Artist rendering of Le Grande-Arse Boat

Marine Atlantic, the operators of the NFLD ferry system, released an artist’s rendering of their latest ship, and brudder, she is HUGE!!!

From the looks of her, she is 400 km long and 25 km high. It will only take her 10 minutes to make the Port Aux Basques crossing, and 45 minutes for the Argentia run.  Although she is too big to fit in any of the ports, her ramp is 30 km long and can reach inland 2 km while she is well offshore and still in deep water.

St. Pierre and Miquelon is not too happy with the new ferry (they refer to it as Le Grande-Arse Boat) as the bow wave is expected to completely wash all of the sunken boats out there right into Fortune Bay with all of the flushing currents that will be generated.

“The new ship will make record crossing times,”, a Marine Atlantic spokesperson told UpAlong’s roving reporter, Buddy, via fax, “but the time to drive from one end of her to the other will still take the average user 3-4 hours.  We had to set the speed limit on the main car deck at 120 km/h due to Transport Canada safety regulations.”

The new ship will not be built at the Marystown shipyard. The shipyard spokesman told Buddy the other day, over beers at the Dory, that their drydock is 2 meters too narrow to handle a vessel of this size, however, they are bidding on related outfitting jobs.

The new ship should be starting service soon… just as soon as they can dig her rudder out of Sable Island (a rouge gust of wind blew her onto the sandy spit and her rudder cut the island in half before getting wedged).

Heart-ache.

For those who longed to sink their teeth into five layers of crispy chicken skin, Canadian cheese and bacon, Mary Browns spokesman, John Bayman, has some bad news. Tonight he confirmed that the "Mary Skinwich" was “just the result of someone having a little fun online”.

“While there is nothing like the taste of the Mary Browns recipe,” Bayman wrote, “the best way to enjoy it is on a piece of Mary Browns chicken.”

The grew up with it; they rode the Marine Atlantic ferries in it; they even sang about it; and today they held a press conference to tell the world that they have finally caught the wind.

"Well, it happened like this", said Con O’Brien, "we were down on the waterfront, walking along, enjoying the day, when we see this gust coming towards us from across the harbour... looked like a Southside Squall."

He continued, "Duncan pointed out that one of the docked fishing boats had a pail and cover sitting next to it on the dock and shouted for Graham and Rob to go grab it and stand ready."

"Next thing we knew, the byes were head into the squall and fighting to stay upright. That's when Duncan rushed over and managed to get it into the pale - and the byes fastened the cover down."

Mr. O'Brien then produced the 5 gallon salt beef bucket for the press to inspect.

UpAlong.org's local reporter, Buddy, got a chance to touch the bucket.

"She was vibrating sometin fearse, ole man... like dey had put in a hive of bees. Dat Southside Squall dey captured sure don't like to be locked up.", Buddy said.

The Irish Descendants plan to take the squall out to sea and release it.

On a slightly related story; the harbour has been enjoying a flat-calm ever since the Irish Descendants captured the wind.

Listen to the radio from 'back home'!

http://www.upalong.org/radio.asp

Fishers of Men Video is the brain-child of two UpAlong-ers, Cheryl and Steve Thomson. Steve is a retired rock musician and CBC TV editor, and Cheryl sings, plays keyboards, and motivates Steve.

Steve is now a freelance reporter with NTV News and produces many of their human interest stories.

“When we came on holiday to Newfoundland for the first time in 2001, Cheryl and I both fell in love with the Rock, we bought a little house out around the bay (Champneys, Trinity Bay), I quit the CBC, bought my own camera and editing gear, moved out here in 2003.”, Steve shared with us.

The Fishers of Men Video website is a wonderful place to view some terrific videos that Steve has done (via his YouTube Channel), purchase his DVD’s and his and Cheryl’s DVD’s and CD’s.

Visit Steve and Cheryl's website here: Fishers of Men Video.

Looking down the slipway - Pouch Cove, NL

Nancy Hawkins, from Torbay, is now settled in Calgary. Every time she gets back to her home province, Nancy travels around and takes photographs... very good photographs. You see, over the years, Nancy has taken it upon herself to learn the art of photography, and now her work speaks for itself:

Enter the Gallery

Have a browse through her many photo galleries and, if you see something that you like, contact her at Nancy Hawkins to arrange to purchase high-definition photographs.

Nancy is working to establish a website; we'll let you all about that when she has it ready.

From Space - Snow blankets Newfoundland Island

You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about various governments bailing out various sectors and industries. Most news anchors report that this is the result of modern economics gone wrong.

Well, its not. The self-governing Dominion of Newfoundland went bankrupt in 1934.

Britain agreed to rescue Newfoundland's budget, and its nearly worthless bonds, but the price was the island's voluntary abandonment of democratic self-government. The British appointed a Commission of Government to administer the Dominion, led by a colonial governor.

Newfoundland has been sustained by a powerful survival mentality and cultural values that stress individual reliance under harsh conditions. The island regained its democracy and began its long climb out of poverty when it became a province of Canada in 1949.

Bail out - Newfoundland's been there, done that, and bought the T-Shirt.