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October 2009 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: Northern Peninsula Feature: Under one roof Feature: Irish moss The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations À la carte Mosaic

Russell Wangersky is an overachiever. And I mean that in the most complimentary way. The author of this issue’s cover story on Newfoundland’s great Northern Peninsula puts many of us in the field of journalism to shame. Why? Well, let’s start with his university years. Forgoing the scientific path forged by his oceanography professor father and marine biologist mother, Wangersky studied philosophy at Acadia University, in Wolfville, N.S. While there, he quickly took up the post of editor of Alpha, the school’s literary magazine. Oh, and that’s also where he first signed up to be a volunteer firefighter. More on this later.

Wangersky played rugby for 16 years, retiring at age 32 with a career record of two broken noses, three cracked ribs and six concussions. His literary bent got him a job with Southam News in Toronto, then at the Sunday Express and the CBC in St. John’s before joining The Telegram in 1997. Within five years, he was the paper’s editor. Oh, and a twice-weekly columnist.

That was around the time he pitched his first freelance feature to Canadian Geographic. You might remember it: a cover story about the province’s plaguelike overpopulation of moose, also known as Newfoundland speed bumps. That was the beginning of a creative friendship between Russell and us. Other Newfoundland-based stories, well suited to a geography magazine, followed: on the closure of the town of Great Harbour Deep and on the nightlife of George Street, for example.

Living in the St. John’s suburb of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, Wangersky was appointed deputy chief of its newly created volunteer fire department in 1996, a role he filled with vigour, bordering on obsession, until 2002, when the adrenaline rushes and post-traumatic stresses of rescuing fire and accident victims overwhelmed him. As a form of catharsis, he wrote about this chapter of his life in his second book, Burning Down the House: Fighting Fire and Losing Myself, published in 2008. It’s a pageturner, offering an insider’s view of the characters who perform perilous, heroic acts on a regular, sometimes daily, basis, the macho social code the crews adhere to and the psychological scars they’re left with. Oh, and his first book, of short fiction, was long-listed for a Giller Prize. Feeling inadequate yet?

Wangersky’s journalistic prowess, combined with his encyclopedic knowledge of Canada’s youngest province, made him the right choice to head up Route 430 from Deer Lake to Norris Point, New Ferolle and St. Anthony to bring us an update on how folks there have managed in the years since the cod moratorium pulled the plug on the regional economy.

A counter-clockwise circumnavigation of Newfoundland was the inspiration for the splendid poster map that accompanies our Northern Peninsula profile. Two years ago, Canadian Geographic’s cartographer Steven Fick embarked on a 10-day cruise around the island. On day five, the ship sailed southward the length of the peninsula’s coastline and dropped anchor in Bonne Bay, at Gros Morne National Park. There, the passengers observed the spectacular result of an ancient geological process.

“It was astonishing to reflect on the origin of the Tablelands — immense slabs of rock from the Earth’s mantle, the layer below the crust, that had been thrust onto the continent and later uplifted and exposed at the surface,” says Fick. “The soil is difficult for plants to adapt to, because the abundant magnesium and potassium, a result of the rocks’ origin in the mantle, are toxic to most plants.”

Unlike early explorers, Fick wasn’t required to map this convoluted coastline as his ship sailed it, but still, his firsthand views of the shore informed his map-making, he says. The trip also inspired the fine artist in him to produce a series of oil paintings.

The ship Fick was aboard, the Canadian-owned MS Explorer, is the same one that struck submerged ice while cruising near Antarctica in November 2007, a voyage inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s final expedition in 1921-22. All 154 passengers and crew were plucked to safety from lifeboats by a passing cruise ship, but the Explorer was lost.

— Eric Harris

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