Crow Gulch

Douglas Walbourne-Gough

• Publisher: icehouse poetry
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781773102221
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

Winner, E.J. Pratt Poetry Award
Finalist, NL Reads, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and Raymond Souster Award
Longlisted, First Nation Communities READ Award

From the author: I cannot let the story of Crow Gulch — the story of my family and, subsequently, my own story — go untold. This book is my attempt to resurrect dialogue and story, to honour who and where I come from, to remind Corner Brook of the glaring omission in its social history.

In his debut poetry collection, Douglas Walbourne-Gough reflects on the legacy of a community that sat on the shore of the Bay of Islands, less than two kilometres west of downtown Corner Brook.

Crow Gulch began as a temporary shack town to house migrant workers in the 1920s during the construction of the pulp and paper mill. After the mill was complete, some of the residents, many of Indigenous ancestry, settled there permanently — including the poet's great-grandmother Amelia Campbell and her daughter, Ella — and those the locals called the "jackytars, " a derogatory epithet used to describe someone of mixed French and Mi'kmaq descent. Many remained there until the late 1970s, when the settlement was forcibly abandoned and largely forgotten.

Walbourne-Gough lyrically sifts through archival memory and family accounts, resurrecting story and conversation, to patch together a history of a people and place. Here he finds his own identity within the legacy of Crow Gulch and reminds those who have forgotten of a glaring omission in history.

Influences

i)

Parson’s Pond, The Arches,

Logger School Road, Bonne Bay,

Frying Pan Pond, Atlantic mackerel,

Copper Lakes, Nipper’s Harbour,

Humber River, Mad Dog Lake, Brake’s Cove,

short-horned sculpin, forget-me-nots,

Gros Morne, caribou, Lady Slipper Road,

Serpentine Valley, roseroot, Starlight Trail,

Buster Gough’s Pond, Pinchgut Lake,

The Wreckhouse, brook trout, black spruce,

Little Port Head, Guernsey Island, balsam fir,

Joe Baggs’ Pond, Table Mountain, Iceberg Alley,

St. Anthony Bight, black bear, Cook’s Brook,

lowbush blueberry, Killdevil Mountain,

Spruce Pond, herring gull, Blomidon Hills,

partridgeberry, pitcher plant, Coppermine Cape,

Woody Point, spruce grouse, Norris Point,

Ten Mile Pond, Green Gardens, Arctic hare,

Rocky Pond, bakeapple, Bottle Cove, Burgeo,

Long Point, Bay of Islands, the Tablelands,

bald eagle, Marble Mountain, Gull Pond,

Signal Hill, lilac, Bell’s Brook, Cape Spear,

grey jay, Man in the Mountain, moose,

beaver, tuckamore, Cedar Cove.

ii)

Skim-milk powder, baloney sandwiches,

snow through the gap in the doorframe

of our Dunfield apartment, frying chips

in lard on the stovetop, food-bank onions

and white rice in Ziploc bags, cans

of potted meat, cans of flaked ham,

cans of corned beef, cans and cans and

cans of __________, boxes of Kraft

Dinner, Mr. Noodles, Kool-Aid and Tang,

Plymouth Reliant Ks and Chevettes

with bench seats and only one mirror,

seatbelts still just suggestions,

trouting with uncles, all tough talk

and plaid jackets, fading blue-green

tattoos of crosses, nude women on their

forearms, couple sixers of Black Horse

in the canoe, not a lifejacket to be seen

between us, bags of one-cent candy

from the Corner Market, some family

friend behind me in line buying beer, cigarette

dangling from his lip, tightly permed

cashier offering him an ashtray,

eventually graduating from milk powder

to cans of evap, from Kool-Aid to frozen

cans of juice concentrate, Cheers and Taxi

on our black-and-white set, Letterman and SNL

in their prime, Fogarty telling the coach

to put him in centre field, Starship claiming

to have built this city from nothing more

than rock and roll.

iii)

Ralph Gough.

Occupation: blacksmith.

Cast himself roughshod,

some stoic, stony figure

to look up to. Served a stint

in the First World War.

Newfoundland Regiment,

number 781. Age: 21.

Early discharge for disorderly,

fit right in the Bay of Islands,

boxed bare-knuckle for sport.

Rudolph Gough Sr.

Occupation: wood-cutter.

Hands like bear traps, still

hand-rolled perfect cigarettes.

The odd hip flask passed around

with lunch, slabs of baloney

on mustard sandwiches.

A few coffee-can tea kettles

on a low fire, ten tea bags

to a brew, and the stuff’s dark

as the Humber, strong enough

to strip bark. Spent his last decade

alone, mug after mug of weak tea

as he mourned my grandmother,

raised two grandkids as his own.

Rudolph James Gough Jr.

Occupation: labourer.

Gunnin’ it through the Wreckhouse

dark to catch the night crossing,

a few hours sleep before the twenty

hours straight drive to Toronto.

Long before Fort McMurray flooded

our heads with dreams of more than

getting by. Always brought some odd

gift to mark his return home.

One year it was coins and bills

from French Guyana, the dollar

so thick, so real in my small palm.

Another year, a margarine tub

of saved change. A first edition

of some book neither of us had

heard of. The cover was embossed

leather, the lady he bought it from

claimed it came across and landed at

Ellis Island. I think on that feeling,

coming home after months away,

standing on the deck, approaching

Port aux Basques. Never so happy

to feel a bitter wind running you

through to the bone.

iv)

Both my grandmothers

have been dead for decades.

I am 36. My father’s mother,

Ella, when I was 8, my sister

just months old. My mother’s

mother, Marion, when I was 14.

I ...