Farewell, Newfoundland
As I sit here on the last Argentia ferry of the season, taking passengers one last time from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia, I feel like an artist returning to her work of art.
You see, leaving the mainland of Canada felt like it gave me a moment of pause to truly ‘look back’ at what ‘the Canada leg’ really was for us. With the benefit of about 200 miles between us and the mainland, I was finally able to truly ‘see’ it for what it was. And what I saw was that it was our training grounds to coach us for the many months that lie ahead. Indeed, like an artist who has been hard at work painting a masterpiece, I could finally take a few steps back and see what my “painting” looked like so far.
And so now, moving back towards it, like the artist returning to paint her masterpiece, I feel ready to continue running the main continent of North America. (Though with the remnants of a tropical storm just passing, this 17 hour ferry ride is likely to be extended by a few more hours…)
St. John’s, Newfoundland was an exceptional province for us. With many thanks to our incredible Home Team working untold hours, we managed to be met by not one but TWO groups of local runners – NL Running (we love you Smitty!) and the Running Room – who, after a short presentation, ran us our final 5km right to the steps of City Hall where we were officially welcomed into St. John’s by City Counselor Tom Hann. NTV even came out on the TransCanada to shoot us running into the city in a piece that was aired to about 150,000 homes – the amount of people who stopped us during our time there because they’d seen the piece sure testified to this viewership.
As discussed in an earlier blog, Friday was filled with two awesome schools – Beachy Cove & Bishop Fields – after which time we were invited to a true Newffie house party. They had us signing at the top of our lungs for so long we had fire logs rolling right out of the fire pit from our foot stomping. We took it as our sign to check out when we broke a guitar string from playing so hard…
Saturday morning we were up ‘n at ‘em at the local Farmer’s Market, speaking with many locals about how they (and we) were taking environmental action. Sunday was our first 100% tourist day since leaving Vancouver almost 5 months ago, and quite appropriately we took the occasion to venture to the most easterly point in North America: Cape Spear! (It’s only South from here folks)
We left St. John’s with a bang, as our final day could not have been more packed. The day started off with over 550 kids at Holy Trinity Elementary School – a very last minute booking after the school’s Principal Charlotte Barrington met us on our first night in town at the Running Room, and booked us on the spot! After another weekly check-in with our favourite radio show on the west coast, 103.5 QM/FM (every Friday at 8:15am PST!), we whisked off to our final Newfoundland school where almost 200 kids welcomed, inspired, and educated us in at St. Mary’s Elementary.
In the wee hours that remained, we had our very first 30-minute one-on-one TV interview with NTV’s Jesse Stirling on his show “Meetings with Remarkable People” that will be aired to about 40,000 people in a month’s time. And to wrap it all up, we presented at City Hall to a group of supportive City Counselors led by the Mayor.
Farewell, St. John’s – we will miss you! In a few hours we will dock once again on the Canadian mainland and run into our 10th and final province: Nova Scotia…
We Love You Too!
Take care on the rest of your journey and be sure to come back and see us.
Smitty
http://www.nlrunning.com
http://www.nautilusrunning.com
Comment by Smitty — Thursday, October 2, 2008 @ 3:11 am
Hey Matt & Steph, thanks for doing the show. You were truly REMARKABLE guests. The interview is scheduled to air Sunday, November 9, @11:30 am (Newfoundland time), on NTV. Godspeed you two, all the best!
Comment by Jesse Stirling — Saturday, October 18, 2008 @ 2:02 pm