Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador

Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador

An extraordinary journey across the magnificent, delinquent coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

John Gimletteâ€™s journey across this harsh and awesome landscape, the eastern extreme of the Americas, broadly mirrors that of Dr Eliot Curwen, his great-grandfather, who spent a summer there as a doctor in 1893, and who was witness to some of the most beautiful ice and cruelest poverty in the British Empire. Using Curwenâ€™s extraordinarily frank journal, John Gimlette revisits the places his great-grandfather encountered and along the way explores his own links with this harsh, often brutal, land.

At the heart of the book however, are the â€œoutporters,â€ the present-day inhabitants of these shores. Descended from last-hope Irishmen, outlaws, navy deserters and fishermen from Jersey and Dorset, these outporters are a warm, salty, witty and exuberant breed. They often speak with the accent and idioms of the original colonists, sometimes Shakespearean, sometimes just plain impenetrable. Theirs is a bizarre story; of houses (or â€œsaltboxesâ€) that can be dragged across land or floated over the sea; of eating habits inherited from seventeenth-century sailors (salt beef, rum pease-pudding and molasses;) of Labradorians sealed in ice from October to June; of fishing villages that produced a diva to sing with Verdi; and of their own illicit, impromptu dramatics, the Mummers.

This part-history-part-travelogue exploration of Newfoundland and Labradorâ€™s coast and culture by a well-established travel writer is a glorious read to be enjoyed by both armchair tourist, and anyone contemplating a visit to Canadaâ€™s far-eastern shores.
Country USA
Manufacturer Knopf
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2005-09-06
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781400043224

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Knopf
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2005-09-06
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781400043224

Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador

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