Word: newfoundlanders
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...great auk's fate. During the 18th and 19th centuries, commercial fishing vessels scoured the waters off North America for cod. Since the all but defenseless great auk provided a source of meat and oil, fishermen clubbed the birds to death by the millions on the rookeries off Newfoundland. The last two known members of the species, a nesting pair, were killed on June 3, 1844, strangled by Icelandic fishermen recruited by a merchant who hoped to sell the skins to collectors...
...Wheeler decided to use the story of the great auk to dramatize what was happening. A former U.S. Navy deep-sea diver and a veteran kayaker, he set out on a solo 1,500-mile kayak trip from Newfoundland to Buzzards Bay, Mass., following the seasonal migration route of the great auk--as much a feat for a man with a paddle as for a bird that could not fly. He hoped the attention the perilous journey would receive would send a clear message: "What we did to the auk, we are now doing to other species...
...zone between the land and the sea that is never dry for the lapping waves, what seems neatly defined land and water mixes, leaving enough room for interpretation to fill the novel's 450 pages. An iceberg is both shelter from a storm and a ripping force of destruction, Newfoundland waste and an Eden, the sea a blessing and curse...
...with words of ratherstartling specificity, Gaff Topsails is notalways an easy book to read. Although Kavanagh'sintimate knowledge makes for description asaccurate and illuminating as his vocabulary,imbuing this description with creative imaginationdemands a heavy toll in effort. There is a chapterdevoted exclusively to the geological history ofthe Newfoundland coast, pages replicating thedialectical banter of bored men on the open sea,and every other paragraph brings the unmistakablescent of the sea; electric, heavy, changing withthe hours and the wind...
...priestly life and thescriptures. When his father dies and the othermonks flee a famine, the boy is loosed upon thecountry. Having never encountered humans before,he viciously survives the hunger by murdering andcannibalizing those whom he has been taught inLatin to treat as Christ. He continues in similarfashion in Newfoundland, as a pirate terrorizingthe British Colony there until the day theCatholics return and he falls back into theautomatic regimen of his youth...