At the Easternmost
By Mowahid Hussain Shah

Far from the madding crowd is the remote island of Newfoundland. In it is the easternmost tip of North America, Cape Spear, where two huge rusted cannons still guard the shoreline (reminiscent of the “Guns of Navarone” and a throwback to the World War II Battle of the Atlantic, which had raged nearby along its coast and in Atlantic international waters.)
Newfoundland was once part of the British dominion. On July 1, 1916, 710 Newfoundlanders (91% of the Newfoundland Regiment, 88th Brigade) were slaughtered in a single day in the Battle of the Somme, an unimaginable catastrophe for an island with a population then of only 240,000.
Newfoundland joined Canada on March 31, 1949. Only 1% of Newfoundland is agricultural, with most vegetables and fruits imported from outside. It is often cold, rainy, and windy, with a slower pace. The friendly capital St John’s sits alongside a harbor peopled by just over 100,000, with its multicolored houses striking a picturesque sight.
Newfoundland saw the beginnings of the first English settlement in the Western Hemisphere in 1497. Here, too, the first trans-Atlantic radio signal was heard from Cornwall on December 12, 1901 by Italian-born Guglielmo Marconi.
At this time of year, its waters are dotted with icebergs. An iceberg 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, in April 1912, sank the Titanic, whose first distress signal was heard on land in eastern Newfoundland. At St John’s, there is a dedicated exhibit to the self-proclaimed “unsinkable” Titanic in which also many passengers from Syria travelling in third class drowned. It is a warning against arrogance, how the seemingly invincible can become so vulnerable.
Prominently embedded at the National War Memorial is a commemorative Afghanistan plaque.
In St John’s once stood a pub where Trafalgar hero Horatio Nelson reportedly drank in 1782 after escorting a convoy from Ireland. Now, well-preserved nearby is the iconic naval officers’ club, “Crow’s Nest,” which is a World War II relic and once a welcome watering hole for naval fighting men seeking a momentary respite. My wife – whose father fought in the Battle of the Atlantic – and I were received there by the dynamic Margaret Morris, first-ever female president of the naval club, which retains its original décor. She told us that, much before there was awareness of PTSD, a prescient naval officer of the Canadian Navy, Captain E Rollo Mainguy, envisioned the need for a place to swap stories, switch off, and relax. In World War II, German U-boats menaced Newfoundland waters, sinking numerous ships. The Allies, we were informed, had expected that mines would be the principal threat to ships, not adequately realizing that the threat was submersible in the shape of the U-boat. Margaret pointed out to us that German technology then exceeded Allied capability and surprised them during the initial days of the war.
A big mosque dominates one of St John’s main thoroughfares. In the campus center of the Memorial University of Newfoundland, (offering Canada’s cheapest tuition), we met a vibrant group of Muslim students who had set up a kiosk. Out of 18,000 students, there are 1500 Muslims there, and on every weekday, they had Iftar arrangements.
At the hotel, the towels were labeled “Made in Pakistan.” One is never too far from home.