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A Newfoundlander in Canada : always going somewhere, always coming home

Available Formats:

  • Running Time: 06:40 hrs
    Narrator: Alan Doyle
    Publisher:
    Doubleday Canada, 2017
    Note: This book was purchased with support from the Government of Canada's Social Development Partnerships Program - Disability Component.

Details:

  • Author: Doyle, Alan
    Edition: Unabridged
    Date:
    Created
    2017
    Summary:

    Armed with the same personable, candid style found in his first book, Alan Doyle turns his perspective outward from Petty Harbour toward mainland Canada, reflecting on what it was like to venture away from the comforts of home and the familiarity of the island. Often in a van, sometimes in a bus, occasionally in a car with broken wipers "using Bob's belt and a rope found by Paddy's Pond" to pull them back and forth, Alan and his bandmates charted new territory, and he constantly measured what he saw of the vast country against what his forefathers once called the Daemon Canada. In a period punctuated by triumphant leaps forward for the band, deflating steps backward, and everything in between - opening for Barney the Dinosaur at an outdoor music festival, being propositioned at a gas station mail-order bride service in Alberta, drinking moonshine with an elderly churchgoer on a Sunday morning in PEI - Alan's few established notions about Canada were often debunked, and his own identity as a Newfoundlander was constantly challenged. Touring the country, he also discovered how others view Newfoundlanders and how skewed these images can sometimes be. Asked to play in front of the queen at a massive Canada Day festival on Parliament Hill, the concert organizers assured Alan and his bandmates that the best way to showcase Newfoundland culture was for them to be towed onto stage in a dory and introduced not as Newfoundlanders but as "Newfies". The boys were not amused. Heartfelt, funny, and always insightful, these stories tap in to the complexities of community and Canadianness, forming the portrait of a young man from a tiny fishing village trying to define and hold on to his sense of home while navigating a vast and diverse and wonder-filled country.

    Original Publisher: New York, Doubleday Canada
    Language(s): English
    ISBN: 9780385692007