Wishing you a safe and fun road trip!

safe home, John and family.

Have loads of fun and laughs, you'll be missed.

Looking forward to the stories already, John. Safe and happy travels to you and the family!

Happy Family Times!  Travel safely . . . and have a super vacation!

its a good thing that He is so generous with his hilaritas that he spreads it to other parts of Canada

Have fun John and family!

Hi Gang!

I'm back and feeling well rested despite the long drives to get home at a time our demanding family schedules require.

Our time on the rock was relaxing and restful.  I ate a boatload of codfish and enjoyed every bite.  Saw more moose than I can count (and know that I saw several multiple times).  We saw a few much closer than we were comfortable with, the newly installed wildlife whistles (I installed them on our cars) may have saved more lives than our own.

I have not been keeping abreast of discussions here while I was away and I don't feel at all bad about that.  I will sit down and attempt to get caught up on some, apologies before hand if my adding my 2 cents comes a little towards the too late side.

A new experience for all of us this summer was hearing from our neighbours that the town of Raleigh, where we bought a home to use as our vacation property has been having unofficial re-settlement discussions amongst themselves.  Small communities in rural NL are still able to request re-settlement, which means that all agree to leave town, the province buys their homes and they start fresh somewhere else.

Our neighbours shared with us simply because we pay taxes on the place, and because, apparently, we are accepted as fellow residents.  Which is quite the honour, we are no longer just "mainlanders" we are folk who "come home" home for the summer.

This news is difficult for all of us.  The good news about re-settlement is that our buy out would be 3 or 4 times what we have invested on the property to date (we picked it up on a bank mortgage sale).  The bad news is you can't sell and keep the property and not selling could hold up community settlements and there are some apparently who want the buy-out.  More on this as it progresses.

Our favourite sightings of the summer include Moose triplets (a bull calf and two cow calves) who were glued to one another for most of the summer.  I got some very dubious video with my cell-phone of the bull calf and the very last bit of a conversation we had with one another.  Regrettably I didn't think to record more when it dawned on me that we were making noises at one anotther.

Tore apart an older washer and dryer to get at needed parts for the fire-pit that will go on our land.  The dryer cooperated nicely but the washer needed some convincing and actually put up a good fight as means of denying me.  In the end I got what I needed.  I'll put it all together next summer.

Finally changed the nameplate on our land where we will eventually build a cabin (the resettlement money would really help us realize that goal).

Spent a day helping my settlement charge in St. Anthony welcome tourists from the fourth cruise ship of the summer.  Shook hands with two of the four Kiwis on board and some of the Aussies.  Had a long chat with a very charismatic Texan and other charming conversations with folk from the Netherlands and the Caribbean.  All were part of a tour called the Viking excursion which also landed in Iceland, Greenland and ports in Labrador.

I was able to give them some of the history of the building and the pastoral charge having researched that in 2000 for the Viking millennium and the guests that would be coming through our doors at that time.

Did not get to eat as many Bakeapples as I would have liked.

Did get to eat a Philly Cheese steak which swapped moose in for the beef, very delicious.

I see Dcn. Jae has a thread on the Moose flavoured chips so I'll discuss my experience with them there.

Anyway, I'm glad to be back and hope all of you have had a refreshing summer as well.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Welcome back. Sounds like u had a great vacation.

Yay Rev. John's back! It sounds like you and the rest of the community of Raleigh have some difficult decisions to make in the near future. I didn't realize they were still doing resettlement of communities in Newfoundland.

Hi Somegalfromcan,

Resettlement continues it is less of a forced issue now than in the past.

And yet, bit by bit government services pull out because of the cost and what local industry existed (fishing and logging) is diminished until there are less than 100 families left in a physically isolated community.

William's Harbour and Little Bay Islands are the latest two communities in NL to accept resettlement.

Nothing is formally on the table in Raleigh, but with less than 100 families living there full time and most of those middle aged and above the writing is on the wall, there are no new generations to keep the place going.  Only tourism exists as local industry and that is only for two maybe three months out of a year.

The Provincial Government will offer (typically) anywhere from $100, 000 to $300, 000 dollars per home/family which, in theory, is enough for the family to move to some larger community, find work and make new lives.  Homes are then left to rot for the most part, services are shut down if the community has any and that is that.

At this point it is only rumour, there is no request to the Province or any offer from it.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Sounds like a successful patrol of your sector, Lantern?

(isn't that always the case; superhero goes on vacation, chillin, then bam, old villian-once-thought-dead pops up...there must be some royalties involved here)

Do you know if the gov't of Newfoundland & Labrador are accounting for future sea level rise in their relocation plans?

(i'm imagining the 'come to the colonies' blimp from Blade Runner...)

John, are you saying that at sometime Newfoundland will be no more?

Little Bay Islands? Really? Wasn't my Charge, but Long Island (not far away) was.

Hi Crazyheart,

Not exactly.

What I am saying is that at some point there will be no more of the tiny little communities that made Newfoundland what we know it to be.  When a place like little Bay Islands or Great Harbour Deep resettles nobody moves to a similar community.  They go someplace bigger like, St. John's, Lewisporte, St. Anthony or the like. 

As those relatively big places get bigger they change.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I'm not familiar with the resettlements.  Why were they done?

yes chemgal, I am not familiar either.

As long ago as the 50's the government of Newfoundland started to encourage residents of tiny fishing outports that had really no other economic lifeline except fishing to leave their towns and move to designated "growth centres." Centralizing populations in the growth centres was supposed to create more diverse economic activity. In that sense, the results were - shall we say - mixed.

The other issue is that these tiny & isolated communities cost the provincial government huge sums of money to maintain. On Little Bay Islands the government pays for a school and teacher that has barely any students, it pays for a diesel generating plant to produce electricity because Little Bay Islands isn't on the provincial grid, it pays for a ferry service to run regular ferries back and forth - even though the ferries are often empty. By paying the residents to move elsewhere the government saves a lot of money in the long run.

The residents of places like this when I lived in the area were mostly seniors, there were few if any jobs, people had to go off island to do simple things like grocery shopping, health care was a nightmare - especially in winter. What do you do if you have an emergency, the ice is in so that the ferry can't run, there's a storm preventing a helicopter from getting in?

When that happens, can some people just stay without some of the services?

And what does moose taste like?  I think I can buy it, but I'm picky about my meat and am not adventureous.  I like lean (except for bacon) and well done.

HI chemgal,

The deal with resettlement is that a large majority need to agree or the Province will not deal.  One or two could, depending on the size of the community, scuttle the deal.  If the Province continues even with one or two opting out it is made very clear that those holdouts are giving up everything including their stake in the buyout.

If I remember correctly there was one hold out in Great Harbour Deep and eventually the deal went ahead without them.  I have no idea how long they managed to stay with no outside contact or services.  That family/person would have had nothing but their own wits and abilities to rely on as there are no roads in and the only contact with the rest of the island would have been by phone.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Hi chemgal,

It depends on the age of the moose.  Older moose are very tough and their flavour is off-putting.  Younger moose are gamier than beef yet not as gamey as venison.  I remember setting moose on the table for the first time and our three (aged 5,3 and 1 at the time) thinking that it looked like roast beef.

Both Kimberly and I giggled when our oldest daughter, before finishing her first helping enthusiastically said, "more moose please."

We didn't hunt it in NL but it was well known around the church that if you wanted to clean last year's moose out of your freezer to make room for this year's moose the Rev would take it off your hands for you.  In fact, when it came time to move along our biggest concern was what we were going to do with our freezer full of moose.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Moose is good!   Lean, red meat.   Can I tell you a little story? 

Moose is good!   Lean, red meat.   Can I tell you a little story? 

I was renting two rooms out to university students - both from rural NB. They have kitchen privileges - nice boys - before long I'm treating them like nephews.

About 5:30 one day Jamie gets in from a class, goes down and roots about his corner of the freezer and comes up with a huge moose steak - probably a kilo or so - frozen solid.

"How do I cook this?" he asks while reaching for the frying pan.

I look at it. "Jamie, do you have anything else you could have for supper tonight?"

"Sure."

"Then why don't you leave this with me and I'll cook it up for you tomorrow night."

So he heats up a 'Hungry Man' dinner in the microwave and I get out my meat cook book - it has a chapter on game.

Thaw, pound in seasoned flour, brown in butter on both sides in large skillet, smoother in onions, and water or stock, cover and simmer.

I prepare potatoes and carrots. He invites me and the other student to share his feast. And tells me, "Don't tell my mother but this is the best moose steak I've ever eaten."

I think the secret to good moose meat depends on two things: the age and condition of the moose (as Rev.John said) and the way it is cooked.

Done a bit of research on the Little Bay Islands resettlement - it takes a 90% vote of the residents. Population is 72 - including 2 children. They're the only children at the school. Their father is the mayor. He opposes resettlement (one of the few) but some think he has a conflict of interest - because he's employed by that diesel plant that generates electricity for the Islands and he'll lose his job if resettlement goes ahead.