Awaiting Paradise; A Bitter Wind

By Ronald Lloyd Ryan PhD.

Newfoundland Island is the large island to the east of Canada, north of Nova Scotia, surrounded by the Western North Atlantic Ocean. Even in Canada, of which Newfoundland and Labrador is the most eastern province, little is known about Newfoundland Island, and what is presumed to be known is generally false. Despite what is known or nor known Newfoundland Island is a mystery and full of mysteries, with an European pedigree that appears to be as much as 2000 years older that the Christian era. There are built artifacts, enormous cliff carvings, cities, towns and hundreds of villages now almost all occluded by the Northern Boreal Jungle of conifers and deciduous trees, and by a wild profusion of vines of numerous kinds, all lumbed together as go-weddy. The island has had several waves of European occupancy and civilization as well as colonization by the Chinese long before any acknowledged European colonization. But, all that aside, the island was and is populated by a people whose ancestry was, and still is, primarily Norse and Chinese many of whom have forgotten their ancestry. Newfoundland had hundreds of remote and isolated fishing villages, all of whose people were struggling against the environment for survival, and against successive governments for their very existence, governments who were intent on ensuring every last one of these people died. Despite everything, these people were equally determined to survive as best they could. In one tiny village on the northeast coast of the island, hidden away inside numerous islands, fronting on the ocean, and surrounded by mountains and forests, these people have found a level of prosperity that many other villages would envy. The source of the village's foundation is a small shipyard that Hewlett Brothers had instituted in the mid to late 1800s, and now managed by Adolphus Hewlett, son and nephew of the founders, and a proud Huguenot descendent. Another proud Huguenot family also live in the village and is the bane of everyone else's existence. Of particular interest is a young Swede, Carolus Froding, Adolphus Hewlett's co-manager and marine engineer. Although happily married to a local maiden, he has few friends, with the exception of a Beothuck family that lives next door. Although he has accepted the reality of the village, even with its religious tensions, the village has not accepted him. It is a daily struggle for him and his wife to negotiate the numerous stumbling blocks that cause them to stumble. To complicate matters, Carolus has been smitten by Julia's best friend, Jessie Hewlett and the inevitable causes him to fall into a morass that he is not at all sure he can find his way out. The story is told against a backdrop of spectacular scenery and the unending challenge of living amidst the sometimes casual brutality of the environment of the island, as well as against the unending and deliberate brutality that one human is willing to inflict upon another.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F5NRND3C
• ISBN13: 9798280358454
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 536 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.0"