Homeland (Part 2)

“Joey Angnatok could show Cartier a few things. One of Nunatsiavut’s economic-development strategies is to become among the world’s most ‘in-demand circumpolar travel destinations.’ Should that come to pass, its Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism might want to consider hiring the 42-year-old hunter, fisherman, handyman, search-and-rescue worker, and occasional scientific researcher as a tour guide. After a few hours tagging along with him on a snowmobile trip out of town, what might look like so much waste and void comes, quite literally, alive. Angnatok—who runs the largest commercial fishing operation on the coast, with his 20-metre longliner, the MV What’s Happening—draws out the abundance for even the most untrained eye. ‘All these shorelines in the spring,’ he says, ‘just char everywhere, and seals, and every square foot of this shore is covered in mussels and kelp.'”

Matthew Halliday – The Deep – December 2018

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Cash and Burn

“Drage was to give Wood’s money to the Dohertys, collect the interest, and give that money back to Wood, keeping a percentage for himself. For seven years, Drage promptly paid Wood monthly interest for both mortgages she backed through him. But by 2010, payments had started coming in late. ‘Sometimes I had to chase him for it,’ Wood told me. ‘He would say he was in Dubai or he was in Vancouver.’ Wood didn’t worry, though. Drage was just busy and disorganized, she told herself.”

Quentin Casey – The Deep – November 2018

A History of Violence

“I used to think violence was part of my bloodline. Today I know that racism and poverty shape the way you think of yourself. And like the rest of my family, the trauma, which we sometimes placed on one other, was unrelenting, leaving no time to heal.”

Oscar Baker III – The Deep – July 2018

Joe and the Whale

“The day Joe Howlett died dawned perfectly. The water in Shippagan Harbour was flat like glass, the winds calm, the sun rising into a dark blue sky as Joe maneuvered the Shelagh—the Canadian Whale Institute’s research vessel—into the Gulf of St. Lawrence for a day of surveying North Atlantic right whales and sampling for zooplankton off the coast of northern New Brunswick. Out on open water, Joe, and any on-board scientists not still in their bunks at that early hour, marveled at the morning’s perfect golden light—and the three tall ships they encountered, arriving in full sail for a summer festival. Joe, 59 years old and a near-lifelong sailor and fisherman, was ecstatic over spotting the boats.”

Chelsea Murray – The Deep – June 2018

They Call It Syria Town

“For Rozam and Qasem, the problem isn’t Saint John but exile itself. Their thoughts turn frequently to Dara’a, the hometown they were forced to leave behind, and where they want to return, even as the Syrian civil war grinds on. Much of Qasem’s family are still there, and he and Rozam worry for them constantly. But the family isn’t alone in Saint John. More than 100 Syrians live within a few blocks in this small neighbourhood in the city’s north end, and that night over dinner, the family’s conversation was punctuated by the popcorn sound of fireworks in the streets outside—others marking the first day of Ramadan.”

Kate Wallace – The Deep – September 2017

The Rock in a Hard Place

“Leaving Newfoundland and Labrador is not the end of the world. I’ve left and returned before, and if I hadn’t, I would never appreciate my home for what it is: a magical, maddening community nestled where God first cleft the waters from the earth. I have caught the heat of the sun off the cold Atlantic waters and reeled fish with my grandfather’s ghost. For all its flaws and frustrations and Sisyphean shortcomings, Newfoundland is a treasure of the world. So what can we do to make Newfoundland and Labrador work?”

Drew Brown – The Deep – April 2018

Catch and Release

“But even in communities where seafood is landed onshore, the full bounty of Atlantic waters—the full range of species and varieties, from exotic to commonplace—never makes it to local tables. Our culinary culture is undermined by an economic system that treats the region as little more than a producer of raw goods for bigger markets, a system in some ways little changed from the colonial era. A new generation of entrepreneurs, driven by growing interest in ethically harvested, locally caught food, should be rising to meet this demand, but they’re few and far between.”

Karen Pinchin – The Deep – October 2017

 

A Prison Pregnancy

“In the stillness of an exam room at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Bianca Lynn Mercer, 24 years old, smiles in the dim light. It’s early April 2017, she’s seven months pregnant, and as she lies on the crinkling white paper, waiting to catch a glimpse of her daughter on an ultrasound monitor, she feels something she hasn’t known during her pregnancy, spent almost entirely in jail: peace.“

Maggie Rahr – The Deep – December 2017

How Not to Die

Why one New Brunswick veteran—afflicted by PTSD, forgotten by the military, and armed with an evangelical faith in the healing power of pot—turned his small town into Canada’s medical-cannabis capital.

Chelsea Murray – The Deep – August 2017