Ronconter
It's a gentle day for a ferry ride, the sea slate gray reflecting the sky, but smooth and slick. I share the whole of the ferry with two very large ladies heading for Pool's Cove (accent on the Pool's, one word). It costs me the price of a cup of coffee, $3.75. The young deckhand is easygoing and teaches me how to coil a rope so it doesn't kink. He wants to work his way up but not to captain or engineer, that would require schooling and he’s not into that. I suppose that leaves him with working his way up from being a young deckhand to being an old deck hand. The rusty old Terra Nova chugs around from early to late so he works long hours, seven days a week, six weeks on, three off, five months a year. The rest of the time he "visits with his family" and tries to " clean up after my girlfriend, though I'm pretty messy too". A pod of dolphins cuts across the bow and a little later a whale spouts.
I’m awestruck by the setting. From horizon to horizon the coastline lies rough, busted up. The mountains are a sailors' brawl, fists of rock, bare knuckle, no holds barred, no mercy asked or given, a cage match, every day. Get lost out there and your death elicits no more notice than the death of a mosquito. And it's a quiet day, imagine the gales of winter! No wonder people clear the woods and plant lawns and gardens, nature in the raw is too overpowering.
In this wildness, the little ferry I am on is but a speck, too inconsequential to be noticed by the gods. Just as I start to feel we might fall off the end of the world, the boat turns around a buoy and starts heading for shore. There, in the distance, like a spot of bird shit splattered on a rock, lies my destination - Roncontre East or, in local lingo, - Ronconter. If it looks isolated on the map the reality is a thousand fold.
I ask around and find a place, another 2 bedroom house, only $80. It's much nicer than the last place but there are still dishes in the sink and only one bedroom is made up. There is no key and none needed. I "stock up" at Judy's General Store. I score a Kraft dinner, a welcome relief from canned spaghetti and beans. I also pick up a bag of chips and an Oh Henry; I'm going to die eating this shit. The only veggies are a few mouldy turnips. The rest of what's there suggests the ladies of the town are real bakers - Sherrif lemon pie filling, Dream Whip, icing sugar, jello powder, Chippits, and Betty Crocker prepared icing. About 3/4 of the space is given over to alcohol.
All these dining options show in the general shape of the population. Many ladies are huge and can barely walk. One young one, not half bad from a distance, smiles at me as we pass; half her teeth are missing. Everyone rides a quad from place to place, even though it’s no more than 200 yards across town.
I chat with a lady who is a “come from away” and has lived here for eight years. She's busy all day, she says, so she doesn't feel isolated. Mothers are busy, too, they have their children. Indeed, of the 115 people living here, 24 are children in school. The population is down 20% from the census in 2016; there are few jobs around. A few of the men lobster fish, small mom and pop operations, one trap at a time, inshore, mostly just within 200 metres of home. That’s for two months a year. A number of years ago some salmon farms moved in and they actually had to bring people into the community. But the nets in the bay are empty now. They have to "rest" for two years while the sea cleans out all the shit and disease. The young men working them have moved off elsewhere. Mostly the men go off to work, to Fort Mac, to anywhere with a job, working a month on, a week off, or 3 months on, a month off, or whatever. But they always, always come back. This is where their roots are, where their four generations of grandparents are buried; this is home, there is nowhere else.
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