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The Outport People
` A captivating tale....Claire Mowat writes with warmth and sensitivity.` -Winnipeg Free Press Claire Mowat and her husband, Farley, arrived in Baleena by schooner. There were no roads, no cars and no telephones. The tiny village that nestled among the rocky hills of Newfoundland`s desolate southern coast had existed for generations with ancient customs and patterns of speech that still endured-while the modern world waited impatiently in the wings. Drawing on a wealth of first-hand experience-the Mowats lived in the outport community for five years-Claire Mowat has written a fictional memoir that beautifully recreates an almost vanished world. A world where life revolved tightly around the home and neighbours watched over one another. A world where one`s kitchen was open to anyone who might drop in, day or night. A world that Claire Mowat grew to love.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 26, 2019
How do you write a book about your time in Newfoundland? This is one way. Apparently she really peeved off the locals even though she waited 20 years to publish it as a 'fiction' book.
I've lived in a Newfoundland outport for almost 6 years. I haven't yet found my voice to fully express my experience. I suspect Ms. Mowat feels the same, still, even after writing this book. I appreciate her effort but feel it probably only covers the bare surface.
5 decades later and it is all so familiar to this fellow CFA.
I've lived in a Newfoundland outport for almost 6 years. I haven't yet found my voice to fully express my experience. I suspect Ms. Mowat feels the same, still, even after writing this book. I appreciate her effort but feel it probably only covers the bare surface.
5 decades later and it is all so familiar to this fellow CFA.
July 13, 2020
This amazing book is a thinly-disguised memoir of Claire and Farley Mowat's 5-year stint living full-time in Burgeo, Newfoundland. We are treated to a truly fascinating look at the life they shared with outport people far-removed from 1963-68 Toronto. The Mowats were highly adventurous - trekking, climbing and sailing hither and yon with refreshing abandon to see and learn more about their surroundings. As outsiders they did their best to fit in as much as possible by accepting and sharing local customs, including highly-entertaining mummering. While a relatively quick read, the book is vividly and poignantly descriptive even while being sharply critical of some folks and the exploitation of local citizens working at the fish plant.
More importantly, perhaps, Claire Moffat showed us that she is a very good writer in her own right. By 1983, husband Farley Mowat (1921-2014) was a very well-known and celebrated Canadian author. Claire was a trained graphic artist who had helped Farley's career not just as a super supportive spouse, but also by drawing endless maps for his many books and helping in countless ways to get them into print. Now she had her own, well-deserved best-seller. If you know nothing about Newfoundland, this is the perfect place to start.
FOONOTE: Claire Moffat is 87 and still whip-sharp. Just a few days ago here in Port Hope, Ontario, I asked her how she managed to name two main characters Dan Quayle and Dan Quayle Jr. -- something that blindsided me in the opening pages. She had simply made up the name by picking a bird. She answered my every question in engrossing detail, including what happened later to "Dorothy"...Claire Moffat is working on another book, her 7th. What's it about? She won't tell, but when it's finished, she'll "talk my arm off." I can hardly wait!
More importantly, perhaps, Claire Moffat showed us that she is a very good writer in her own right. By 1983, husband Farley Mowat (1921-2014) was a very well-known and celebrated Canadian author. Claire was a trained graphic artist who had helped Farley's career not just as a super supportive spouse, but also by drawing endless maps for his many books and helping in countless ways to get them into print. Now she had her own, well-deserved best-seller. If you know nothing about Newfoundland, this is the perfect place to start.
FOONOTE: Claire Moffat is 87 and still whip-sharp. Just a few days ago here in Port Hope, Ontario, I asked her how she managed to name two main characters Dan Quayle and Dan Quayle Jr. -- something that blindsided me in the opening pages. She had simply made up the name by picking a bird. She answered my every question in engrossing detail, including what happened later to "Dorothy"...Claire Moffat is working on another book, her 7th. What's it about? She won't tell, but when it's finished, she'll "talk my arm off." I can hardly wait!
December 10, 2021
A memoir of life in 1960's Newfoundland written in the 1980's and read in 2021. The publisher's description of "A beautiful, moving memoir about an almost vanished way of life" is more true now than in the 80's. Progress is a double-edged sword - no matter at what point you are experiencing it. In the outports of 1960's Newfoundland, progress meant bringing in phone service, library books, television, cars... and shaking up labour relations. Claire Mowat does a wonderful job of shining light on the changes without imposing her outsider views or condescension.
I enjoyed reading this book though it took me some time. It is not exactly a gripping read - perfect for a chapter or two before going to bed - but it moves along and you care about the characters. It feels rather episodic but as you make progress in the book, you realize there is a longer arc as well. Upon finishing the book, I had to find out which Outport Baleena was standing in for so that I could locate it on a map of Newfoundland - the Mowats lived in Burego NL.
I enjoyed reading this book though it took me some time. It is not exactly a gripping read - perfect for a chapter or two before going to bed - but it moves along and you care about the characters. It feels rather episodic but as you make progress in the book, you realize there is a longer arc as well. Upon finishing the book, I had to find out which Outport Baleena was standing in for so that I could locate it on a map of Newfoundland - the Mowats lived in Burego NL.
August 9, 2016
This is a beautiful, heartwarming book written by a woman who has proven herself to be just as skilled a writer as her famous husband. I can't wait to read her second memoir.
June 12, 2024
A "fictional memoir." That's how Claire Mowat described her book in the author's note -- "I spent several years living among them [the people of Newfoundland outports], and this book is a fictional memoir of those years."
To start, "Baleena cannot be found on the map," - but we can learn from an Internet search that Farley and Claire Mowat bought a house in Burgeo Cove in 1962 and lived there for about five years. In a place dependent on fishing and fish processing, Farley as an author and Claire as artist were oddities.
"Fictionalized" as it may be, Claire's description was sharply drawn of the area and people, warm and loving, with sparkles of humour and observations on the economic conditions and impending connection with "mainland" Newfoundland. Life was hardscrabble, and layers in the community were distinct - the fish plant magnate, Freeman Drake, and his wife Rachel, and the English doctor employed by the Department of Health, Roger Billings and wife Jane. These couples had appearances to keep up. The rest of the community were Quayles, Roses, Dollimount, others - and all their children - living in various degrees of precarity. It was customary for the young men to go to Canada for work in Sudbury or the Great Lakes to support their families.
The time is the mid-1960s. Newfoundland was adjusting to being a province of Canada. Outport communities were being closed and merged into others. Mowat writes sympathetically and sensitively about the personalities, their livelihoods, and their qualities. To some degree, there is a similarity to Stephen Leacock's Mariposa but without the sinking of the Mariposa Belle.
The visit to Toronto was a vignette of the city circa 1965—at that time, lawn ornaments in residential areas included "flamingoes and gnomes and black-faced footmen" (p. 244)—yes, and mercifully, that has changed.
As I anticipate my Circumnavigation of Newfoundland, Mowat's observation on the weather was very jarring - "Fog - the curse of the coastal summer - had shrouded us when we left in June ... We often saw more sunshine in the month of March." (245)
I am very glad to have reread this book. It deserves to be seen as a classic.
To start, "Baleena cannot be found on the map," - but we can learn from an Internet search that Farley and Claire Mowat bought a house in Burgeo Cove in 1962 and lived there for about five years. In a place dependent on fishing and fish processing, Farley as an author and Claire as artist were oddities.
"Fictionalized" as it may be, Claire's description was sharply drawn of the area and people, warm and loving, with sparkles of humour and observations on the economic conditions and impending connection with "mainland" Newfoundland. Life was hardscrabble, and layers in the community were distinct - the fish plant magnate, Freeman Drake, and his wife Rachel, and the English doctor employed by the Department of Health, Roger Billings and wife Jane. These couples had appearances to keep up. The rest of the community were Quayles, Roses, Dollimount, others - and all their children - living in various degrees of precarity. It was customary for the young men to go to Canada for work in Sudbury or the Great Lakes to support their families.
The time is the mid-1960s. Newfoundland was adjusting to being a province of Canada. Outport communities were being closed and merged into others. Mowat writes sympathetically and sensitively about the personalities, their livelihoods, and their qualities. To some degree, there is a similarity to Stephen Leacock's Mariposa but without the sinking of the Mariposa Belle.
The visit to Toronto was a vignette of the city circa 1965—at that time, lawn ornaments in residential areas included "flamingoes and gnomes and black-faced footmen" (p. 244)—yes, and mercifully, that has changed.
As I anticipate my Circumnavigation of Newfoundland, Mowat's observation on the weather was very jarring - "Fog - the curse of the coastal summer - had shrouded us when we left in June ... We often saw more sunshine in the month of March." (245)
I am very glad to have reread this book. It deserves to be seen as a classic.
November 11, 2017
This story is written as fictional, but based on the author’s experiences when she lived in Burgeo, which is on the Southern coast of Newfoundland. For me it was a sad tale. One day in one of my English classes the professor asked us if modernization was always good. I naively answered eagerly yes— Why it was great to get telephones and electricity and all the wonderful things that modernization brings. But in this story the author shows what is lost. She describes the feelings of a bigger city, and impersonalization. The charm of a small community is gone, and the mystic vanishes. Old customs go away. People don’t care if they are on the dole. Their parents or grandparents would never have heard of it. The new mail boxes were put in- so that the lady running the post office didn’t have to hand the mail to each person personally. Her words were, “Makes me feel like a stranger.” Unless they needed to buy stamps they didn’t have to talk to anyone.
Her stories about the Mummers tradition at Christmas was fun. The story about the strike at the fish plant was sad and probably reflected many around the island. The end of the fishery was one of a biggest nails in the coffin that slowed Newfoundland’s growth. No television, or roads makes for a pretty outport experience. I enjoyed stepping back in time to experience this part of Newfoundland history. This was a good read.
Her stories about the Mummers tradition at Christmas was fun. The story about the strike at the fish plant was sad and probably reflected many around the island. The end of the fishery was one of a biggest nails in the coffin that slowed Newfoundland’s growth. No television, or roads makes for a pretty outport experience. I enjoyed stepping back in time to experience this part of Newfoundland history. This was a good read.
November 16, 2024
This was an excellent book of an unusual type: A relatively factual, chronological, almost anthropological account of life in a very remote Newfoundland fishing village, a place that time left behind. The village is only accessible by a slow, irregular coastal boat service. The newly-formed Canadian Confederacy is taking steps to provide some basic services and connectivity (with a Mounty, a doctor, a post office, and financial support when families are unable to work). But no road in, no telephone, no television.
Claire Mowat, wife of author Farley Mowat, is a skilled observer and story-teller as well, and a kind, charming person. It is fabulous how they see the best in a group of people, and their lifestyle, that many would dismiss out-of-hand. Set in the early 1960s, it is clear that with modern telecommunications and improved travel options places like this are extremely rare now, if they exist at all anymore.
Claire Mowat, wife of author Farley Mowat, is a skilled observer and story-teller as well, and a kind, charming person. It is fabulous how they see the best in a group of people, and their lifestyle, that many would dismiss out-of-hand. Set in the early 1960s, it is clear that with modern telecommunications and improved travel options places like this are extremely rare now, if they exist at all anymore.
December 8, 2019
This book took me two years to read—perhaps because I savored it so much. It’s a delight, and a wonderful look at rural community that would likely resonate with Alaskans familiar with an entirely different, yet similar, brand of rural.
June 27, 2021
Claire and Farley Mowat live in Baleena, Newfoundland, for a few years. It’s an outport: a small port. They make friends slowly with the locals. It’s a charming story - but the modern world gets in and Mowats leave.
June 18, 2017
Interesting - would have to reserve comment. Easy to relate having grown up on the south coast of Newfoundland.
September 11, 2024
If you are a Canadian, I recommend reading this book to give you an idea of what life was like and maybe still is in some parts of this big, beautiful country we live in.
February 8, 2025
Made me home sick
September 29, 2016
This is a re-read. I first read it about 25 years ago. It is an interesting account of an outsider's perspective of life in an outport in the early 60's before life changed significantly with the arrival of tv and other aspects of modern life.
June 9, 2009
The Outport People marks the publishing debut of Claire Mowat, whose husband Farley has written some of the best-loved stories in Canadian literature (The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, Never Cry Wolf). It is her tribute to the rugged, proud Newfoundlanders whose world revolved around family and community until the modern age tore it apart.
Newfoundland outports are coastal communities whose economic mainstay is usually fishing. Until recently many of them could only be reached via boat, as the rocky landscape hindered road construction for years. Their isolation was deepened by the absence of telephones and television. With no easy access to the outside world, outport residents became an independent, earthy people who were fiercely loyal to their family and friends.
During the 1960s the Mowats moved to Burgeo, a village on Newfoundland’s south coast. They remained for five years, and grew to love the land and the people so much that on the day they left, Claire Mowat remembered that “the salt spray blew steadily in my face, mixing with my tears.”
Although Mowat describes The Outport People as a ‘fictional memoir’, it’s as detailed as a sociological study, and just as true to life: the characters, with their archaic speech, ancient customs, and friendly wariness toward newcomers and new ideas, are typical of what you will see in remote parts of Newfoundland even today. The library in the imaginary town of Baleena is open only six hours a week, winter weddings are the rule because too many men leave during the summer to work on Great Lakes freighters, and the local shopkeeper runs his general store out of his living room.
There’s no plot to speak of, but Mowat compensates by vividly describing the joys and struggles of a tradition-bound community facing extinction. Under the guise of writing fiction, she remembers her years in Burgeo with fondness, humour, and respect.
Newfoundland outports are coastal communities whose economic mainstay is usually fishing. Until recently many of them could only be reached via boat, as the rocky landscape hindered road construction for years. Their isolation was deepened by the absence of telephones and television. With no easy access to the outside world, outport residents became an independent, earthy people who were fiercely loyal to their family and friends.
During the 1960s the Mowats moved to Burgeo, a village on Newfoundland’s south coast. They remained for five years, and grew to love the land and the people so much that on the day they left, Claire Mowat remembered that “the salt spray blew steadily in my face, mixing with my tears.”
Although Mowat describes The Outport People as a ‘fictional memoir’, it’s as detailed as a sociological study, and just as true to life: the characters, with their archaic speech, ancient customs, and friendly wariness toward newcomers and new ideas, are typical of what you will see in remote parts of Newfoundland even today. The library in the imaginary town of Baleena is open only six hours a week, winter weddings are the rule because too many men leave during the summer to work on Great Lakes freighters, and the local shopkeeper runs his general store out of his living room.
There’s no plot to speak of, but Mowat compensates by vividly describing the joys and struggles of a tradition-bound community facing extinction. Under the guise of writing fiction, she remembers her years in Burgeo with fondness, humour, and respect.
Read
March 7, 2015I read The Outport People In my preparation for walking part of the East Coast Trail. The book is a fictional memoir about the 5 years Claire and Farley Mowat lived in an outport town. Fishing was still the main way to survive in the outports but the people were taken advantage of by the unsympathetic fish plant owner. I loved it her ability to convey the complexities of the community with respect and caring. I was moved by her sharp eyed yet compassionate observations. She had the ability to be a part of the town and yet be a keen observer of the forces shaping it. Although I know the times conveyed in the Outport People are long gone in Newfoundland I feel her book enabled me to get a strong sense of that important part of its history.
May 26, 2014
Unbelievably great descriptions of a small remote NFLD community @ early 1960s. Wonderfully warm and richly envisioned characters; delicious descriptions of 'kitchen' life; a watchful onshore eye into the circumstances and life of a fictional fishing village and Newfoundland's slow change to become more like Canada. Was it a good thing? Based on real life 5 year adventure of the author and her real life husband and noted author, Farley Mowat. Claire is like Jane Vonnegut, every bit as good as her husband at telling stories. A fine, fine read. Wish I'd read this book years ago.
November 13, 2016
This novel captures the simplicity and complexity of an outport village caught in time. Lovingly told by Claire Mowat, the reader is transported to Baleena and meets and falls in love with its cast of characters. Especially intriguing was the chapter on the library of the village with figured prominently in my heart with changes happening now in Newfoundland. A sense of loyalty juxtaposes the competitiveness among outports in one chapter and gave pause to the hierarchy of relationships we build around us. Lovely Newfoundland always shines through and what a treasure!
March 19, 2016
Claire Mowat is certainly as wonderful an author as her husband Farley! What a wonderful story - beautifully written with descriptive passages that bring to life the Newfoundland people and land . I bought this at secondhand book sale just out of curiosity, but it will be a keeper that i will re-read to revisit Newfoundland, its people, philosophy, and economic woes. It should be required reading for all Canadians.
November 26, 2016
Canadian fiction
a brief story about the Mowat family (yes, those Mowats) moving from Toronto to a fictional outport village in Newfoundland called Balleena. It is supposed to be fictional but the characters and the climate are incredibly realistic. A great slice of outport life in the 1960's. And it is not all screech and blueberries.
Tons of Canadian references since it is set in Newfoundland.
No pharmacy references
a brief story about the Mowat family (yes, those Mowats) moving from Toronto to a fictional outport village in Newfoundland called Balleena. It is supposed to be fictional but the characters and the climate are incredibly realistic. A great slice of outport life in the 1960's. And it is not all screech and blueberries.
Tons of Canadian references since it is set in Newfoundland.
No pharmacy references
April 8, 2015
Thoroughly enjoyably read. Depictions of rural 'Bay' Newfoundland life are well documented and charmingly told. It was rare indeed that someone from 'the mainland ' was able to integrate so far into a community, crossing class divisions that were still well defined in the 60s. The author fell in love with the people and the landscape.
Want to read
June 4, 2009Baleena cannot be found on any map, yet dozens of places like it exist along the coast of Canada's most insular province.
May 9, 2011
I found it most interesting. Real life reflecting through all her words and descriptions.
January 3, 2017
A heart warming tale of a close-knit community who look out for one another. It is when modern 'conveniences' start to come in that the once close community of Dog's Cove becomes just another town.
Read
January 23, 2019I've kept this book, along with her husband's from that year, Wake of the Great Sealers by Farley Mowat, for decades. Hugely vital the life of the outport people in her hands.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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