Bay of Hope: Five Years in Newfoundland

Ward (The Lost 10 Point Night) makes an unsuccessful attempt to follow in the literary nonfiction footsteps of Farley Mowat as he recounts leaving Fenelon Falls, Ont., to live alone in a Newfoundland community that’s accessible only by boat. Well-traveled and worldly, Ward left his full-time college faculty job for the new adventure of living and writing in McCallum. Its population was 79 when he arrived, but it will become a ghost town if its residents decide to accept a government offer of $250,000 each to resettle in places that are less costly to maintain. It’s an inherently dramatic situation that divides the close-knit village. Ward’s love of the people of McCallum and Newfoundland’s breathtaking landscape are clearly genuine, but his account of five years living in the community is oddly unmoving. That may be in part because the narrative is split between McCallum’s story and Ward’s reflections on his own life, family, and relationships, and his observations tend toward tired platitudes. Five years go by quickly, but the resulting account has no clear through-line, and Ward leaves McCallum much as he arrived. Readers will get a stronger sense of place by reading Mowat’s books. (Apr.)