A Rock and a Hard Place. A Rock and a Hard Place By Jennifer Atkinson Returning to Newfoundland after an absence of seven years, the author confronts the mutability of resources, communities, and assumptions.
Life is full of surprises.
When I returned to Newfoundland this summer and set off on my usual stroll through downtown St. John's, the capital city, the last thing I expected to see was a cybercafe on Water St. But there it was, full of twentysomethings sipping latte and constructing their new global community. I was confused. Since I had left in 1990, the province had experienced an epic failure in its cod fishery the mainstay of its cultural and economic traditions. And, for some reason, I had assumed that epic failures begot boarded up storefronts, not hip coffee bars and trendy gift shops.