Bay of Spirits: A Love Story

Farley Mowat writes a moving story about how he met his wife Claire by accident while trying to escape a vicious dog, and, in doing so, also "kills two birds with one stone" by portraying the colorful, insular people of Newfoundland in the 1950's as well as the inhabitants of the almost unheard of French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic off the coast of St. John, NF. I would highly recommend this book to those who enjoy learning about new places and people, and at the same time would want to curl up with a well-written love story.

Farley Mowat's notion of an idyllic day's sail more often than not involves heavy seas in shallow, rocky waters, accompanied by gale force winds, pelting rain and/or pea-soup fog, in a leaky boat with engine issues. Therefore armchair adventurers will enjoy this memoir of Mowat's 1960s love affair with "a special woman and a special world" as much as romantic sorts looking for travel among the bygone fishing villages of Newfoundland. Readers familiar with Mowat, however, will know there must be bitter with the sweet. The Newfie fishing communities, fiercely independent and attached to their way of life like limpets to a rock, were in serious decline by the 1960s. The teeming schools of fish had disappeared under the relentless onslaught of the big fishing operations and the government wanted to resettle the fishermen in factory towns, bringing Newfoundland (which had only joined Canada in 1949) squarely into the 20th century. The book opens with Mowat's harrowing and exhilarating trip aboard a 200-foot coastal steamer, one of six (now gone), which took freight and passengers to the outposts of Newfoundland, their main contact with the world. "Newfoundland is of the sea. A mighty granite stopper thrust into the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, its coasts present more than five thousand miles of rocky headlands, bays, capes, and fiords to the sweep of the Atlantic. Everywhere hidden reefs, which are called, with dreadful explicitness, sunkers, wait to rip open the bellies of unwary vessels." Though Mowat saw little of the coast, due to foul weather and impenetrable fog, he was hooked. He bought a fish-slimed schooner, renamed it Happy Adventure and arranged to have it refitted for cruising. But, flying in to reclaim his refurbished boat, he makes a dismaying discovery. "My wishes had conflicted with centuries of tradition, which dictated that space allotted to people aboard a boat must be kept to the irreducible minimum so as to leave as much room as possible for fish." Then, on its maiden voyage the boat sprung a leak, a serious leak. The bilge pump jammed, the fog rolled in, water engulfed the engine and they (Mowat and his friend and longtime publisher, Jack McClelland) luckily ran aground. Next trip out they realized they should have had the compass adjusted while fixing the leak. It was while working on Happy Adventure that Mowat met Claire Wheeler, a Toronto artist. It was love at first sight, but after several mostly idyllic (including the requisite sprinkle of sudden storms, engine troubles and fog) the pair go their separate ways. Mowat was already married, with two small children, a fact he had previously failed to mention to the reader and which naturally casts a bit of a pall. Though Mowat makes no excuses, his friends and family - and hers too - seem remarkably enthusiastic about the romance. Either his first marriage was something awful, which does not seem the case, or his memory has reshaped itself. Eventually Mowat tell