Sun 28 Jul 2019
It was our last day in St Johns, the capital, before heading to the other side of Newfoundland, so we thought we’d do the walk around Signal Hill one last time and take in the Military Tattoo that we’d missed on Friday. (This time, we’d checked it was definitely happening.)
But, first, it was time for another less than adept start to the day. This time, I awoke with a start and was astounded to find my watch already saying 8:25. Although rather late, the campsite was unusually quiet (perhaps because it was a Sunday) and my eyes would barely stay open, so I quietly let myself slip back to sleep. An hour later, 9:25, and the noisy neighbours began their loud daily chat – surprisingly late really. Although I remained unfathomably tired, I decided I’d better get up and dressed and make a start to the day.
Only then did I look at my watch with a more sceptical eye. I must have started the stopwatch function by mistake yesterday evening, because it now became apparent that I wasn’t looking at the time of day at all, but at the elapsed time on the stopwatch setting. Far from being half past nine on a Sunday morning, it was half past six! No point returning to bed now: I resolved that I would henceforth try to crack this ‘getting up’ malarkey that everyone else seems to manage, and headed off to that hotbed of inspirational tales, the campsite laundry, ostensibly to write my diary, in reality to see what interesting characters might be lurking within.
I soon got chatting with a woman from mainland Canada whose son has taught in Asia and Nunavut (a sparsely-populated Inuit territory in the far, frozen north of Canada). Having, over the years, already heard quite a number of unbelievably toe-curling stories from inside various international schools in Europe and Asia, it was Nunavet that I was particularly interested to hear about.
Oh dear, what a dismaying situation of traditional lives being brought halfway into the modern world, with the indigenous population now neither one thing nor the other, and fault on all sides. Teachers having to over-inflate their child assessment scores to attract a continued flow of government funding (to enable the schools even to exist), whilst the children haven’t actually learnt enough to be able to compete for university places and professional jobs should they wish to do so, child abuse scandals dating from the 1970s meaning parents often not wishing to engage with the schools and, further, extracting their children from school en masse to assist during each hunting and fishing season, very little government intervention and, even if there is a check, approximately zero follow-through. Not all tales are upbeat and this was a very sorry story.
On a happier note, I also got chatting with a Canadian couple walking and camping their way down the Newfoundland East Coast Trail. What a beautiful route they have chosen ... and it must be true that exercise keeps you young-looking: I thought the woman was early to mid-30s; she was 62!
After a campsite lunch of quick-cook noodles, we drove to our spot in Quidi Vidi and set off hiking via Cuckold’s Cove (and a couple of sightings of humpback whales from the cliff top) to Signal Hill, in good time for the military tattoo next to the visitor centre. The walk was as beautiful and uplifting as the first time we did it. Quite late on the journey, however, it became apparent that, even though we were heading towards the tattoo, Dave wasn’t really bothered about seeing it any more and the girls had become quite anti- (whether because of Friday’s shenanigans or something else, I’m not sure). I was the only one still fairly keen.
We’d got most of the way there, so continued the hike to our destination, but now had to decide what to do. Although entry, at CA$10 per adult and CA$5 per child (i.e., CA$30, or around £20, for the four of us), wasn’t excessive, it also wasn’t good value if three people didn’t want to go in. And it didn’t feel right just paying for me to go inside whilst the other three stayed out.
[Use arrows or swipe to scroll photos.] The military tattoo on Signal Hill.
I hit upon what seemed the perfect solution. The CA$10 per adult entry fee was split between the parks service (CA$4) and the youth group doing the performance (CA$6, towards uniforms and kit). I didn’t feel I owed the parks service anything – we were very low impact, not using their service road or car park, and they’d already had money out of us for well-overpriced drinks at the visitor centre on Friday. So, instead of paying CA$10 to go in (for a better view and a seat), I would stand outside the slatted fence with some of the other people generally milling around, watch (in discomfort) for free and then pop CA$5 into the youth group’s donation box (so they’d still get most of their cut of the money, slightly reduced for my impaired view). And, to be honest, once you’ve got everyone inside who’s conceivably going to pay for a ticket, why not have a bigger audience – I’d rather have a big audience than a small one, even if they aren’t all paying: it just feels nicer to perform to a crowd, and they might even recommend you and generate additional future income (thinking outside the box). Perfect. Except...
After I’d stood there for a couple of minutes, a ‘guard’ from the youth group felt it necessary to come over, tell me it was a paid performance and that I needed to move back from the grass to the sidewalk ‘for safety reasons’. I explained why I wasn’t paying, gesturing to Dave and the girls sat sunning themselves around the corner, queried what the safety reasons were, given that the paid audience was much closer to the action than I was, and found out that, as I suspected, it was all an excuse and she could ask me to move but not enforce it, so I politely said I’d prefer to stay put.
I felt quite uncomfortable about it, though, especially when another guard came over to say the same thing, and then another guard began glaring at me. I was not 100% in the right, of course, but nor 100% in the wrong. And I was getting quite annoyed at how they were singling me out; no-one else stood watching outside the fence was spoken to at all, yet I was probably the only one intending to pay a donation. I decided I’d reduce my donation by CA$1 for each time a guard had bothered me unnecessarily, thus down to CA$2. Given that I saw only about 10% of the total performance, what with interruptions from guards and going off to touch base with Dave and the girls every few minutes, I should probably have scaled my donation down to just 10% of that amount, but my unwavering generosity got the better of me and I stuck with my offering of CA$2!
I suppose the tattoo was O.K. and has appeal as a ‘go to’ event for organised tour groups and ‘coffee and cake’ tourists. But I remembered I was in Newfoundland for the landscape, wildlife and incredibly genuine friendliness of the real citizens, not to watch a put-on show. I wouldn’t do this sort of thing again.
Walking back to Quidi Vidi in temperatures reaching the high 20s (and the girls still refusing to take off their fleece jumpers), we bumped into a friendly couple from New Hampshire in the USA. Everyone seems to be chatty once in Newfoundland: it’s just that sort of place. We had a pleasant conversation and swapped tips. They said they’d been to the Geo Centre on Signal Hill and seen a woman in there smelling and listening to the rocks, and commented that we don’t use our senses to the full. May couldn’t resist: she immediately grabbed my hiking pole and started pretending to listen to it. It wasn’t a walking stick after all – it was a talking stick.
We are off to Deer Lake next, then Gros Morne National Park. But, first, some Newfoundland memories from previous visits, and you’ll start to see why we love the place so much.
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