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The lost civilization of Atlantis may just be legend, but way down below the ocean (to quote the folksinger Donovan) there are some things that are very real — namely, bacteria and archaea. By some estimates, sub-seafloor prokaryotes may account for two-thirds of the biomass of these types of organisms on Earth. The latest evidence for such a huge undersea biosphere, and a depth record of sorts, is reported in Science by R. John Parkes of Cardiff University and colleagues. They have found living prokaryotes 5,335 feet below the ocean floor off Newfoundland, about twice as deep as the previous...

Newfoundland Viking site remarkableL'Anse aux Meadows likely marks the first European contact with New World -- 500 years before Columbus Jeff Lukovich , Special to The Sun More than 1,200 years ago, Vikings from Norway set out on a series of daring voyages that would eventually result in their being the first Europeans to explore the east coast of North America. In stages they established settlements in the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and finally Newfoundland and Labrador. Though we passed through an area around the capital of Nuuk, that would have been near the former Viking "Western Settlement,"...

Dildo, Newfoundland and Labrador Dildo is a town on the southeastern Dildo Arm of Trinity Bay on the island of Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is about 100 kilometres west-northwest of St. John's. South Dildo is a neighbouring unincorporated community. General HistoryDildo has a long history going as far back as 2000 BC when Maritime Archaic Native Americans resided at Anderson's Cove. By 700 AD Dorset had inhabited Dildo Island. In 1613, Henry Crout, whilst sailing up Dildo Arm, came in contact with the Beothuks, who were residing on Dildo Island at this time. He traded with them and...

Newfoundland and Labrador provincial Election - October 9, 2007 Responses to Campaign Life Coalition questionnaire Updated Oct 5, 7:00 p.m. October 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Newfoundland/Labrador provincial election will take place this coming Tuesday October 9. Campaign Life Coalition, Newfoundland has been asking provincial election candidates to complete the CLC election questionnaire. See the questionnaire at http://campaignlifecoalition.com/elections/provincial/Newfoundland/2007questionnaire.pdf See Election Newfoundland/Labrador web page at http://www.elections.gov.nl.ca/elections/ Newfoundland's pro-life voters are being urged by Campaign Life Coalition to place the life issue views of candidates as their highest priority during the election. CLC national organizer Mary Ellen Douglas stresses that candidates who say...

Marine scientists in Canada and abroad are puzzled by bizarre photographs that appear to show the skeleton of a large mammal jutting out of an iceberg that recently drifted past Newfoundland's east coast. The six pictures show what looks like a brown rib cage and spinal column, slightly bent, sticking out of a crust of ice. But researchers throughout Canada, Greenland and Norway are unable to determine the origin of the skeleton, said Garry Stenson, a marine mammal scientist with the federal Fisheries Department. "It's definitely unusual," Stenson said Monday. "It's not something that I've encountered before." His colleagues have...

North America's oldest church may lie beneath a small town in Newfoundland, according to information cobbled together from the research of a historian who recently died before publishing her seminal work. "To describe Alwyn Ruddock's claims as revolutionary would not be an exaggeration," Jones said. "If Ruddock is right, it means that the remains of the only medieval church in North America may still lie buried under the modern town of Carbonear."Ruddock, a historian with the University of London, was one of the world's foremost experts on Cabot's voyages until her death in late 2005. In keeping with her will,...

Volunteer firefighters in a small Newfoundland town have again resigned, in a dispute that boils down to their desire to knock back a few cold ones together. The firefighters resigned their duty at the Point Leamington hall last year when the town council banned consumption of beer on premises. Last year's dispute was resolved when the council — concerned about its insurance on the hall — approved limited beer consumption. The firefighters have resigned en masse again, because the rules attached to their permit are too restrictive. "What's wrong with the firemen going in there on a Monday night, if...

FORT HUACHUCA — The red, white and blue American Airlines plane was about two hours from the East Coast. Flight 49, a Boeing 767, was heading from Paris to Dallas. But this day the aircraft would not make its final destination. Like many planes on Sept. 11, 2001, the flight was ordered to land — but not in the United States. Barbara Fast, then a brigadier general, was on the flight. She planned to make a connecting flight to Tucson and then drive to Fort Huachuca to attend a conference of senior Army intelligence officers. It turns out Fast, who...

HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY, Newfoundland (AP) — An Egypt Air passenger flight carrying more than 300 passengers was diverted to Newfoundland on Monday after smoke was detected in the cockpit, an airport official said. The Boeing 777 that departed from Cairo for New York City made a safe emergency landing in Goose Bay, said Kevin Aylward, CEO of Goose Bay Airport Corp. The passengers stayed on the plane while maintenance workers repaired the problem. "It's something they were able to fix very quickly," said Aylward. He said he didn't know what the exact cause of the smoke. No fire was found...

Dozens of residents of a small island community off Newfoundland's northeast coast gathered recently to celebrate a high school graduation — although only one person was actually graduating. Courtney Diamond, 18, was the sole member of the Grade 12 class at A.R. Scammell Academy in Change Islands, which has fewer than 400 residents. "It felt pretty good, actually," said Diamond. "I thought I should deserve a graduation, even though it's only me, like everyone else would have." Almost 100 people attended the ceremony, which involved a traditional church service, a grand march, and a dinner and dance. Roy Morgan is...

The entire volunteer fire department in a Newfoundland town has resigned, following a new policy that forbids drinking alcohol in the local fire hall. The Point Leamington fire hall had doubled for years as an unofficial bar for the community of about 700 on the island's northeast coast. Fire Chief Fraser Stuckless said he complied with a town order this spring to stop selling booze to the public. However, he said the force of a dozen firefighters should still be allowed to enjoy a drink on special occasions. "The other fire departments, they do have alcohol …. The alcohol is...

Letter from Newfoundland: Homing in on the Red Paint People Volume 53 Number 3, May/June 2000 by Angela M.H. Schuster (Lynda D'Amico) Port au Choix, Newfoundland-- More than 5,000 years ago, this barren, sea-lashed coast was home to the Maritime Archaic Indians (MAI), who hunted and fished the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland for more than 2,000 years. The first evidence of the Maritime Archaic culture was discovered more than 30 years ago when James A. Tuck of Memorial University of Newfoundland excavated 56 elaborate burials exposed during housing construction on a small promontory at Port au Choix, on the...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. (CP) - An animal rights group documenting the annual seal slaughter off southern Labrador pulled out Friday, saying protesters felt threatened after confrontations with local hunt supporters. They left as the kill ended for most large vessels and at least one fleet of smaller sealing boats, when hunters filled about two-thirds of their quota. A spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare said a helicopter carrying anti-sealing activists was confronted a day earlier while trying to refuel in the Labrador community of Cartwright. Regina Flores said angry residents surrounded their helicopter at two locations. They were...

Seal flippers were selling like hotcakes on the St. John's waterfront last week. "They couldn't keep them," says Joe Walsh, editorial page editor of The Telegram. "There were people who've never tried seal meat lining up for them." Contrary to what the animal rights people would have you believe, seals are killed not only for their pelts but for their oil and their meat -- about 60% of the meat is used. In fact, seal flippers are so popular in Newfoundland that service clubs hold annual "flipper dinners," says Walsh, adding: "I bought three dozen myself last year. I eat...

Canada's annual seal hunt, the focus of a major protest effort by animal activists, will start on Saturday and could last longer than usual because the ice floes on which the seals gather are in poor condition, officials said on Thursday. Canada says a total of 325,000 harp seal pups can be shot or clubbed to death this year. The first stage of the hunt, which takes place on ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Canada's East Coast, will account for just over 90,000 animals. Activists, who say the killing is cruel and unnecessary, say they will film...

It's long been said by people in Newfoundland and Labrador that, "everyone else thinks they know better than we how things should be done." "Outsiders" have given us reams and reams of unsolicited advice for decades, since long before joining Confederation in fact.

A man from Newfoundland and Labrador has received a two-month prison term for charging a moose with a snowmobile and killing it with an axe. Anthony Norris, 25, of Trinity committed a "horrendous and heinous act," according to provincial court Judge Gloria Harding. Wildlife investigators said they received a tip days after the moose was killed in March 2005, when a group of people drove snowmobiles and ATVs to a party at a cabin near Indian Bay. When a moose wandered onto the groomed path, Norris plowed into it several times with his snowmobile until its hind legs were broken,...

Given the incessant anti-Americanism from a majority opf Canadian people who are geographically unequally distributed, I'm thinking of proposals of dividing Canada into several regions so as to let the right-minded people able to control their own destiny, and more importantly for the US, to make it impossible for sworn enemies of the US to be able to control the giant landmass and hold Uncle Sam hostage ever again. I'm thinking of dividing Canada into several regions: 1) Coastal BC: they are American-style leftists. Either allow an independent nation or produce an ultimatum - move to Souther Ontario. 2) Interior...

The plane carrying peacekeepers home from Sinai went down on takeoff at Gander. By FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES GANDER, NFLD. -- Joe McGuire was at home asleep on the morning of Dec. 12, 1985, when the ring of his telephone jarred him awake with news that an airplane went down after takeoff from Gander International Airport. The Arrow Air charter flight carried 248 U.S. soldiers and eight civilian crew. McGuire, then assistant commander for the RCMP in Gander, rushed to the scene. "When I got down there, it was still burning and everything was black," McGuire says in Gander, where...

The words still turn stomachs 20 years later: "No survivors." Malinda Parris was preparing to welcome her husband home for the holidays from a mission in Egypt when she first heard them. She had decorated the house, baked wildly to fill the kitchen with his favorite foods and was dressing to go to a homecoming ceremony at Fort Campbell. All that stopped when the television flashed with news that would change her life. A plane carrying her husband, Rudy, an Army pilot, and 247 other soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division home from a peacekeeping mission in the Sinai had...

Ceremonies mark ’85 Gander crash 248 U.S. soldiers killed instantly The Chronicle Herals From Our Wire Services December 12, 2005 GANDER, N.L. — Twenty years later, Joe McGuire vividly remembers getting the call. He was at home, asleep the morning of Dec. 12, 1985, when the ring of his telephone jarred him awake with news that an airplane went down after takeoff from the Gander International Airport. There were 248 U.S. soldiers on board the Arrow Air charter flight and eight civilian crew. McGuire, then the assistant commander for the RCMP in Gander, rushed to the scene. "When I got...

Two American planes make separate emergency landings in N.L.Canadian Press October 2, 2005 ST. JOHN'S, N.L. (CP) - Two American planes - a passenger jet and a military transport - made separate emergency landings in Newfoundland on Saturday. A Continental Airlines Boeing 767, en route from Newark, N.J., to Paris with 178 people on board, landed in Gander shortly before 8 a.m. local time. Airport officials said crew reported low oil pressure in one of the engines. The airliner landed safely with one engine idling. Officials said the plane was waiting for a spare part late Saturday afternoon and was...

One night while listening to a local call in program I heard a gentleman relate .... This man eloquently spoke of how our rich military history had been stolen away by the Department of National Defense when Newfoundland and Canadian military forces merged on March 31, 1949. ...I was touched by the fact that he not only knew so much about our history but that he felt so strongly about it. He spoke of how one of the Victoria Cross medals won by a Newfoundlander in WWI was sitting in a museum in Ottawa while the other was on loan...

  C B C . C A   N e w s   -   F u l l   S t o r y : Accordion players squeeze out new recordLast Updated Sun, 07 Aug 2005 09:23:06 EDTCBC News Hundreds of musicians hoisted their accordions in the air in St. John's, Nfld., Saturday to celebrate the setting of an unusual record – the greatest number of people to play accordions simultaneously. Organizers, who needed 645 people to set the record, said 989 participants officially signed registration forms. The results will now be submitted to the Guinness World Records...

A recent e-mail from a dedicated teacher illustrates a problem that has received far too little attention. In her kindergarten class was a little black girl who did well except for getting a very obvious question wrong. It turned out that the little girl had no problem with the concepts or the facts but had misinterpreted a word because it sounded like another word that she had heard used at home, where a "black English" dialect was spoken. Since the teacher was white, she knew that she was running a risk by getting into this issue. Opening this can of...

I recently took some time to review the final documents generated by the Royal Commission on renewing and strengthening Newfoundland and Labrador’s place in Canada. Even though the commission delivered its final report back in 2002, I don’t believe many people in the province and country have taken the time to examine the results, nor do I believe the media or both levels of government have given enough thought to its contents. ... The first is the fact that 72% of Canadians see Newfoundlanders and Labradorians as a distinct culture. This is very telling. Quebec has been officially recognized in...

2005 is the year of the Veteran. With this in mind, I thought I’d take a moment to talk about the treatment of these brave men and women in our culture today. As mentioned in a previous article--Are Legion Members Getting a Fair Deal — from May 31st of this year, I believe our Veterans are getting a raw deal in this country and even in our own province. As of July 1, they will no longer be allowed to light up a cigarette in their own Legion halls. As they age, they are often forgotten in senior's homes and,...

Claim: A Newfoundland rig manager snapped an underwater photograph of an enormous iceberg. Status: False. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001] "This is an amazing shot. This came from a Rig Manager for Global Marine Drilling in St. Johns, Newfoundland. They actually have to divert the path of these things away from the rig by towing them with ships! Anyway, in this particular case the water was calm & the sun was almost directly overhead so that the diver was able to get into the water and click this pic. They estimated the weight at 300,000,000 tons." Origins: Charming story,...

Jennifer Murphy was known for her promiscuity. But the 31-year-old woman arrested earlier this month after she was accused of knowingly spreading the virus that causes AIDS — by having unprotected sex with a soldier — was also known to neighbours as a polite and well-mannered woman, friendly and average. Now military investigators are trying to reconcile the two faces of the woman they've held in custody since March 2, even as they're warning Canadian soldiers around the world to seek medical advice if they suspect they've been involved in the scandal that's roiling Canadian Forces Base Borden, 20 kilometres...

Over 300 Boy Scouts from Ontario and New York State gathered at Rattlesnake Point in Milton, Ontario this past summer for a four-day 'Camporee'. I had the opportunity to observe one of the American troops conduct a flag retirement ceremony on the final evening and I was struck by the reverence displayed. Every Scout, Canadian and American, was quieter than if they were at church as the individual pieces of a well-worn stars and stripes were added to the dying flames of the bonfire. There are probably few Canadians who have seen such a sight. Our flag protocol simply states...

Nfld. CEO Changes Her Name As Slap At Ottawa Halifax — Marie Routhier would prefer to be called Marie Johnston from now on. And to ensure it happens, she went to the Newfoundland and Labrador vital statistics office last week to officially register the change. It is one of the more extreme reactions to the federal and provincial governments' failure to reach an offshore deal in recent weeks that has seen an emotional and frustrated Premier Danny Williams order all the Canadian flags taken down from provincial buildings only to reconsider days later. Ms. Johnston, the 25-year-old chief executive officer...

Newfoundland Should Get Out of Canada If Things Remain The Same! December, 23, 2004 Halifax, Nova Scotia By Clinton P. Desveaux For 55 years Newfoundland has been waiting on the promise that being a Canadian province would offer amazing opportunities. Well amazing opportunities have happened all right, amazing in the sense that Newfoundland and Labrador is sort of a giant steamship slowly sinking under the weight of an iceberg called Canada! The funny thing about Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans however is that unlike Québécois, or Albertan’s who will never send Liberals to Ottawa again to represent them in front of the...

Viking map may rewrite US history Agençe France-Presse Friday, 26 November 2004 Experts are testing the map to see if it is really evidence for Vikings landing in the New World first, not Columbus (Image: Climate Monitoring & Diagnostics Lab) Danish experts will travel to the U.S. to study evidence that the Vikings landed in the New World five centuries before Columbus. A controversial parchment said to be the oldest map of America could, if authentic, support the theory that the Vikings arrived first. The map is said to date from 1434 and was found in 1957. Some people believe...

After 100 years, the Rock and Bullwinkle are locked in a love-hate relationship. The beast is everywhere, SHAWNA RICHER reports, and Newfoundlanders love it as a source of food and tourist revenue. But they just hate the rising carnage it's causing on their highways, and some are now calling for drastic action Saturday, August 21, 2004 - Page F4 I wished to see a moose near at hand. -- Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods, 1864. Three days had passed and hope was fast fading. Suddenly, there it was, standing nonchalantly at the foot of the steep, densely treed slope...

What did you make of that poll showing 40% of Canadian teens regard America as “evil”? A little statistical oversampling of various Khadr nephews and nieces in southern Ontario perhaps? But no, these seem to be regular well-adjusted wholesome all-American-hating Canadian teens. And the only sub-group variation I saw in the Dominion Institute’s survey was that, when it comes to francophone teens, the number who regard America as an “evil global force” rises to 64%. Given that, unlike other Yankophobic nations, the Canadian economy has only one customer, our anti-Americanism is, obviously, psychologically unhealthy: we decline to put our money...

Outrage at new mass slaughter of baby seals Images of cull return to haunt world again Mark Townsend Sunday April 11, 2004 The Observer Soon after dawn breaks above Newfoundland tomorrow, the ice sheets will be suffused with crimson as an army of hunters embark on the largest single cull of baby seals in more than half a century. Up to 10,000 animals are scheduled to be killed every hour during daylight. By nightfall on Tuesday, at least 140,000 young harp seals will have been shot, beaten or clubbed to death on the huge ice floes found among the seas...

Newfoundland, Norfolk Terrier Aim to Be Top Dog at Westminster By Ben Walker The Associated Press/Feb.10,'04 NEW YORK (AP) - With so many top dogs in town, any win at Westminster is a big deal. So it made perfect sense that Karen Mammano let out a playful yelp when the judge picked her American water spaniel. No matter that Shane was the only American water spaniel in the show. "Yeah, it was a little strange being out there all by ourselves," Mammano said. "But hey, I'll take an automatic win." Hours later, the competition promised to get a lot tougher...

STEPHENVILLE, Nfld. (CP) - Newfoundland has become the latest province to refuse to prosecute gun owners who don't register their weapons. Premier Roger Grimes drew a loud round of applause Thursday night in Stephenville when he said the federal government can enforce the law itself. He said provincial conservation officers will continue to go after people who violate hunting regulations. But he said the province will not enforce a law that it does not agree with. Recently, New Brunswick made the same decision. And Premier Bernard Lord said the federal government should abandon the gun registry altogether since a majority...

PORTLAND — On May 14, 1804, William Clark wrote in his journal that "under a jentle brease," the boats of the Corps of Discovery headed up the Missouri with "46 men, 4 horses and 1 dog." With the Lewis and Clark expedition's bicentennial, narratives and edited journals are flying off the presses. Much of what there is to tell has been told. At least two new books tell the tale of the voyage supposedly from the dog's point of view. The shaggy, black, bearlike Newfoundland dog that accompanied them on the 8,000-mile, 28-month trek into the unknown remains largely in...

Ottawa dismisses Nfld. call to amend Constitution Last Updated Fri May 9 08:44:32 2003 OTTAWA-- The federal government says there's no point renegotiating Newfoundland and Labrador's union with Canada because it won't "bring back the fish." On Thursday, the province's governing Liberals introduced a resolution in the legislature demanding the Constitution be amended. Premier Roger Grimes said Newfoundland should be given joint control over the fishing industry. Currently, the federal government has jurisdiction over the oceans. "Time is running out," said Grimes, who is furious over Ottawa's recent decision to virtually close the cod fishery. Stephane Dion But when...

Canada Closes Newfoundland Cod FisheriesST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland, Canada, April 28, 2003 (ENS) - The government of Canada has announced the closure of three cod stocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and northeast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Recent scientific assessments of the stocks determined they are at historically low levels and show no signs of imminent recovery despite a decade of severe conservation measures. In 2000, these three cod stocks were worth about C$23 million in landed value, compared to about C$1.8 billion for the entire Atlantic fishery. The landed value of these stocks has been steadily decreasing for...

Fish workers burn Canadian flag in Nfld. protest Last Updated Mon Apr 28 19:08:34 2003 ST. JOHN'S-- Angry fish workers burned a Canadian flag on Monday as rallies were held at federal Fisheries Department offices in at least two centres in Newfoundland and Labrador. INDEPTH: The codless sea The protest, organized by the Fish, Food and Allied Workers, brought about 75 people to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans offices at Clarenville, where they took down the Canadian flag and burned it. They sent the Newfoundland and Labrador flag up the mast to replace it. The protesters say they're...

Readers offer to take girl's moose home By JERRY WEST The Daily News The Astroturf moose and its baby are going home. The life-size wooded moose, covered in Astroturf, were stolen from their Newfoundland home during the filming of The Shipping News last year. They turned up on a metro golf course last week after The Daily News began making inquiries to people who had been involved in the shoot. Now, some readers have offered to take the moose back to Newfoundland, saving their owner up to $1,200 in shipping costs. “We just thought it would be a nice thing...

<p>LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Viking longhouse that many believe was the home of Snorri Thorfinnsson, thought to be the first European born in the New World.</p> <p>The 1,000-year-old ruins were found in a glacial valley in northern Iceland during a survey of Viking-era buildings led by archaeologists at the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>

Archaeologists find legendary Icelandic home By Times Wire Services A UCLA team has found the Iceland home of Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first person of European descent born in the New World. Icelandic sagas from the 13th century tell the story of how Snorri’s parents led the first Scandinavian group that attempted to settle in Vinland — on the Canadian coast — around A.D. 1000. The attempt failed, and the family moved to Iceland, but Snorri was born while they were there. The “Vinland Sagas,” which also tell the story of Leif Ericson, are the earliest recorded history of the Scandinavian...

Admit it, Saskatchewan has failed to convince the rest of Canada Daylight Savings Time (DST) is bad. No province has adopted DST only to revoke it later. The rest of Canada was treated to the wonders of "Saskatchewan Time" on federal election night in 1997 when our polling results were delayed until after results from British Columbia because of time zone confusion. More Saskatchewan people than ever conclude that for our own convenience, and to end the confusion of others, this should change. Switching to Central Daylight Time (CDT) in April, 2003 and returning to CST in October, 2003 would...

The federal government has selected Gander, Nfld., as the site for a national remembrance ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Jean Chrétien will lead the remembrance service in Gander, the Atlantic outpost where dozens of international flights made emergency landings on the day air traffic was grounded because of terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. Plans for the ceremony were to be kept secret until next week. But an event co-ordinator confirmed yesterday it will go ahead and that the Prime Minister, as well as Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to...