The car I was driving steered
obediently as I drove the stretch of almost empty
highway in the direction of a sign that read 'TCH West’.
Wanting silence I had turned the radio off, and the cool
air blowing through the air-conditioning was a contrast
to the hot August air outside. This was the last leg of
a necessary and important journey for me. It was 1999, I
was fifty years old, and feeling a restlessness that was
all encompassing. For the past thirty four years I had
lived in Nova Scotia, having married a member of the RCMP whose career took him to many different places in
that beautiful province. Nevertheless Newfoundland was
forever in my heart. This feeling of unease had forced
me to set out once and for all, by myself, to make a big
decision. I needed to know if I really could leave the
province of Nova Scotia with all its beauty, farmland,
and the home of my children. I had many friends, worked
as a Registered Nurse in a hospital where everyone knew
everyone else, and I was well settled in a way of life
with my work, friends, and family.This impulse had
swept over me so quickly, the longing to be back in
Newfoundland, with the rocks, the sea, boats, family and
a place where I grew up but had left at the age of
twenty-one. I had lived in so many places in
Newfoundland and loved them all. Out of nowhere came the
incredibly strong desire to be back in Newfoundland,
back where I had spent my childhood years. Now I had set
out to make my decision in that summer of 1999,before
the new century began. I had taken time off work, tired
and anxious for my life to change in some way.
In an off hand conversation someone had told me that
the 'KYLE' was sitting in the harbour at Harbour Grace
and had been repainted and looked so like she did when
she ran as a coastal boat. The whole thing came as a bit
of a surprise because over the years I had visited
Clarkes' Beach and my good friend Jean who lived there,
had seen the rusting hulk, the remains of a ship
obviously but had never known that it was my 'KYLE'. And
to find out it was her, and she was looking better was
incentive enough to set out to see her for myself.
Growing up around the coast of Newfoundland in
various communities I was certainly quite familiar with
the coastal boats, the steamer reports, the term
'stormbound', and it was an accepted part of our lives
in the outports. Those boats such as the ‘Northern
Ranger’, the ‘Baccelieu’, the ‘Burgeo’, and the ‘Bar
Haven’, to name just a few, were like today's air
transports. They were necessary to carry goods and
people from place to place and were an absolute
necessity for the isolated outports of the Northern
Peninsula and Labrador. When the ‘steamer’ arrived
everyone headed to the 'government' wharf to watch the
activity, the unloading of goods and passengers, and
although we were warned as children not to dare go
around the wharf, we still did it. We were just really
inquisitive and wouldn't miss it for the world as we
watched the activity from atop a grassy hill.
So, here I was, still going to see the 'coastal
boat', but in a slightly different way today. In no time
I was driving Roaches Line, and then through Harbour
Grace. The sun was shining, the flags fluttering in the
wind, and as I rounded the final turn I saw her in all
her beauty, or so it seemed to me, the painting of the
hull had done wonders for the dear old ' KYLE'. She was
sitting out her retirement years in Harbour Grace. A
small viewing stand had been built, an airplane named
'The Spirit of Harbour Grace' sat nearby, and I felt my
spirits soar. So many questions I had for the ‘KYLE ,and
I wished she could answer them for me, but obviously I
had to find my own answers.
You see I had a connection with this ship I was born
in Mary’s Harbour on the Labrador coast in 1948 and it
was this ship that came to the edge of the ice in Mary'
Harbour, and took mother and me on my first boat trip.
Born in November in the Nursing Station in Mary' Harbour
made it a cold and uninviting ocean trip for my mother I
am sure. We were going home to my father, a Newfoundland
Ranger, stationed at Port Hope Simpson. It would have
been December by the time my mother and I were taken to
the ‘KYLE’, the harbour frozen, the biting winds almost
unbearable, but the boat was the only way back to my
father. The ‘KYLE’ took us to Port Hope Simpson safely.
A few hours passed that day in Harbour Grace as I sat
and wondered, fretted, mulled and tossed decisions
around in my mind, with my eyes fixed on the old boat
sitting on bottom, the tide low, the gulls flying
overhead. I wanted to know where Mother was on the boat,
was she cold, was she sick, was I a good baby? All
things to find out another time.
Now she sat proudly, valiantly trying to hold herself
upright, her colors bright under the sun. I contemplated
the pros and cons, as I watched and listened to the
sounds and sights of the day. After an hour or more I
had made my decision, a decision that I have never
regretted. I was coming home to Newfoundland.
The feeling of coming full circle, of being where I
belonged, and where I should be had taken hold. There
was an unmistakable drive to be back on the Island where
I had grown up, where my roots were, my family lived,
and where my childhood memories kept me grounded.
Yes, coming full circle, feeling complete, and best
of all feeling at peace with the world.
The KYLE is still in Harbour Grace, and I will visit
her again. But this time I will be on a different
journey, a journey taken from a new home in
Newfoundland, with the comfort in my soul of knowing I
am where I need to be.
I have truly come home!
Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe