A group of us in the community have organized a Come Home Year celebration for 2007. Our CHY Celebration is set to run from July 2O/ 2007 - July28/2007 and a great number of events are being scheduled for that time span. Cape Ray has a population of 343 and it's been difficult at times getting things into place. With just a few weeks to go everyone is wondering how it'll all turn out. We expect our community population to double, maybe triple during the event and with the out migration suspect it'll be our first and last event organized at home on such a scale. The community is already showing positive signs with flags and banners hanging from poles and fences along the roads. So for my Blog readers a message."If your in the area at this time please drop in and witness the wonders of a little NL community and all its beauty. Someday it might be gone forever."

Glacier Girl

Here's an interesting one! 65 years after taking off a P-38 Lightning aircraft might just completes its mission. The P38 was one of eight aircraft forced to land in Greenland after encountering weather while en route to Britain in July 1942. The 8 aircraft became buried under 80 meters of ice and snow but 15 years ago the remains of one, renamed Glacier Girl, were dug up. Bob Cardin, led an American expedition that dug the plane out and after a decade using 80% of its original parts got it airborne again. The plane had previously flown at air shows in the United States and is now in Happy Valley,Goose Bay,NL where its ill-fated mission started out in 1942.

Youtube video of GlacierGirl.

Schools out for the summer....and longer.

An isolated community on our South Coast will take one step closer to oblivion. The tiny community of Grand Bruit will see the end of their school when Nicole Billard and Andrew Billard leave to continue their education in other communities. The word resettlement will once again be heard and i no doubt suspect within five years it'll happen. I watched here in my community of Cape Ray when the school closed and kids where bused to nearby Port Aux Basques how it took a toll on our population. I can only imagine how those that live there at this time feel. Some might think me crazy for wondering but i doubt those two school kids will ever experience the family or friendship of another place such as the one they left. I wish them both well and hope to hear about them sometime in the future.

Sorry for not blogging much recently and thanks to those who sent an email or two wondering if i left the Planet. I recently had to get an excavator come in and dig up some land because of a drain line problem. What i thought was a small problem turned out to be a much bigger one. Flowers,Shrubs and trees that i had planted for years suddenly ended up in the bucket of an excavator. Bit of landscape i took pride in over the years simply vanished and now i have to start all over. Now we get to start all over and soon we'll be trying to replace it all. To bad all things in life couldn't be that simple! Im just a little speck on that Pale Blue Dot in the video i posted and tonight the little speck is taking sometime off to go out and party.Enjoy the weekend!

After a stressful day i like to go to bed and listen to VOCM Night Line. Something about those nice relaxing funeral home advertisements always put to me to sleep. Of course in between i have to listen to the callers each taking a turn to call in. It usually starts with a call saying "the sky is falling."It's usually followed up a few minutes later by another caller claiming the sky is not falling and not only is it not falling,the sky was never there to begin with! It's difficult for the average Joe like myself to sort out the Bull foisted upon the airwaves. Some of the callers have such a soothing voice they should actually look into doing those funeral home advertisements for those of us who need our rest. The top Bull story of last evening came from a guy called Paul who claimed to of seen 352 Moose on the Northern Peninsula near the St. Anthony Airport. The last caller to the show claimed Paul was over doing it on the Bull and once again the sky was not falling. Some nights an ordinary Joe like myself can only take the word of Billy the Moon Man when he tries to drift off into his nights rest. RIP.

One for Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey. I wish we had a few Hero's like him in NL representing our best interests but i guess that's to much to ask for. Newfoundland dogs use to be heroic but lapdogs never did amount to much.

Where have all the good men gone indeed?

June 6/1986

The photo above was taken June 6/1986 when we still had a railway running across our island. I was stationed in Howley at the time and each morning our work crew would leave at 6 am to travel to the Gaff Topsails area to repair the railbed. The days prior to June 6th had been terrible weather wise and each day we returned sore and cold.The trips by speeder to the Gaff usually took a hour and we got blasted by the winds on the open trolley. On the morning of June 6th we awoke to see the community covered in snow and one of the senior guys said we could expect much more on the way up to the Summit. The trip that usually took one hour turned into several before we got stuck in the snow at Kittys Brook far below the Gaff. Our Speeder had its ice wheels removed weeks before and it simply could not tow our Trolleys. Nine of us stayed at Kittys Brook while the speeder made the attempt to go ahead.We spent the remaing hours of that morning viewing the Moose and Caribou that wandered around near by or simply chatted.After that day the weather changed and each morning seemed to be better than the last. 21 years have gone by,but i seem to remember that day in June very clear.Strange how some days always remain fresh in our minds.

Photo: (front roll.) Ed Saunders,Jim Snow,Wayne Osmond,Fred Boone,Charlie Riles.
(back roll) Gary Gilliam,Jim Bragg,Larry AuCoin....photo taken by Elias Osmond.