CHAPTER III
AROUND ABOUT ST. JOHN’S
Come with me for a drive around St. John’s. We can hire a touring car of almost any make, but for novelty we choose a one-horse open coach. The grizzled driver tells us times are dull with him just now, the taxis getting most of the trade, but that he will have the best of it in December, when the cars are laid up until spring on account of the snow. St. John’s has an average of about four feet of snow in a season, but I have seen pictures of the streets snowed in to the roofs of the houses. The thermometer rarely falls below zero, but once the snows begin, the ground is covered until April.
The chief business street of St. John’s is strung out for a mile or more just back of the wharves. It is lined on both sides with three- and four-story wood and brick buildings. Among the most modern is the home for sailormen built by the Doctor Grenfell mission of Labrador fame. Though the store windows look bright and attractive, many of the shops are tiny affairs, and the street seems more English than American.
I notice many branches of Canadian banks, which monopolize the banking business of Newfoundland. Contrary to the belief of many Americans, Newfoundland politically is no more a part of Canada than it is of New Zealand. It is a separate dominion of the British Empire, to which its people are enthusiastically devoted, having more than once refused to be federated with Canada. They will tell you that the name of their country is pronounced with the accent on the last syllable—New-found-land.
The main street of St. John’s has a trolley running practically its entire length. Whenever the conductor collects a fare, he puts a little ticket in a tiny cash register that he carries in his hand. Like all the Newfoundlanders I have met, the car men are most courteous. One of them left his car to ask a policeman on the corner to direct me to the American consulate. Indeed, I like these Newfoundlanders. They are cordial and hospitable and most polite, though sometimes I have difficulty in understanding their Anglicized speech. I was told on the ship that I would see none but natural complexions in St. John’s, and as far as I have observed that is true, all the girls having bright rosy cheeks. Both men and women here are long lived.
Our driver is now asking us to look at the government buildings. They are high up above the harbour and surrounded by beautiful grounds. The party having a majority in the lower house of parliament forms the government and names the premier and his ministers. The upper house, called the Legislative Assembly, consists of twenty-four members appointed by the governor in council. The members of the lower house are elected for terms of four years and meet every year. While the humblest fisherman may be elected to parliament, Newfoundland has not yet granted women the vote. It has no divorce laws.
Our next stop is at the west end of St. John’s, where the Waterford River empties into the harbour. Here is a valley covered with truck gardens, and beyond lies a park given to the city by one of its titled shipping magnates. It is said that spring comes here two weeks earlier than in the eastern end of town. The reason for this is that while the fogs and the winds from the sea sweep over the bluffs at the harbour entrance, they rarely penetrate to the valley.
Driving back to town we pass the station of the Newfoundland Government Railway, a narrow gauge line that covers the most important parts of the island. It runs far to the north, then to the west shore, and down to Port aux Basques at the southwest. Branches jut out here and there, linking the port towns with the main line and the capital. The greater part of the south shore has no railroad, nor is there yet any line into the Barbe Peninsula, which extends northward to Belle Isle Strait. There is talk of bridging the Strait and connecting Newfoundland with Canada by a rail line through northeastern Quebec.
The manager of the railroad tells me that the Newfoundland line is unique in that its passenger revenues exceed its freight earnings. The reason for this is that most of the people live near the sea, and the bulk of freight goes by water. On the cross country route there are many steep grades, for the interior is hilly, although the highest point on the island is only two thousand feet above sea level. The railroad skirts the shores of hundreds of lakes, of which Newfoundland has more than it has found time to count. It is estimated that one third of the land lies under water. I met a man to-day, just returned from a hunting trip forty miles inland, who told me that he had stood on a hilltop and counted one hundred lakes and ponds in plain sight. He has a friend who has fished in no less than forty different ponds within a half mile of his camp. Grand Lake, on the west side, is more than fifty-six miles long, and two others are nearly as large.
American sportsmen have already discovered in Newfoundland hunting and fishing grounds that rival those of Canada, and some of our rich Americans have permanent camps along the rivers and streams on the south and the west coasts, to which they come every summer for salmon. The railroad manager promises that if I will take the train across country I shall see herds of caribou from the car window.
Much of the land along the railway has been burned over, but nevertheless the country has ten thousand square miles of well-timbered land, worth as it stands five hundred million dollars. Some is being cut for lumber, and more for mine props that go to England and Wales. The chief use of the forests at present is to furnish pulp wood for news print. Lord Northcliffe built at Grand Falls a six-million-dollar plant, operated by water-power, to supply his newspapers and magazines, and an even larger project, to cost twenty-five million dollars, is now under way at the mouth of the Humber River, on the west coast. The scenery there is much like that of the fiords of Norway.
The chief agricultural development of Newfoundland is on the west side of the island, where stock is raised successfully and wintered outdoors. This section of the country has produced as much as three million pounds of beef or three times as much as the amount imported. Newfoundland is not primarily, however, an agricultural country. The efforts of the people have always centred largely on fishing and related industries.
Newfoundland has had its gold fevers, especially on the coast of Labrador, which it owns. So far, these have amounted to nothing. But it has one of the world’s largest iron deposits, and at one time this country was an important producer of copper. It suffers commercially from its handicaps in the way of transportation, and also because of its limited supply of capital.
In studying the map of Newfoundland, I have been interested in its many fanciful names, and wish that I might see what inspired them. There are, for example, “Heart’s Content” and “Heart’s Ease,” “Bay of Bulls” and “Leading Tickle,” “Baldhead” and “Redhead Rocks.” “Come by Chance” is a railroad station in eastern Newfoundland, while just to the north is “Random.”
Most of the points on the Newfoundland coast were named by the early mariners who learned from experience rather than charts how to navigate these dangerous shores. To help remember sailing directions, they made up little rhymes such as this one I learned from a schooner captain just in from Labrador: