The feeling—like no other feeling— when I visit a resettled outport 

in Newfoundland or Labrador—tis one of absolute wonderment.  

Walking alone down an old sidewalk past boarded-up dwellings in Petites,

peering inside a dilapidated home in Round Harbour,

examining the crumbling stages and stores in Indian Burying Place,

picking raspberries in the graveyard at Little Brehat, 

or hiking six long kilometers on a rubbly quad pathway 

through magnificent primeval vistas to suddenly arrive 

at an old cement foundation and a lone tricycle in Little Paradise,

or driving carefully on and on into the vast limestone barrens

on my way to Big Brook, past a lone fox, then a moose hunter,

or wandering endlessly on Great Caribou Island, 

contemplating what once was a schoolhouse in Trap Cove,

and seven kilometers later, finally sitting at Indian Cove,

eating the sandwich prepared for me by a Battle Harbour cook, 

or picking wild blueberries with George Fudge in Rencontre West,

or standing on the old flake taking photos of several decaying punts 

there in Grandois, not yet resettled, though with an abandoned fish plant.  

These places, for me, incarnate the very beauty 

of where once people used to live, 

of where once they went to school, 

of where once they fished, danced, and toiled—

of their total obnubilation, as if never were they and yet once truly they were…

G. Tod Slone

Barnstable, MA