Guest Post by Candice Walsh.
Candice Walsh, of Candice Does The World, is a technical writer for a deep sea technology company and an associate editor at Matador Network. When she isn’t writing about sonar equipment, she’s shooting whiskey and hitting on men, or eating nachos and dreaming about travel. She’s currently stationed in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
I’m from the southern coast of Newfoundland.
It’s actually not the armpit at all, just nobody knows it’s really there, so nobody really cares about it. You’re driving along the Trans Canada Highway hoping to not end up with a moose on your windshield and then you see the huge sign just outside of Bishop Falls stating, Bay d’Espoir Highway. Then a warning sign saying, “REFUEL. NO MORE STOPS FOREVER.”
The scene beyond the sign is something like out of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast flick. You know, when Belle’s father has to decide between the two routes, and one is black and dark and filled with gnarled trees, spooky creatures and dirt road? That’s kind of how the Bay d’Espoir highway is. Except there are no trees, because most of them burned in an epic forest fire 24 years ago and all that remains is an ashy, levelled landscape.
This highway is the bane of my existence. I would rather fly to Australia three times before ever taking this cursed highway even once.
But two hours down the road, Bay d’Espoir creeps up on you. You take a fork in the road, drive a little further, zoom up a tall hill — and holy shit, there it is. A cluster of communities gathered in a fjord carved out by a glacier. I’ve taken this journey at least 100 times, and it still takes my breath away.
My town of St. Alban’s is the furthest away. I have to drive through the other small towns, around a wide-open span of water, evergreen hills and endless stretches of forest. I am constantly awed by all the space, all the wide open gaps. Crappy houses in Newfoundland’s capital city of St. John’s are selling for $350k; here you can build a mansion for under $100k.
I lived in St. Alban’s for most of my life. I didn’t appreciate it as a teenager; the small-town sentimentality got to me. I thought not being able to meet people outside my posse of friends from kindergarten was a bad thing, not realizing those people would form the strongest relationships I have today. If you’re from the bay, you’re family.
If you’re visiting, all you need is a small sailboat. When I was in high school, my best friend and I would take trips around the bay in her father’s boat, The Aquila. Miles out we saw people swimming on sandy beaches. We passed hills speckled with headstones, the remains from an ancient community evacuated because they believed the cemetery was haunted. We stopped to find mussels along a beach while her father told us the story about a man who washed up on shore around those parts, loaded with jewels and treasure.
When I’m home, I’m still afraid to walk home alone at night. There’s only two or three streetlights on my entire road, otherwise it’s black and quiet. It’s a change of pace after just leaving the noisy local pub, trotting on an unpaved surface in heels. Sometimes you can hear coyotes calling, other times black bears will peek into your window.
The best part is that it’s not a national park. It’s not a heritage site. It’s not anything besides open, accessible, endless wilderness with no fees. The way it always was. You can do pretty much whatever you want, it’s yours.
But please, no more forest fires.
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