Awardee's account
News from the rock
In September and October 2001 we, Menno Boon and Wouter Jan Strietman (picture), travelled to Newfoundland to study its economic development after we decided to join up for our thesis a couple of months earlier. At that time we already got interested in Canada, partly because we both spent summer holidays there and partly because of a successful study trip around Lake Ontario. But to us, Newfoundland seemed to be the most interesting region of Canada.
The Rock
Many Newfoundlanders simply refer to their island province as "The Rock" as it somewhat resembles a giant piece of rock in the ocean. In its own way, Newfoundland is a unique region in Canada. It is the only country that ever joined Canada by way of a popular referendum (in 1949). But since then, things got worse. Newfoundland developed into a state of poverty and dependency, worsened by its very own isolation. Compared to the rest of Canada, economic problems always seemed to be worst in Newfoundland.
There are several examples of this. Since the early nineties, in contrast to Canada as a whole, Newfoundland's population is in decline. As the result of high out- migration, low in-migration and a low birth rate Newfoundland is the fastest aging province in Canada. While oil revenues led the way to Canada's highest GDP growth, Newfoundland still has the highest unemployment rate and the lowest per capita income. Partly responsible for its high unemployment rate is the overfishing that took place for several decades and resulted in the commercial extinction of cod in Newfoundland waters. As a result of this, hundreds of coastal communities were deprived of their primary source of income. However, recent discoveries of oil and gas such as the Hibernia oilfield may give hope for the future.
We are very much interested in finding out the reasons for Newfoundland's economic problems. However, the information we needed was scarcely available in The Netherlands. Some references to Newfoundland were made in several books, magazines and on the internet, but we didn't want to do a research based solely on these scarce sources. The overall picture was hard to come by if we only concentrated on them. Staying in Newfoundland was important to us, because only then we could gather the background information that isn't available through books and to see what the region is like.
[to top]Getting started
To achieve this goal we started to look for grants to finance a two month stay. We figured that two months would be enough to conduct enough interviews and gather all sorts of relevant background information on Newfoundland's economic situation. Our university, the University of Utrecht, does not have any official connections with the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) in St. John's. Therefore, we contacted university staff at MUN for further information to see whether we could stay somewhere cheap.
Our mentor pointed out that the ACSN may be of help to us. In the end, the ACSN provided us with the Graduate Student Research Award, thanks to which we were able to conduct our research in Newfoundland.
Our arrival in Newfoundland began with a cab ride to our bed and breakfast (at a certain point WE had to direct the cab driver our destination). As we weren't allowed to stay on the university's campus, we had contacted several bed and breakfasts before we left. The one we were driving to had offered us the best deal. They first offered us a room for two for $30 a night, but after we decided to stay there they even offered us two separate bedrooms for the same price. The people who owned it were away virtually all the time, either on tour with their Irish folklore band, or to their other B&B in Trinity. This meant that we had the house for ourselves most of the time We shared a bathroom which even had a Jacuzzi.
So, our time in Newfoundland started off pretty good. Our B&B was only five minutes walking from the harbour, near the CBD (if you can call it that in a city with only 100,000 inhabitants and a handful of high-rise buildings), twenty minutes from the University and near all kinds of Irish pubs. It became clear to us that the people of Newfoundland are very aware of their Irish roots.
[to top]Walhalla
The first thing on our "to do-list" was to go to the Memorial University of Newfoundland and see our contact and get a library card. Our contact provided us with a list of books and articles that might be helpful to our research. After that it was time to pay a visit to the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, part of the MUN Library. This is a Walhalla for people who want to learn more about the history and economy of Newfoundland. Virtually everything that has ever been published can be consulted. The only problem is that you can not take the articles with you, so you have to copy all your collected articles, or make notes there. We spent quite a lot of time in the reading room and behind photocopiers, but eventually it was worth it.
Literature was only one of the things we wanted to do when in Newfoundland. Another part of our research was doing interviews. We visited about 25 experts on subjects of economic development. We went to ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and they were very interested in our topic. They provided us with lots of material, and answered all the questions we could think of. Experts on a variety of economic sectors were interviewed as well. Especially sectors like oil and gas, which have been booming since the discovery and use of the Hibernia oilfield were interesting. We even visited the mayor of St. John's and were pretty surprised to find out that we, after almost six weeks, actually knew more about the economy than he did.
One of the most useful and hilarious visits was to the Newfoundland Statistics Agency, however. When we visited the agency, we were strangely surprised by all sorts of head-gear people were wearing. Mrs. Ryan and Mr. Crane, didn't participate in their behaviour, but they comforted us and explained it was some sort of contest that comes back every year: who can wear the funniest hat. People who had just started to work there were obliged to participate. It certainly did put a lot of smiles on people's faces (including ours)! Mrs. Bonny Ryan and Mr. Gerald Crane have been more than helpful to us, and provided us with all the statistical information we could hope for, and continued to do so when we were back in The Netherlands.
[to top]Nature in Newfoundland
Outside of conducting interviews and gathering information, we also wanted to see something of the island. That is why we usually rented a car during our weekends at Rent-A-Wreck. They do not have the best cars available, but they are certainly cheap. Within half an hour driving you're outside of St. John's, in the middle of nowhere. Just turn left or right from Highway No.1, the Trans Canada Highway, and you can find the most stunning scenery. Forests as far as the eye can see, and the sea is never far away. Even from our B&B it was only a 45 minute walk to a beautiful cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
The first weekend we went to Gannet Rock, a tall stack of rock where roughly 10,000 gannets are nesting, only 15 metres from a viewpoint on the cliffs. The sight was amazing, and so was the smell! First, fog (no surprise in Newfoundland!) blocked our view, but later in the day the fog cleared and provided us with some amazing views.
Since September isn't the height of the tourist season, there weren't much tourists and we always had a place to stay. Usually, the weekends brought us to Trinity, our B&B owners had another B&B. Trinity and its surroundings are beautiful, especially when you're interested in whale watching. The main whale watching season is peaking in June, July and August, depending on capelin abundance (the whale's main food item). Although we visited Newfoundland outside the peak season, we did see dolphins whales virtually every day we went to the cliffs near our B&B in St. John's.
Another example of Newfoundland's nature being full of surprises is the trip we made to Trinity during the last weekend of our stay. We were back in Trinity again after our last week of searching for relevant literature, conducting interviews, and party with the locals during Halloween. We had been there a couple of times before and hooked up with our friend Kris, who lives nearby in a small wooden house overlooking one of Newfoundland's most beautiful bays. In the second weekend of our stay he already told us about a young Beluga whale that lived in the bay since summertime.
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Only once in every two-three years a few Beluga whales stray from their usual feeding grounds north of Labrador into Newfoundland waters. So, we went with him on his boat a couple of times, but unfortunately to no avail. Other than several magnificent views of bald eagles, dolphins and porpoises, our elusive Beluga was nowhere to be seen. These sightings were great of course, but not exactly what we came for. However, this all changed during the last weekend of our stay. On a beautiful sunny (but crispy) Saturday we drove along the coast and saw several dolphins and even a pod of Killer Whales. Therefore we decided to call Kris one more time to hopefully see them. After an hour of watching dolphins we had not even counted on seeing the Beluga, but suddenly there she was, unmistakably: no dorsal fin. It seemed that this particular whale was very interested in us, when we went faster, it swam faster too. In the end, the Beluga stayed with our boat for three hours.
In a way for us the Beluga symbolises the way in which we experienced Newfoundland: it was hard to get to, but when we finally arrived there, we had two amazing months during which we met some very friendly and helpful people and in the meantime enjoyed Newfoundland's beautiful surroundings. To all of this we will always think back with a smile on our faces. But this was not possible without the ACSN. We hereby like to thank the ACSN for providing us with their grant, without which we wouldn't be able to conduct our research.
Menno Boon
Wouter Jan Strietman