Portfolios > The Inevitability of Nina

Dear Nina,
My first journey to Saint Paul’s River was in July 1972, when I was an eighteen-year-old trainee store manager with the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and a new immigrant to Canada. Although my mother was sad that I was leaving home again, she bought me my first serious camera: a Russian Zenit E, a single-lens reflex with two lenses from Kay’s Catalog, for twenty pounds. It was exciting to move up from a plastic Kodak Instamatic to a more substantial metal-bodied camera and to start experimenting with different lenses and film. I spent the first five days in Montreal at the HBC’s Northern Stores Department headquarters, preparing for my new life in the north, signing paperwork, and undergoing medical and dental exams. The journey from Montreal to Saint Paul’s River began with a large jet to Sept-Isles, then a twin-turboprop to Havre Saint-Pierre. Finally, after five hours in a single-engine De Havilland Otter on floats, flying along the North Shore of the Saint Lawrence River and stopping at each small community to drop off passengers, mail, and other essentials, I reached Saint Paul’s River, the final stop, as the last passenger.

Founded in London in 1670 as a fur-trading enterprise, the Hudson’s Bay Company recruited men in Britain until the 1980s, initially from southern England and later from Scotland, including the Orkney Islands, where life was harsh and opportunities scarce. The men were accustomed to isolation, making them ideal candidates for life in northern Canada. The HBC offered employment and adventure. I was drawn to both, but mainly to the latter. When I was interviewed in Glasgow for the position, two questions stood out: "When was the last time you went to the movies?" and "When was the last time you went dancing?" Having previously served at sea with the British Merchant Navy and, earlier, for a short time in the Royal Navy, I honestly answered that it had been a long time. The interview made no mention of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s exploitative colonial history or of preparation for my participation in that legacy. This wasn’t a factor in Saint Paul’s River, but it would become more evident later, when I was posted to a First Nations Reservation in northern Quebec.

My monthly salary was about $175 Canadian, before my airfare from Scotland was deducted, plus room and board. It was four times what I earned in the Merchant Navy, but I would have worked for free because, as I mentioned, I was seeking adventure, not financial gain. My attitude toward either hasn’t changed much since then. Because I’d be living in shared company housing, another stipulation in the two-year contract I signed was that I wouldn’t sleep with Native girls or get married for two years. Since the population of Saint Paul’s River was mainly Irish and Welsh, sleeping with Native girls wasn’t a consideration. Fishing, primarily for cod, had been the main source of employment on the North Shore, including Saint Paul’s River. But overfishing had reduced yields, and unemployment had increased. So here I was, a new migrant with a job in a community with high unemployment.

Watching the float plane take off after dropping me at the dock, with all my worldly possessions packed into my little Royal Navy suitcase, was one of the loneliest feelings I’d ever experienced. Loneliness turned to terror when I turned around to find the entire population of Saint Paul’s River gathered to see what the plane was delivering: the new trainee store manager from Scotland. Luckily, that feeling didn’t last long. Soon, I was making new friends and relishing new experiences. Saint Paul’s River is about 40 miles south of the Labrador border. At the time, there was no road in or out; it was quite isolated. The Hudson’s Bay Company store was the only place to buy food and supplies, all of which were brought in by boat from the south once a week. I arrived in July, and it was very hot. School was out for the summer, and each afternoon most of the young people swam off the dock, and I happily joined them. The mosquitoes and horseflies were bloodthirsty, even more so than the midges I was accustomed to in the west highlands of Scotland.

My initiation into the role of a Hudson’s Bay clerk included stocking shelves and checking customers out at the cash register, both essential skills for a store manager-in-training. One of the local employees, a young guy about my age, took a dislike to me. I wasn’t sure why, but maybe it was because I was a foreigner with one of the theoretically better jobs in town, a job with prospects. Little did he know I wasn’t interested in those prospects. Although I wasn’t consciously thinking of it that way at the time, the Hudson’s Bay Company was a means to an end. The job provided an opportunity to immigrate to Canada without any marketable skills, apart from an adventurous spirit and a propensity for living in isolation. Times were also different for British citizens in the 1970s. Because Canada was a member of the British Commonwealth, immigration was less restrictive than it is now.

I had an altercation with the young guy who disliked me. The memory is vague, but it went something like this: he pushed the swinging door separating the stockroom from the store into me. I pushed back, and he fell. I thought that was the end of it. A short while later, I was serving a customer at the cash register. He aggressively leaned across the counter and grabbed my shirt at the collar with both hands. In self-defense, I jumped over the counter and pushed him against a shelf stocked with canned goods and other items. In the meantime, the groceries belonging to the customer I was serving ended up on the floor. As I pushed the young guy, the shelf toppled, and when it hit the next shelf, that one toppled as well. As we were tussling on the floor, the store manager, who didn’t like me much either, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and yelled, “I’m gonna kick your ass back to Scotland.” A couple of days later, I was on the ship heading back down the North Shore. I often deliberate about who was at fault in that situation. It was over fifty years ago, and it was the last time I’d been violent toward anyone; therefore, from my perspective, it was the other guy’s fault. However, from his perspective, a foreigner with a job and career prospects was a source of insecurity.

Returning to Saint Paul’s River fifty-four years later to stage a dead photo and write you a letter, Nina, was another adventure. I flew into Saint John’s, Newfoundland, rented a car, and drove 10 hours across the island to St. Barbe, where I took a car ferry to the mainland of Canada at Blanc Sablon, on the Quebec-Labrador border. A road now connects Blanc Sablon and Saint Paul’s, but it wasn’t there when I left in 1972. I chose to take the naked, pretending I was dead, photo in the only sheltered spot I could find against the freezing wind. The moss was wet, and my feet almost froze as I ran back and forth between my camera to release the shutter and the location of my staged dead pose. But I got the shot. I packed up the next day and headed back to Denver. This story captures my transition to North America and a step closer to the inevitable meeting with you, sparked by the discovery of your photographs.
Love, Roddy