Newfoundland

Since moving out east I've had the pleasure of reading several books by Farley Mowat. He's a good writer and deserving of his place in the Canadian Walk of Fame. Though I don't expect he'll attend the twisted ceremony, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Right now I'm finishing The New Founde Land, Mowat's tribute to Newfoundland and its people, and it turns out its ghosts. When Europeans first "discovered" Newfoundland and Labrador they might have thought they had discovered the Garden of Eden, well in a manner of speaking. Sure it lacked milk and honey but Newfoundland had possibly the most abundant wildlife in the world, surely rivaling the plains of Africa and North America.

You could literally stick your hand in the water and pull out cod. Reports from sailors stated that the sheer abundance of cod slowed their boats from passing through the water. They are almost gone today.

There were polar bears everywhere. Last night I read a dismal account from a 18th century insane European who repeatedly shot polar bears through the head for the mere sport of it. Now if a polar bear has the ill fortune of straying south in winter it is shot immediately, for public safety, as if humans matter more than polar bears.

There were millions of birds on isolated offshore islands. The great auk was the most prized, providing meat, eggs and feathers. Now they are extinct, wiped off the map by civilization.

Seals populated the winter ice around Newfoundland and Labrador in far greater numbers than we see today. At least they are still with us.

Pilot whales are estimated to have numbered some 60,000 even into the twentieth century before they became the food of mink farmers in Newfoundland. Some good news is that they are still with us, a smaller and sadder population for having met civilized humans.

I could go on.

All I can think, in this world of oil spills and climate change, that had I be born in Newfoundland before Europeans I would have looked on this abundance and thanked the earth for her generosity. And surely the First Nations of Newfoundland and Labrador did. They did not let their populations grow too high and took only what they needed and gave themselves back when their lives ended. They probably couldn't have ever foreseen an end to this Garden of Eden. These people, like the great auks, are gone now too.

There's just us civilized people left and a few species hanging on. And we'll destroy them in the end. That's what we do. All for a "higher standard of living". Not really worth it if you ask me.