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Canadian Authors - General fiction - |
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The Danger Tree |
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The Danger Tree: Memory, War and the Search for a Family’s PastBy David Macfarlane Random House Canada (Vintage Books) 320 pages, reprinted August 2000 (Copyright 1991) ISBN 67697294 Reviewed by Devorah Stone David Macfarlane, one of Canada's most gifted journalists, is the recipient of eight National Magazine Awards. - Editor Which island nation suffered the most casualties per capita during World War I and consequently lost its sovereignty? Newfoundland. The Danger Tree recounts the personal chronicles of David Macfarlane’s maternal family, the Goodyears of Newfoundland. Their story is unraveled through the eyes of a lad growing up in Hamilton, Ontario. Despite, or perhaps because, he grew up in "away", he developed a deep fascination for Newfoundland. The maternal relatives he knew personally amounted to one aging aunt and uncle living in Ontario, and those he met on summer vacations. Like many children of immigrants, he looked at his mother’s homeland as an exotic yet strangely familiar place. By the time David was born, Newfoundland had become a province in Canada. Yet in his mind, the land was still a place separated not only by water, but by different mindsets, values and cultures. Newfoundland suffered many great tragedies in its history - the extinction of its aboriginal population, disease, extreme poverty and two Great Wars. Unfortunately, Canada’s newest province still suffers from high unemployment and the depletion of its traditional resource - fishery. Despite all this, the Goodyear family bravely confronted obstacles, and their belief in their homeland never faltered. The Goodyear’s story begins with Josiah and Louisa leaving their fishing village to live in the thriving pulp town of Grand Falls, in search of a better life for their seven children. The pulp mills of Grand Falls supplied paper to England, the USA and Canada. At that time, Newfoundland had its own government, declaring war on Germany a few years later. Despite a tiny population and scant resources other than fish and wood, Newfoundland proudly sent its own regiment. All six Goodyear sons signed up and their daughter became a nurse. Three sons would not return. David MacFarlane reconstructs his own family history and the island’s sacrifice, showing how Newfoundland never recovered. Almost every family on the island shared the Goodyear tragedy. Bankrupt after the Great War, the island accepted direct British rule. After the Second World War, the island and the Goodyear family divided into two camps: those who wanted an independent nation and those who wanted to be part of Canada. By a very narrow margin, Newfoundlanders voted to be Canadian. This book shows the uneasy alliance between the island province and the rest of Canada, aptly called by Newfoundlanders - away. In poignant prose, The Danger Tree explains Newfoundland to the rest of Canada and to the world. |
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