Steve Glines is the founder and Editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review. He is the author of a number of text books, a literary travelogue and a poetry chapbook. His works have appeared in WHLReview, Ibbetson Street, and all four Bagel Bard Anthologies. He is the editor-in-chief at ISCS Press, a publisher’s service bureau.

Newfoundland (August 20, 2009. Issue 8.)
A brief history of Avalon

Newfoundland is an island thrust into the cold north Atlantic, shrouded in fog and surrounded by what was once the greatest fishery in the world. Fish and wood brought man to the island. That is, it brought European man to the island. That’s how my people got there. Before that there were indigenous people, as they like to call Indians today. The Beothic Indians were a disagreeable lot who nagged the Norse off the island in 1000 A.D. and drove the French so nuts they put a bounty on every Beothic killed. Needless to say there aren’t any Beothic Indians around anymore although I wouldn’t doubt that Beothic blood still flows in the veins of many islanders. Some say they just moved to Labrador and flourished.

My people, I have to call them that because I don’t have any names, came from Grimsay in the Outer Hebrides islands north of Scotland. Every eldest male in the family has been called Grimsay as a nickname since, since well since before anyone can remember. That’s how I came to be called that although most people pronounce it “Grimsey.”

The best anyone can figure, it was my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather who arrived in Newfoundland on a fishing boat some time around 1750. My grandmother said he started an ice and fish packing business. She also said he arrived just in time to get involved in the French and Indian wars. She said it was his scouting of the fortress of Louisbourg gave the British the advantage and allowed the second siege to succeed. Great, whatever, grandpa was a businessman and a spy.

The fish packing business passed down through the line of Grimsay’s down to my Grandfather who sold it and became a banker. He wasn’t successful and the Great Depression drove my dad to America. He met my mum, another Newfoundlander, and I was born on the day Hitler invaded Poland, September 1 1939. Dad was frustrated with America and joined up with the Canadian forces, was shipped off to England where he was killed in the Blitz. That’s how I came to America and Thats all I know about Newfoundland.