i'm r. clarke-davis and this is ideas...

Was up early hoping that to get to the Mary March Lounge before the cleaners would arrive. It didn’t matter there was a pick-up in front of it and I had to deal with. People in radio really don’t car but we visual types…


I had to be back by nine as that was when we were to meet Albert who was taking us out in the canoe to four points along Red Indian Lake, but Buchan’s Junction warranted a reconnoitre. Well not really – I have to stop this as I dissed Buchan’s yesterday as it was quite a shock and truthfully looked like a company town that the company gave up on. To-day I felt that I should go back and actually hang out long enough to find out why people are there and what they do. I found a disused ballpark and the river but spent most of the time making digital panoramas.


In fact this day Ziquinho got a rest as I didn’t want to see him hit the drink with my canoeing prowess.

The shock of the day came when the person at the bed and breakfast came back to say that we had a problem – the place doesn’t take master card.

I turn penniless as my last funds go to pay the bill.

Millertown – 150 people - is small enough that I see Bert load the canoe so we head across the street laden with the newest technologies – which seem to be more vulnerable to water, salt or sweet, than the older ones. I take the digital point and shoot, Paul takes a digital Walkman.

The plan is Bert and I play native paddling while Paul sits in the middle being John Peyton Jr. His spin was that he wanted to hold the microphone to Bert while we were on the lake.

Why I like Newfoundland – yet again – go to your atlas of choice, find Red Indian Lake, look at the size roughly 70km in length - and we were the only people on it. All of a sudden I was wondering why the sea is so special. Once in the middle of it – again a reason I love the smiling land again the licence to experience every and anything – scale changed.

My canoeing prowess came was manifest immediately when I didn’t know what the prow was. More doubts as I said that I couldn’t swim. I was the one in the life jacket up front.

We were to visit sites that are based on Mary March/Demasduwsit – where the Marines were killed, where she was captured and where her body was left. Bert was more intent to prove that the Beothuks were in the area by showing us potential sites – the last one quite convincing – of mamateeks and long houses.

Paul was interviewing him for Ideas, I was along to see Central Newfoundland but became more interested in a more recent history of the area – the growth and bust of industry in the area.

When the mike went off I would ask how he felt about the bias of the province toward the ocean, about the resettlement/abandonment of Millertown Junction. He seemed only a bit less eager to talk about this. the railway that went through, the steam engine that is in ruins on the shore – supposedly one of the biggest in the world made to power the mills, that Millertown was once a place of 500 souls and all the houses had picket fences.

Wondered if I could broker more time here – could I press my luck.

I also liked the paddling - I could barely hear the conversation as Paul was facing away from me and Bert was even farther – it became a lake meeting.

I was also made aware of my age not due to any pain but liking this and realising that I cannot put off things that require parts of the body as they are at the time when they tend to deteriorate due to lack of use. I felt a bit better than Bert was a decade older but he did this all the time.

I was also reminded of these people who are doing things that I don’t even dream of. Kennedy canoeing the MacKenzie as a lad, wanting now to do a series on rivers – similar to the oceans series of quite a few years ago where he will drive the ice roads and my big thrill is out on the Red Indian Lake with a life jacket.

The day was perfect warm enough to row, minimal black fly which I prefer over mosquitoes, at the first landing two loons in the distance.

While the canoe was used to get to the sites, I preferred being on the canoe than on land. It could have to do the with novelty of being mere centimetres above the water, it could be the fact that I could actually paddle, or it could be that it opened a new mode of transportation that was slow enough that one can think, on bodies empty enough that one can daydream.

In truth it became worse when there was a goal as it didn’t seem to get any closer after a sizeable amount of rowing.

Didn’t miss Ziquinho.

While Paul was finishing up the interview on land, I headed out along the shore to the wheel of the steam engine and the mill.

Everything was there, in ruins and all over the place but there. while some would be picking up shells and rocks I wanted to pick up the railway rails, spikes, gears etc.


Didn’t make many snaps but they seemed pretty good, I think that they dealt with the remnants of industry here in Newfoundland – the whole colonial aspect even when this is no longer a colony – Abitibi owns the lake and the water in it.

The return walk was in town but only seemed to make the normal – laundry lines, sheds and lawn ornamentation.

We headed out on the lake just before nine, we got off the lake at four. We hadn’t eaten or drunk but also the equipment was intact.

Stopped at the convenience in town for liquids – I went for fruit juice and Gatorade – which we inhaled. A stop to photograph a house with lawn ornaments out of control – which probably won’t be used – and then again in Badger for dinner at Kellies – which I knew from the man boots up in his coffee cup.

Another Chinese/Canadian Food establishment although we didn’t know it until we were already seated. This time a salad, and a fried egg sandwich.

Except for the mauze that once again enveloped the isthmus, the conversation was of things one wants to do what one has done – I was sorely deficient in this category – although by almost hitting it in Terra Nova Park Paul saw his first moose on the Rock - and general outlook on the world – i.e. as close to total engagement as possible.

After this experience, CBC presenter is out. After the work ethic instilled in me by the WGAS, it is way too much work.