakfast, including homemade bread and jams, we walked down the street to Ryan Premises, a national historic site. We weren't expecting much, just a town museum and something about the fishing industry, but it turned out to be absolutely fascinating, a must-see if you visit Bonavista.

Ryan Premises is a group of buildings on the harbour, which includes the home of the Ryan family, who owned much of the town, and pretty much owned the fishermen and their families, too. It houses the Bonavista historical society, an collection of artifacts from generations of town families.

The best part of Ryan Premises is an interpretative centre telling the story of the fishing industry in Newfoundland, from its beginning in the 1500s to its demise in the early 1990s. (There's a separate exhibit on sealing.) From it, I gained a much deeper understanding of the history and culture of the province.

The exhibit includes a National Film Board movie called "Taking Stock," about the end of the cod industry (and possibly the end of the northern cod species). It was very moving, and very disturbing. The film takes a strong viewpoint in favour of the "inshore fishermen," which are the people of Bonavista and hundreds of communities like it, whose lives have been bound up in cod fishing for centuries.

The filmmaker compares the destruction of the northern cod stock and its effect on Newfoundlanders to the destruction of the buffalo and its effect on the native peoples of the plains. That's a powerful image, and an apt one. I did realize later that the people of Newfoundland had Canada. For whatever it might have done better, Canada didn't let them just fade away and die.

You know I hate the dilution of language, and I try not to throw around words like tragic and heroic. But if ever there was a tragic story, it's the demise of the northern cod. It is all the more tragic because it was completely preventable, and given what we know about human behaviour, also almost inevitable.

While the movie shows the complexity of blame and responsibility, to my mind this tragedy has some clear villains, too. One species of fish can't be caught twelve months a year, and it can't be caught in massive quantities, hauling in a daily catch as large as most fishermen would see in an entire season. The ocean is not a factory. The cod is not a widget.

The story brings up two themes I've hammered on at wmtc. One, Jared Diamond in Collapse: people thinking they were spending the interest of their environments, when they were actually spending their capital and draining their bank accounts. (In this case, knowingly draining the bank account, because they'd run off with the money while the family stayed behind in poverty.) And two, Michael Pollan on the horrific consequences of trying to apply the principles of mass production to food. Both ideas are brilliantly and tragically illustrated in the complete collapse of a food web and way of life that thrived for 500 years.

After we saw the film, we talked for a while with one of the guides, who grew up in Bonavista. She and her husband - and everyone they knew - worked at the fish processing plant. She told us about her old life - how the increased production from the trawlers brought them a comfort level and prosperity they had never known (who ever heard of middle-class fishermen?), and also how they saw the signs that something was going very wrong, such as the size of the fish getting smaller and smaller.

Then the devastation, the disbelief, the depression, as a their entire way of life is made obsolete. Something unthinkable, impossible: the end of commercial cod fishing in Newfoundland.

And then, their options for survival, brought to them by the government. She chose to get more education - none of her family had ever finished high school, and her parents and in-laws had left school to work while still in their single-digits. I could hear this woman had an inner strength and flexibility to persevere against strong odds, and without a lot of support.

She went back to school, then started working for the town museum, at first earning a tiny fraction of her former factory pay. She learned new skills, and worked hard, and eventually landed a highly competitive job with Parks Canada, telling the story of her own culture. It's an excellent job, and she loves it, but unfortunately it is only seasonal (4.5 months out of the year), and she doubts she can advance in the parks service because she doesn't speak French. But she's already done so much - she's transformed herself and her family. I really admire her.

One huge part of the rebirth of a post-fishing Newfoundland is what Allan and I are enjoying right now. I'm told that ten years ago, there was almost no tourism infrastructure here at all. Grants, education programs, and such helped Newfoundlanders build a tourism economy, to share the beauty of their land and culture with us mainlanders.

After the museum, it was back to Marsh's, for more fish and chips (it never ends), then to the Bonavista Lighthouse.

This is a beautiful lighthouse, similar to the one at Cape Spear, but we were there on a special mission. My Newfie-born friend from the War Resisters Campaign - Newfie Campaign Friend, NCF? - sent me there. Her grandmother was born in that lighthouse!

We took a short and very informative tour, and told the tour guides (who are dressed in period costumes) about this connection. They looked it up, and we derived that NCF's grandmother was the youngest child of Nicholas White. Nicholas was the son of Bonavista's very first lighthouse keeper, and took over for his father when he died.

NCF told me to check out the cliffs behind the lighthouse and realize that was this family's backyard. There's a fence there now, of course, but the drop is steep and the rocks are like a dragon's teeth snapping in the air. But they never lost a child over the cliffs, and some lightkeepers' families had as many as 11 children.

Near the lighthouse is a statue of John Cabot (given name Giovanni Caboto!), who may or may not have first touched the New World at Bonavista in 1497. He did "discover" (ahem) this New Found Land, the first toehold of the nascent British Empire, and "legend has it" that was at Cape Bonavista. A replica of his boat, The Matthew, is on display in the town. It also has an interpretative centre, called The Matthew Legacy.

After the lighthouse, we went to Bonavista's little public library. We had been waiting for it to open, as we hadn't had internet access since leaving St. John's. I have no cell phone service either, and I get a little nervous being completely out of touch with our dogsitter. (This comes from one very bad past experience.) I was also anxious to blog, and Allan needed some game information. The library is only open a few hours a day - and not even every day - and there is no other public internet in town.

When the library finally opened, we couldn't do anything but check email. Blogger was blocked! The entire Newfoundland/Labrador Community Access Internet Program cannot access Blogger or any blog created with blogger.

Our hosts had told us that the door would be open all day, and we should feel free to stop in any time and put the kettle on. So we did, and while we were having our tea, we met another guest I'll call Teddy Bear Guy.

Bonavista is celebrating Discovery Days, a local holiday commemorating Cabot's landing. Teddy Bear Guy is performing a children's music event, and whenever he's in, he stays with the Alberts. I don't want to go on about TBG; let's just say "irritating" and leave it at that.

For dinner, we couldn't bear another meal at Marsh's, so we drove out of town a ways and found another little joint, and ate some non-seafood, non-fried food.

Back in Bonavista, we missed the parade that opens the festivities, but settled in at the Orange Hall (like the Legion Hall, but for Orangemen) for some music. Local people drifted in, wearing jackets against the chill, even inside. There were chips and cans of beer or pop for sale, and everyone sat at big folding tables on hard wooden chairs.

The first act was a duo, one man on guitar and one with a concertina, singing Irish or Newfoundland ballads and spinning off reels. They were followed by a man on guitar and harmonica, singing Hank Williams-style country songs, with a few Irish numbers mixed in. We enjoyed them both, but when the next act did a Canadian-style Toby Keith "Canada Is Number One" kind of song, we got ready to leave. They also had a Gordon Lightfoot-influenced folk thing going on, and as you may know, we are not fans of Mr Lightfoot. Besides, it was almost crab time!

Back at the B&B, our crabfest was joined by another couple from Northern Ontario. Albert told the same jokes, Florence walked in at the same time with the same tarts, and I realized we had witnessed an old routine. They seem to love it, and I sincerely hope they do. These folks give so much to their guests, and they could fill their house at twice the rate. In fact, Albert told us that he has never raised the rates in 11 years. They have no employees to pay, they own their home outright, and they live simply but want for nothing. Their daughter is an RCMP officer and their surviving son lives in St. John's. They're a wonderful couple, and I promised I would tell you all about their wonderful home.

That catches us up with last night. Today was fun and accidentally hilarious. I'll write about it tomorrow morning.

st. john's

We were up at 5:00 for our 7:30 flight, which was an uneventful not-quite three hours. In Pearson, I saw a newspaper over a man's shoulder, with a headline reading "send him back to pay his dues". I did a double-take, and realized it was the National Post (for non-Canadian readers: a right-wing rag), a dueling viewpoint they have already run online, Corey Glass vs. columnist Jonathan Kay. The man reading and his wife noticed we were talking about them, so I asked what paper it was and explained I was involved in the issue. As we were getting ready to board, the woman asked if I wanted the paper. As he was giving me the section, the man was eager to tell me that it gave "both sides of the story," in a way that told us where he stood. After all, he is reading the Post. But I called the Campaign - at least we have a hard copy of it now. Allan says we'll see them in Gros Morne; he's calling it now.

The airport is not far from downtown, and we drove right in and found our hotel. On our way there, we drove through the main drag of downtown St. John's, Duckworth Street. I noticed the two pubs my Newfie Campaign Friend recommended, one that has live music every night.

The hotel is a "Hometel" - rooms in brownstone houses. It's a much nicer room that we expected, stylish and comfy, with free phone, internet, parking and a hot breakfast. It's right at the base of Signal Hill.

After getting settled in a bit, we went downtown for lunch at a pub - fish and chips, of course. I have no idea if the fish actually comes from here anymore, but it seems like the thing to do. We also had local beer, Quidi Vidi (pronounced "Kiddy Viddy"). My pan-fried cod came with "scrunchions," which are diced bits of fried pork rinds. Kind of like salty fried fat.

From there we drove up Signal Hill, which overlooks St. John's Harbour, with the city on one side and the Atlantic on the other. The approach to the harbour is a narrows, with cliffs rising on both side; it's easy to see why this was such an important strategic point.

I thought Signal Hill got its name because it's the spot where Marconi received the first Transatlantic radio signal, but the signalling dates much farther back, to the signal flags (a redundancy, I think - the flags were called signals) that were raised to communicate from ship to shore. There's a little look-out building that looks like a mini-castle, and the remains of the fort, powder magazine and cannons. This is all perched on high cliffs, the kind you always see in photos of Newfoundland. It reminded us both of Ireland.

The whole point is a national park, and there are trails along the cliffs. We walked some, mostly to get good views. It's a great view of St. John's. The building where Marconi received that radio signal is gone (burned in a fire), but there's a plaque marking the spot.

We were tired and not up for a big hike, but on the way out of Signal Hill, we stopped at the visitor's centre, which was very nice. It tells the history of the hill in terms of its military and communications significance. And guess who we saw there? The National Post readers from the airport in Toronto. They didn't see us. Gros Morne? We'll see.

From there we went back downtown for coffee, then we were going to hang out in a pub, but suddenly realized how tired we were. We picked up some food and went back to the room, thinking we would join tonight's Red Sox game in progress on our computers. It was 7:30; game time is at 7:00. But our laptops said 6:00. Duh: time zone! We're on Newfoundland time, and we didn't miss a pitch. Pub tomorrow night, tonight we're crashed.

* * * *

People here are extremely friendly, as advertised. If this is what they're like in St. John's will they be pathologically friendly in the rest of the province?

Weather watch: it's nice so far, mostly sunny or a bit overcast, and the occasional mist. I was too warm in a long-sleeved t-shirt and windbreaker. Everyone we speak to says we've brought the sun; it's been raining solidly and cold for weeks. We have tons of stuff with us, many more clothes than we would normally pack, but when you have to prepare for heat, cold, rain and sun, what else can you do?

* * * *

I can scarcely describe how happy I am about this big writing assignment that fell from the sky last night. My original plan of how I was paying for this trip fell through a while back. It was too late to cancel (nonrefundable air and rental car) and I knew I'd figure out a way to pay for it over time, although it could potentially take quite a long time. Goddess knows it wouldn't be the first trip we paid for six or eight months after it ended. My plan was to spend July trying to drum up some decent paid writing work. Then the night before we leave, some comes to me!

Spinal Network is a very well-known and highly regarded resource guide for people with spinal cord injuries. It was created by Sam Maddox, a pioneer in the field; Sam also began New Mobility, the magazine I've been associated with for a long time. Spinal Network, New Mobility and now Kids On Wheels (which I helped create) are now all published by the same group.

Ten years ago, the current publishers of Spinal Network put out a new edition, and I edited the Sports chapter. Then, some years later, Kids On Wheels was born, the first-ever resource guide for children who use wheelchairs and their parents. I wrote the sports and recreation chapter for that, then wrote and edited for the magazine before I recently gave it up.

So last night, the editorial director emailed me: they are doing a completely new edition of Spinal Network, a thorough overhaul, am I interested in working on it? I'll be re-writing and editing the Sports section. It's going to be a lot of work - work that I will really enjoy, and which should pay nicely. I'm excited! But right now the best thing is the financial concern has been lifted from my mind, just as I start the trip. Lovely.

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I called home, just to satisfy my mind that the Katherine The Dogsitter had arrived. They were all outside, doing fine. I miss Tala! (Don't worry, I miss Cody a little, which is more than she misses me.)

Pictures of St. John's are here.

holding the bully's coat, extended excerpt

Towards the end of Linda McQuaig's Holding The Bully's Coat, there is a great stand-alone piece, a meditation on war and human society. I really appreciated the historical perspective, the paradigm shift, the willingness to question our basic assumptions.

Although this post is not directly related to the war resisters, I'm tagging it with my "war resister" label, so that folks who come over from the Campaign website might read it.

When provoked, a gentleman didn't have to spend a lot of time in previous centuries thinking through the problem of how to respond. If his honour had been offended - if say, someone had questioned his integrity, or the virtue of his betrothed, or the extent of his bravery on the battlefield - he knew he had little choice but to challenge the offender to a duel. The stakes would be high; both men would have swords or pistols capable of killing the other. And the public, as well as family and friends, would come out to watch. Despite the potentially tragic consequences, the duel was an accepted part of social interaction. After all, humans have natural aggressive instincts, so what could be more natural than that two men, locked into an apparently irresolvable conflict, would resort to personal violence? It's all just part of the human condition. Or so it must have seemed, as the loved ones of the defeated gentleman watched him lie dying on the ground.

Looking back, the duel seems hopelessly quaint and primitive, an idea long ago shelved. It's not that humans have evolved so that petty insults no longer sting us or provoke our anger. It's just that, in the modern world, we've rejected the format of the duel as a way to resolve our disputes. Now, if someone insults us, we can sue that person for slander or libel. Or if a neighbour makes plans to build an extension on his house that will block our sunlight, we can try to stop him at a municipal bylaw hearing. If we were instead to show up at the offender's house with a weapon in hand, we'd be regarded as not only dangerous but weird and loopy.

Of course, violent personal behaviour still exists in pockets of our societies - in gangs and other outlawed forms. But our mainstream culture has fully adapted to solving disputes through the legal system. What once seemed no doubt utterly natural - that two men would resolve a dispute by recourse to personal violence - now seems part of a culture that exists only on the margins. This represents an apparently enormous change in human behaviour. What accounts for it?

Perhaps human nature has evolved, becoming more gentle and compassionate? Tempting as it may be to believe this contention, there doesn't seem to be much evidence to back it up. Duelling, which began in Europe in the mid-sixteenth century, was a common practice among upper-class men in parts of Europe and America, lingering even in some areas into the early twentieth century, when it finally disappeared. And yet, one would be hard put to make a case that humans somehow became more gentle and compassionate in the late nineteenth century. The twentieth century was perhaps the bloodiest century ever. One doesn't have to resort to statistics or laboratory studies to review the evidence around us in the modern world; humans appear to be still just as capable of aggression, violence and cruelty.

But if humans don't appear to have fundamentally changed, other things have. To begin with, our modern laws prevent duelling. If two men were to attempt to square off against each other with swords (or knives or guns) on a sidewalk or in a public park, someone would quickly call the police, and they would find themselves arrested and facing charges. But the prohibition against this sort of behaviour goes beyond the fact that we have laws against it. On another level, it has simply lost its cache, its social acceptability, its legitimacy. To behave that way is to identify oneself as a hoodlum, misfit or mental case. A normal person with a grievance doesn't even bother to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of being charged for criminal activities if he engages in some sort of duel. He's simply absorbed the notion, from all his experiences in life, that the duel isn't an acceptable form of behaviour. At some level, he is blocked from behaving that way because he knows if he did, his friends, family and acquaintances would regard him as, well, ridiculous. In fact, the duel has slipped so far outside normal practice these days that it likely wouldn't even occur to him that he could solve his grievance through a duel. The notion of a duel has become, as political philosopher Anatol Rapoport would put it, "an obsolete habit of thought."

So the disappearance of duelling from our modern culture probably has as much to do with our public disapproval of the practice as it does with laws actually banning it. What allowed duelling to exist for so long was the fact that it enjoyed some sort of public legitimacy, that it was accepted as a way to demonstrate one's "honour." So, for instance, as Alexander Hamilton prepared himself mentally the night before his famous duel with U.S. vice-president Aaron Burr in 1804, he felt he was conforming to an accepted social tradition. He even felt - strange as it may seem to us today - obliged to take part. As his diary makes clear, he was actually reluctant to take part for a number of logical and compelling reasons: he felt no ill will towards Burr, he opposed duelling on moral and religious grounds (and by this point, duelling was illegal under the laws of New Jersey, where the duel was to take place) and he realized his duel posed a great risk to the financial well-being of his wife and children. "I shall hazard much and possibly gain little," he wrote. Still, he felt the need to take part, because, he wrote, defending oneself in a duel was what "men of the world denominate honor." Therefore, if he declined, he would be the object of derision and contempt by those whose opinion mattered to him. So, with all logic and feeling against it, Hamilton made his fateful decision to bow to "public prejudice in this particular."

The peculiar set of social attitudes that drove Hamilton to enter into his duel have disappeared and been replaced with a set of social attitudes that would cause a similarly positioned person today to react very differently, without resort to violence. Thus, through social disapproval and legal prohibition, modern societies have rendered obsolete an institution that, for centuries, seemed just plain natural – an expression of the apparently basic human appetite for violence.

Of course, the duel was a particular institution. More broadly, we agree as members of society to give up our right to commit personal violence of any kind. We surrender that power to the state, as part of an implicit pact in which every other member of society does the same. The state then has a monopoly on violence, and we collectively - through our democratic voting power - determine the laws we will all live by. Only the police are given the right to use violence, and only to enforce the laws we've collectively agreed upon. By giving up the right to protect ourselves through violence, we achieve something even more precious - the right to live our lives free of violence.

Few today would lament this trade-off, any more than they would regret the passing of the duel. Modern living seems much more comfortable and congenial without violence in our midst. Indeed, the thought of any nation permitting such violence among its citizens - or unable to stop it, as in the case of nations where warlords are able to function - strikes us as evidence of a more primitive culture, something our society has evolved beyond.

Yet oddly we seem to see nothing absurd about continuing to accept an institution of violence between nations, namely the institution of war. As the Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz observed in his classic 1832 book, On War, "War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale." Compared to the duel, war is of course a far more lethal institution, indeed one with the potential today to obliterate not just a few proud gentlemen but the entire human race. How odd, then, that we continue to find war acceptable, making it a central part of the way we organize our societies, even though it's an institution no more "natural" than the duel.

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Of course, war is generally regarded not as an institution but rather as the inevitable clash that results from deep-rooted human aggression. In other words, it's regarded as not something we chose to accept or reject but rather simply something that happens. This prevailing view doesn't imply that war can't be averted; obviously it sometimes can be, through diplomacy or political strategies. But the prevailing view does see war as a sort of normal and inevitable part of human behaviour. So while it's good to work at minimizing the chances of any given war, there's an unspoken assumption that war, in some form, will always be with us. Any notion of "ridding the world of war" is seen as hopelessly naive, rooted in some misguided notion that human nature can be reshaped into some nobler form.

Aggression does appear to be something that occurs naturally in humans, just as many other behaviours - laughing, crying, loving, hating, working, mating, communicating, making friends, helping others, co-operating with others - seem natural. So war may well be an expression of the aggressive part of human nature. The question is: Is it an inevitable expression of that aggressive side? Duelling - something that appeared to be basic and natural - simply disappeared over time; today duelling would be considered a silly anachronism, if anyone bothered to think about it. Could it be that war, like duelling, is an institution, rather than an inevitable expression of human nature? As an institution, war requires some form of social approval and support. Is it possible that ultimately such social approval and support could be withdrawn? In other words, is it possible that humans could choose to reject war?

Rapoport, who belongs to a school of thought known as peace studies, sees war in precisely this way, as an institution that continues to exist only because we continue to give it legitimacy. Rapoport points to other human institutions and practices that have failed to survive to survive over time – slavery, absolute monarchy, binding the feet of young girls, gladitorial combat. Political scientist John Mueller adds a few other practices that also became defunct once our society began to regard them as uncivilized and even repulsive: human sacrifice, the burning of heretics, bearbaiting, freak shows, Jim Crow laws, family feuding, public and intentionally painful executions, public flogging, executive for minor crimes, deforming corseting, laughing at the insane. And yet all these practices were at one time considered acceptable, with some of them deeply ingrained in the social fabric.

Slavery, for instance, certainly offends our modern sensibilities about intrinsic human rights. And yet what could seem more basic to human nature than the desire to control and take advantage of others – a desire ultimately achieved in actually owning another human being? Hence, one could imagine an argument in which slavery would be defended as simply a basic extension of human traits, such as aggression, selfishness and the desire for dominance, and the rejection of slavery would be characterized as naive idealism.

Slavery might in some ways be considered a closer analogy to war than duelling, in that slavery, like war, involved a significant infrastructure that many profited from - slave-trading and slave-shipping companies and manufacturers of slavery equipment, like chains and restraints of various sorts. Furthermore, like war, slavery was an institution that existed in many parts of the world, and as far back as the dawn of civilization. Slavery also conferred important financial benefits upon the slave-owning class, which typically was the dominant social group with considerable, if not absolute, political power. So any campaign to do away with slavery - like doing away with war - would seem to face formidable obstacles.

What's striking, though, is how quickly slavery largely disappeared from the world. If we look at the span of human history, we see that slavery existed for thousands of years, and then effectively disappeared rather suddenly in recent centuries. The Swedes were ahead of the pack - who would have guessed? - abolishing slavery in 1335. After that landmark, nothing much happened until the late eighteenth century. Then, starting with Portugal, which abolished slavery in 1761, a wave of abolitions swept through many parts of the world, particularly Europe and the Americas: England and Wales (1772), Haiti (1776), Upper Canada (1793), France (1802), Argentina (1813), Chile (1823), Mexico (1829), Denmark (1848), Russia (1861), the Netherlands (1863), the United States (1865), Cuba (1880), Brazil (1888). By the late nineteenth century, abolition spread farther afield, including Korea (1894), Zanzibar (1897), China (1910), Burma (1929), Ethiopia (1936), Tibet (1959), Saudi Arabia (1962) and Mauritania (1980).

How did this happen? One might guess that society abandoned slavery simply because it became economically unviable, as some have argued. And it's true that Adam Smith, the eighteenth-century economist who came up with the theory of modern capitalism, argued that free labour was more efficient than slavery. Still, slavery apparently remained viable and profitable as an economic institution, and it was certainly financially rewarding to slaveholders, many of whom depended upon slavery for their financial well-being and who might have been unable to make a profitable transition to a slave-free world. . . .

Nor is there any evidence of slave owners en masse having a sudden change of heart and freeing their slaves, although there were individual cases of this. Rather, the determining factor in ending slavery appears to have been the rise of strong abolition movements in a number of countries, particularly Britain and the United States. Such movements had the effect of changing the way people viewed this age-old institution. What had been regarded for centuries as an acceptable, natural form of human behaviour came to be seen as uncivilized, immoral and repugnant. As Mueller puts it: "Slavery became controversial, then peculiar and then obsolete."

Rational argument certainly played a role in this process. The abolitionist movement and those responding to it were influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, ideas about human rights and freedoms. Adam Smith's arguments about the greater efficiency of free labour no doubt underscored the inappropriateness - and lack of economic necessity - of slavery. So rational argument was marshalled, along with appeals to human compassion, in order to fundamentally alter the way a vast number of people regarded this particular institution. The abolitionist movement worked on a number of levels, spreading its ideas through intellectual debate and literary appeals, as well as through political action that resulted in laws abolishing various aspects of slavery, such as the slave trade. In other words, concerted and determined effort, based on rational arguments as well as emotional appeals, succeeded in stripping slavery of its legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Once the public no longer found it acceptable, slavery ceased to be viable, no matter how much certain powerful figures wanted to hold on to it.

Would the abolition of war, then, also be possible? This intriguing question is raised by Rapoport and others like Graeme MacQueen. It's important to note that the possibility of an end to war doesn't rest on the notion that humans would change in some fundamental way, becoming perhaps more peaceful or loving creatures. After all, duelling and slavery have passed into history without human nature becoming any more compassionate, or even improving in any detectable way.

The possibility of abolishing war also doesn't rest on the notion that the "warrior class" - those in the political, corporate and military establishments connected to war - would be converted to an anti-war stance. It's assumed that these people are unlikely to change, given their financial ties to the industry of war or perhaps simply because they've absorbed the values and arguments of a society long accepting of war's inevitability. Ultimately the views of the people in these elites - despite their enormous power - may not matter, however, just as the views of slave owners didn't matter once slavery had become peculiar, uncivilized and unacceptable in the eyes of the public.

If it seems inconceivable that war could ever be made to seem peculiar, consider the amazing transformation that has taken place in Europe in the last few decades. For centuries, Europeans were almost constantly at war with each other, from the age of barbarism that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire to the tumultuous w