It really doesn't matter if you were born here and lived here your whole life, or if you lived here for a time when you were growing up, or whether you landed her later in life for a visit, or to live out the rest of your days, because you finally got it. The Rock becomes down home so fast it is a phenomenon. There is something about this place that sneaks under your skin, and without you realizing it, becomes part of your fibre, not necessarily ever acknowledged, but buried under there, waiting to surface when you least expect it. When it does hit you, and it will, no matter how much time has passed, you can't figure out how that happened and you can't shake it, and it is a beautiful mystery. And your lucky day to boot. You might think you're over it when you leave, like a bad break up or a job that just didn't work out, but this place, if you ever return from being away will suck you in and under like a first kiss, every time. Oh my. Just like that. It happened just that way for me. I had not been back for over 40 years. I only lived in St John's for a few short years, from age 14 to 16. And then back and forth a bit in my early 20s. I lived on the opposite coast, on Vancouver Island, for most of my adult life. I had become a true west coast girl in most ways. Granola maker, rainforest hiker, whale and tree hugger, art lover, sushi eater, city dweller, beach walker, and gourmet food eater. And now finally retired. So at 60 I thought a trip back would be the thing to do. It is a strange thing I have seen many people do (myself included, obviously ) as we age, we tend to look back, like we are trying to pedal back in time, perhaps because suddenly we realize that our time left is finite. And maybe we are looking for answers in what we thought were simpler times. And maybe we just don't have an effing clue what drives the primitive instinct to go looking at where we were and how we came to be where we are now before we die. And so, off I went. Nothing prepared me for how I would feel, as I got my legs again after that long plane ride. The smell of a place can open up a Pandora's box of memories. And so it did. The ocean smell of Newfoundland is completely different from the ocean smell of Vancouver Island, and it was like being transported back in time with a whiff of the east coast salt air. Driving past streets long forgotten but all of a sudden remembered again in flashes of deja vu, struck with a sense of homesickness, in the place you are supposed to be away from while feeling that. Strangest aching thing. And then it hit me. Oh My God. I have come home. I was completely caught off guard again when I realized that I had accidentally booked an Air bnb house right around the corner from the family home on Pennywell Road. I lived there way back then in the 70s. I wandered the streets and took pictures of our old house, which still looked the same except for a paint upgrade. I walked up the hill to the abandoned building my sister and I used to hang out with "the gang" on the corner of Linscott and Freshwater Rd. It was time for a wine or three to put that all in perspective...and maybe some Purity biscuits with jam and tea after. A few days was spent in St John's getting a grip on myself, and all the new feelings and memories that found their way in to my dreams at night and my daytime wanderings, taking in the sights and changes since I was gone. The Rooms was amazing and had not been built when I lived in town. Signal Hill was improved with walking platforms everywhere, and yet, there were places that should have been familiar, but had changed and were not anymore. What had not changed was the people. Where else in the world could you be walking on a trail on Signal Hill and be stopped to chat about your sandals and before you know it you are whipping a shoe off to show your new BFF the brand name so she can look them up online. I mean, go on! The stay in St John's was followed by a trip around Conception and Trinity Bays. Around the bay, I was so lucky to stare back in time at my own family history, the church my grandmother (on my Dad's side) got married in in 1912, in Trinity Bay, still standing and much the same, and the land next to it, Bursey land, my Mom's people. My Mom and Dad strangely share some common relatives because of people dying and remarrying as they did back then. I have been assured, there are no blood ties... but I sometimes think the whole province is like a big small town, someone always knows someone related to someone. Move over Kevin Bacon. I met such lovely people. One of the best lines I heard while there was when I was staying at a house in Chapel Arm and the black flies were having their way with me. A woman walking her pugs stopped to chat and in speaking about the flies she said to me, "Sure ye kills one, 500 comes to the funeral!" Ahhh, I will never forget it. Partly because I actually still have scars from the bites... I walked over many long grassy, wet graveyards in Placentia looking for my uncle Gerald who died young in the 90s. I never found him, but I was awestruck to stand over graves from the 1800s and to think of the history of the place and the people that eked out a living in such a harsh environment so long ago. In Ferryland, I met and stayed at Bob's place. He was a character as only Newfoundland can make them, but wait! He was actually from Hamilton, but had completely assimilated and was a 100% genuine Rock person, because I think that is what happens. You can't help it. You get absorbed into the culture of what it is to be a Newfoundlander. It is not about where you were born, it is about what you become when exposed to this life and the people. Amazing and inevitable. He had a picture of the 2017 iceberg (the one they made the postage stamp of) and below it a picture of a man. I asked him who the fellow was. "Sure, that's my friend who landed his helicopter on the iceberg," he tells me. Hmmmm. Ok Bob. But he did have the best collection of Downhome magazines on the coffee table, and I had never seen those before. I read all through them during my two-day stay, passing some time, looking for Corky sneaky Conner, while it poured rain outside.< I met so many fine folk during my travels around the Avalon and Burin Peninsulas; it's true, they really are the best kind. The whole island welcomes you in, and everyone living in this place emanates a warm, open feeling that you have to experience first hand to understand, it is nearly impossible to get that across with just words. The end of my trip was topped off with a six hour plane ride from St John's to Calgary with a lovely gentleman named Walter from Witless Bay. We chatted nonstop for pretty much the whole six hours like old friends. Somehow, the topic of Bob's place in Ferryland came up and he teased me. "You're not going to ask me if I know Bob are you?" But then I told him of the iceberg picture, and he exclaimed, "Sure, I was there in Ferryland when that fellow landed his helicopter on the iceberg! I saw that happen." And I teased him right back and said, "Well you kind of DO know Bob then, don't you!" And also fun to find out that the helicopter story was not a tall tale after all. (Oh, Bob, I really did believe you, sure!) When I got home I immediately got a subscription for me and my Mom for the Downhome magazine. Not long after, Mom was on the phone with me while I google searched the Pinksens (her family from Wild Cove but originally from Conception Bay) and the Google splash page showed a crash of '42 mentioning her grandfather Stuart Pinksen. I opened the link to find a Downhome story from 2010 all about my Mom's grandfather taking a harrowing horse and sled ride to nearby Seal Cove because Marjorie Pinksen was in labour. It was an extensive story about the doctor being called in from Lewisporte, the plane not being able to land at Wild Cove and having to land at nearby Seal Cove. There was the subsequent rush to get the doctor, the doctor having to make a choice of tending to an old man in Seal Cove or trying to save the young lives in Wild Cove, him going part the way on Mom's grandfather's sled with horse, being switched over to dogsled to get there quicker. And the best line of the story "And by the grace of God, the skilled hands of Dr Knapp and Marjorie's endurance, twin boys were delivered" and before I could finish reading my Mom was screaming "Alvin and Everett!" She had never been told that story before but knew of all the characters because they were all her own family, so it was quite a moment. So much was given to me by my trip back to Newfoundland. I connected back to the people, the land and the history in ways hard to describe. I think it is impossible to leave the Rock without leaving a piece of you behind. It has now become a dream that I will leave a piece of me behind on that island that for all my wanderings around Canada, feels like my real true home. I can't wait to receive my first issue of Downhome and find out what I've been missing. And yeees bye, I will be back again one day soon! I will order a cup of tea with milk somewhere and I guarantee I will be asked "Frish, or tinned?"   Submitted By: Cynthia Campbell