Bay of Hope: Five Years in Newfoundland

By David Ward

A "come from away" exploring love, loneliness, and adventure in remote Newfoundland

Part memoir, part nature writing, part love story, Bay of Hope is an occasionally comical, often adversarial, and always emotional story about the five years ecologist David Ward lived in an isolated Newfoundland community; of how he ended up there, worked, survived the elements, and coped with loneliness and a lack of intimacy. But this book is also a story about David's 78 McCallum, Newfoundland, neighbors, the unforgiving mountain and wilderness culture they call home, and why their government wishes they were dead.

Creative nonfiction written in the tradition of Farley Mowat's Bay of Spirits, Ward's memoir is also evocative of Michael Crummey's poignant novel Sweetland and Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize-winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. A book about how great adventure tales do not always have to include dramatic, never-attempted, death-defying feats, Bay of Hope shows us that a person can travel a million miles over the treacherous terrain within their hearts, as long as they're courageous enough to make such an arduous trek.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1770413820
• ISBN13: 9781770413825
• Release Date: April 2018
• Publisher: ECW Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

What meat is there--is good!

Seemed to be a lot of introspection going on here, and the first spot of it led seamlessly into a discussion of the Outport Resettlement program/problem that has been a political "thing" in Canada for some years--no description of the geographical extent of relocation (is it only Newfoundland and perhaps Labrador? The government of Newfoundland seems to have a large part in the program's administration.) A bit too much about "computer dating" and the author's personal life. (I wish him luck finding "the one"....) The author does give a good idea of what life is like in a Newfoundland Outport, what the people do for employment, how they get around; what is available in the way of services. Also a good description of the personalities of the individuals/family groups who populate such places. Not your usual book of stories of the area's residents. Place descriptions are not detailed so I could see them in my imagination; the only [black & white and obscure] photograph of this beautiful part of the world is on the cover.