A welcome reminder that some things can endure

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/03/2025 (212 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ok, that’s enough of all this. Let’s take a trip.

I know there’s lots going on in the world to worry about, and it’s pretty well covered in other parts of today’s newspaper.

So consider this a palate cleanser, a little divertissement from disasters large and small.

Driving north on Route 70 in the area known as Conception Bay North on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula, through Salmon Cove and past Perry’s Cove, into and out of both King’s Cove and Broad Cove, and you’ll get to Adam’s Cove. Turn right on the first paved road after the fire station, and head for the ocean. Park and walk to your left on the dirt path. It’s as wide as the axles and wheels of an all-terrain vehicle — for a reason. (One may drive by you at any time. Not in a rush, but at an amble.)

It’s the old dirt track to Bradley’s Cove — though the town of Bradley’s Cove is long since torn down and gone, save for a spectacular stone root cellar — and you’re going about a third of the way in that direction, to the base of the more-than-100-foot-high rise between you and the ocean. The path is thin dirt and round stones, except for occasional diagonal drifts of bedrock that angle up through the dirt, shot through in places with white-quartz veins.

The track curves and straightens with the hips and shoulders of the rising ground, hemmed in on both sides by alders and swamp birch, the wind-knuckled spruce and occasional red osier dogwood, a natural hedge kept in check by the regular passing of the ATVs.

When you get to the half-fallen fence with a sheep gate across the trail, you turn right and up, heading for the cliff, and the already-small trees and shrubs fall away to barely-boot-high ground cover. There’s Labrador tea and cotton grass, all sorts of tough and tangled low plants that work together to hold themselves in place against the rigours of the wind and weather, a mat that hides uneven ground and can be cruel to your ankles. At the right time, fluted purple and gentle pink flowers on impossible long stalks come up through the tangle and swing back and forth with the breeze. The little upturned bells of the berry flowers.

The view opens up to Western Bay on your left and the handful of houses in Adam’s Cove on the right. The cliff is high there, a sheer drop of 100 feet or more. Too close to the edge, and your breath stops.

In spring, predators like eagles bring gulls’ eggs to the top of the cliff, so they can rest in comfort while they peck a window through the eggshells to reach the snack inside. Sometimes, there’s an uneven row of eight to 10 eggs, insides stripped clean of everything but remnants of dried yolk, along the top of the cliff. The predators will be back again later to pick off the ragged grey chicks when they can, the parent gulls wheeling and screaming.

But you’re not done climbing. Another 40 or 50 feet to the top, high enough now that the distance down to the ocean has flattened the waves, so you only know it’s rough if there are whitecaps.

There is, at the top, a ragged cairn of sharp stone about three-and-a-half-feet high, and, if you know where to look, down under the tuff and blueberry and ground cranberry, there’s a brass waypoint marker from the Hydrographic Service of Canada, set into concrete. It’s marker No. 555, and it’s been there since 1951, though the plant life regularly closes in over the top of it. A reminder that some things last.

There’s wind. There’s always wind. If there’s enough wind, you can hear it whispering through the plants with a gentle ululating hiss. But there’s also a 360-degree panorama on a clear day, with the horizon basically split into thirds, with one-third open ocean and two-thirds land, and on that hilltop, you’re higher than any ground within your near surroundings. There are signs of fox if you’re there in winter, and in summer, gulls and other seabirds hanging in place on the wind that sweeps up the rock face from the water. Sometimes, there are fishing boats — occasionally, a coast guard vessel or a tanker plies its way in front of you down into the long southerly reach of Conception Bay.

If it’s dry enough, you can sit, feel the sun on your face and hear the air rushing past your ears — and if you’re truly lucky, the plumes of whalespout will crop up here and there, and you can see the shadows of their black bodies rise up to the surface if they’re close.

Take my word for it, there’s no better place to escape from the world. I mean, we all have work to do in this currently off-kilter world, where not just a U.S. president, but his press staff and his commerce secretary say the United States’ intention is to annex this country.

Life will go on. I tell myself that, and I try hard to believe it, even though fears creep in more and more as American hyperbole gets ever-more strident.

Stand up, brush off the twigs and branchlets, and get your shoulder ready for the wheel.

Russell Wangersky is the Comment Editor at the Free Press. He can be reached at russell.wangersky@freepress.mb.ca