By Daniel Walsh
This was my first week marker, I had been here seven days and I had just about settled in. I spent the day in the office as the weather outside was terrible. The wind was blowing and turning up all the snow on the ground and it just looked cold out there so I was pleased to be inside. That evening I wrapped up warm and went for a short walk to stretch my legs. Then on the way back I stopped into Mary’s house and had a cup of tea and a chat. That evening I went home and spent the evening talking to my cousins on Skype.
Tuesday Trish had wanted me to do up a fact sheet on the Ivory Gull because we had Fact sheets on everything else except the Ivory Gull. So I spent a few hours doing one up and I was pleased with the end result and so was Trish. I had been getting very anxious about an assignment I had to do for college because I was having a great deal of trouble finding the information I needed to write about. The assignment was to write about the health and safety policies in the organisation you are in and construct a risk assessment for one task you carry out and also to write about the legislation linked to the health and safety.
Wednesday I packed my bag for three and a hald days in St. John’s. We were going there for a meeting at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I was on my own in the office the whole day as Mary had gone on a trip with Mathew her son and his friend to Corner Brook. They had gone on the ferry that takes 12 hours. The weather outside was still awful but it didn’t matter I was hungry and so I walked down to the supermarket to get some food for dinner. Some of the days I had been there were cold but that day was seriously freezing and on the walk back it felt like my cheeks were icing over. So I pulled my neck warmer up over my face and started a fast pace walk. I cooked myself up a tasty dinner and chatted to my mum and brother on Skype for a while.
Thursday I was looking forward to going to St. John’s as I had heard from many people that I would feel at home there because everyone there is of Irish descent and whoever are not; want to be. The flight was at quarter past one and we had to be there half an hour or so early, and since it is such a small airport with not much security they search through everyone’s bags instead of x-raying them. The trip across went well and it was only short and when we arrived we went straight to the hotel. That evening we went down to the famous George St. and ate dinner in an Irish pub called Kelly’s. I had the good old traditional Irish cod and chips.
Friday was the day of the conference. We went to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) which was a huge building and we had to get security tags going in and show the door man our ID’s. It was kind of like what you would see in a film in the sense that all the doors had special card swipes on them. After all it was a government build so it was great to have the opportunity to see inside and to understand what goes on in there. So when we had finished talking to the door man a women called Helen came down to meet us and take us up to the room. She led us through many corridors and up some stairs and finally we got there. There was a big table with seven people sitting around it. When we went in one of the ladies said in a humorous way “you must be the Irish guy”. This is what I have been referred to a lot since I’ve been here. All the people were very nice and welcoming and very interested to hear what I was doing in college and one of the women just wanted to hear me talk because she said she loved my accent. They started the meeting by going around the table and introducing themselves and what they did and who they worked for. They did this for me so I would know about everyone which was nice of them.
There was an itinerary which was to discuss Marine Species at Risk projects in Newfoundland and Labrador - all the topics talked about were very interesting. When we went to have lunch, I ate Canadian pea soup for the first time with the salted beef in it and it was gorgeous. When we had finished we proceeded with the meeting. The second part of the meeting consisted of talks about possible future funding for each of the projects and a head fisheries officer Mr. Lloyd Slaney came in to discuss certain topics near the end. Lloyd Slaney works on fishing legislation and carries out boat and aircraft patrols to observe fisheries and fish habitats. One thing that I was shocked at was that fisheries officers in Canada wear a hand gun on their person at all times and so I asked him what does he use the gun for and he said it is just an insurance and it creates a bit more intimidation when it comes to speaking with fishermen. This would be a great idea for Irish fisheries officers and then there may not be as much foul play when it came to preserving fish stocks. When the meeting was over Trish wanted to have a private meeting with a man called Jack Lawson and so I went as well. He works with marine mammals, especially Killer whales and seals. Trish told him about my experience in Egypt and wondered if I could do some photo identification of Killer whales for him because I had done plenty of it on dolphins.
When we had finished up at the DFO building we went to Trish’s friend’s house where I met Andrea who used to work for QLF, her husband Jamie and their daughter Leila who was four and a half years old and full of life and very sweet. We stayed there for a couple of hours and had dinner there, which was very kind of them. When they had put Leila to bed Trish was keen to go out so that I could hear some local Newfoundland bands. So Andrea, Trish and I started off in a pub called Shamrock City because there was a band playing there called the Kilkenny Crew and of course since I am from Kilkenny I wanted to check them out, and I’ll just say they didn’t do Kilkenny any justice. When we were in the Shamrock City I think I was the youngest person in there. Anyway I got chatting to a man named Calvin and his wife and they were delighted to be talking to a real Irish man and so he bought me a Jameson whiskey so that he could say he drank Irish whiskey with an Irish man. From there we went to O’Rielly’s pub. I met a lot of interesting, welcoming people and I really enjoyed my night out in St. John’s.
Saturday morning we had a few things to buy in St. John’s and then we went to Velma’s Restaurant where we had a traditional Newfoundland breakfast – fish cakes, eggs and baked beans. Trish took me to Signal Hill which is the most easterly point of north America where we walked the trail and looked across to the lighthouse which marks the entrance to St. John’s Harbour. This harbour has a long history. From there we drove for a long time northeast up the coast to a town called Clarenville where Trish had wanted to stay at a B&B that she knew well but it was full because there was a huge hockey tournament so we went to a hotel called St. Jude’s which was grand.
Sunday morning we got up early - we drove through some villages with extraordinary names such as Hearts Desire, Heart’s Content and Conception Bay. We went to a fisher mans house in Port Rexton to drop off a shark book and then we drove back to Clarenville and from there we drove to Old Perlican where Trish made a phone call to a fisherman who she had spoken to ealier to let him know we were on our way to visit him. When we arrived at the fisherman’s house they were delighted to see me because I was from Ireland. We chatted to the man whose name was Tony Doyle about whales, dolphins, sea turtles, wolffish, sharks, skates, and american plaice whilst out fishing and it was very interesting. The interview lasted about two hours and he was very interested in all the marine species at risk and sharing his information about them. He was interested in becoming an Observer which means he will take down information when he observes any of the twenty species as well as taking photos. There is little information on many of these species and it is critical to their future recovery.
His wife wanted me to have dinner there because she said she near had the chance to serve dinner to an Irish man before, so I thought this was great. She gave me a big plate of moose and French fries and it was absolutely divine. Eating moose was a first for me and it tasted great. When we had finished there we drove back to St. John’s to the same hotel (The Super 8) and I just went to bed.
