Am trying to make these last days here as normal as possible but with an added emphasis of not wasting time.
Wasting time is NOT sitting and chatting at Granite Coffee, exchanging insults with Debbie at the 3T’s, walking everywhere, the late afternoon bottle of Labatt Lite. Rather it is trying to do more things than are possible at once, trying to decide what to do and in the process do nothing going online.
There is the added problem of making priorities. There is a potluck at Kris’s’ place this evening but this will mean not being able to develop the last 18 negs that I made to-day, it will mean not having time to develop the 12 rolls of 120. It will mean not making those last prints that I want to see before life as I have come to know it ends.
I was invited into Corner Brook to-day and while I wanted to go I was loath to leave the Park much less head out to Wiltondale. I’ll see Corner Brook again on the long trip into exile. Wanted to be around here – well around here meant a 150 km drive up the coast to Cow Head but who is nit picking.
Morning did start out normally, since I haven’t been to Corner Brook I ran out of coffee so have been heading down to coffee shop for three cups. To-day I arrived as George was leaving. I must have been late.
It was a mistake not heading out daily to have coffee there as I missed out on knowing the area better. As everyone now is asking when I am leaving I am finding out things that I would have been great the first weeks that I was here. Pity that I so desperately need caffeine as soon as I awake.
While there a woman comes up and introduces herself to me saying ‘I was wondering what you were doing out here writing then they told me that you are the artist in residence with the park, my son is the next one’. While I knew that my tenure ends to-morrow, this solidified it.
The talk of what it is like in winter, I hear that things start to close come Labour Day which seems early to me but am curious to see what it would be like to be left on one’s own resources. The debate between large and small towns B.C. v. NFLD which was more or less the same topic, the constant availability of just about everything countered by a life where one has to actually take and active part. Mentioned that I have spoken to more people here in five minutes than I do in Peasant’s Pissoir in a year and the conversations are more intelligent. Some see small towns as support others see as prying I live in a place where there is neither. Apathy, lethargy come to mind. Places I should have gone – Chimney Cove has come up yet again – along with other fishing areas along the coast.
George yesterday after he asked how far north I had gone mentioned that after Port au Choix the land becomes barren. My eyes lit up. I like barren but am staying within the greater park – this time.
I needed 16 negs to make what I develop in a session so I took 8 film holders, and the Hobo. For insurance I took Ubirajara and the digital for more badly made panoramas. I gritted my teeth and headed out along 431 to Wiltondale and turned north.
The plan was to make it to Cow Head without stopping and then do all the stops on the way back. I took the prints of the fishermen in Sally’s Cove to drop off.
What I wanted to photograph was the flats between the road and the Long Range Mountains – I didn’t want to photograph any more shacks, I wanted to see if I could do anything with Cow Head as this would be my third time there. I wanted to stop at all the lookout and lay-bys that I kept passing up at the speed that I was going.
I also wanted to photograph some pines that due to the prevailing winds in the gulch had no branches on southern half of them but that was later.
Thankfully the day was normal, I had my usual anxiety moment when I thought that I was taking too much time – I wanted to get back to develop everything tonight so that I can repaint a table that I stained horribly with the platinum chemistry – that passed.
Cow Head again while I saw the potential this time was a bust as I needed to swarve and even though I am more adept now wandering with 10x8 cameras is not easy. They tend to kill the nonchalance aspect of marling.
Some cheap panoramas of the sheds at the harbour, Another made in an area which the village look nicely domestic. Finally in the last moments of my time here I am hitting a groove.
The negs of the barrens weren’t much but the work along the coast and especially the Anglican Cemetery in Cow Head and the remains of the shipwreck. I slowed down. I had fun, I let things sink in. Thought about kicking over an inukshuk that was made by the Shipwreck but knowing that the park doesn’t like them let it be. Well I photographed them of course.
Stopped into the Centre in Rocky Harbour to see about staying until Wednesday morning but the person behind the desk seemed to know no name that I was asking for. Made the long trek back to Wiltondale stopping at the lookouts and making panoramas.
Back in Bonne Bay I went for a milkshake at the Restaurant but once again they were out of milk. I dropped off the used holders and with the three I had left headed over to the gulch to photograph the wetlands and the trees there.
The wetlands photographs seem forced but there is one tree that looks good. Also photographed a telegraph pole again the Green Gardens trail.
Returning to the machine I spoke to someone who thought that the Hobo was a pinhole camera. He works in Corner Brook but has a relatively easy job. He is thinking of setting up his darkroom again.
Poor sod, it seems that black and white is becoming extinct as quickly as colour. Mentioned that fact and the trouble I have getting supplies outside of St. John’s – even Grenfell doesn’t carry much - a little later I will make the argument that with planning anything can be done here.
Driving back I see a man in the gulch with a camera the size of mine aimed at the tablelands.
-Thaddeus? I yell as I pass.
-Yes
-So we finally meet and I introduce myself to him. Mutual friends in St. John’s – Baird – exchanged e-mails he and his partner are heading up to Labrador but seeing rocks he just had to stop. He is staying in Rocky Harbour tonight then heading north. Again the serendipity of the Great Northern. Now I knew how I had looked these past weeks as people passed. His banquet camera levelled car parked as far off the road as possible – but still on it.
Said that his book is at the printers and should be out soon when hearing that I was heading over to the Avalon told me to give his best to Jim. We both drove off - he to Rocky Harbour me to the Seabreeze to try to write this.
Once again a good thing as Irving and Crystal were there. he was practicing his fishing by catching conners off the deck she was drinking a MGD (?!). The conversation came around to the salmon steps at Lomond and how they were all trapped.
Off in the pick-up to see it. walking out on the river jumping from bolder to bolder to get to this pool that was packed with trapped salmon who couldn’t get any farther. The was little water in the river and all of it was rushing down the stairs. The problem was at the bottom where there was little water for the fish to navigate.
Then it was off to Little Bonne Bay in the waning light. A caravan park on crown land, Irving wanted to show me a spring that came bubbling out of the ground that was ice cold. The water was still except when the fish jumped out of it. he wanted to launch the boat and fish. Made some post card like snaps of the symmetry, the stalks in the water and more rocks close to the water – so close that the strap was wet.
Again thought great two days from the end and now this happens.
Irving wanted to take me to the falls in Middle Brook but I had to get back and develop the negs - both 10x8 and 120 – something I had planned on doing three hours earlier. Made it to bed a 4AM
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