The Emerald Arm

Ray Miller has been kind enough to send along some pictures of his property in Southeast ('Southeast Placentia,' properly, for those from away). These green grassy summery lawns look especially nice after all the snow and slush we've had over the last few days (Ray informs me the largest lawn area is longer than a football field!). Ray's an artist (more on that in future) and he must draw no end of inspiration from such surroundings. And of course, it's great for weddings or just general portraits.

Considering Southeast's verdant tranquility, it's easy to see why it was the island's favoured vacation spot through to the 1950's (and perhaps later?). I wish I had Olive Power's series of articles on the history of Southeast at hand. The list of luminaries who have vacationed in Southeast (staying in one of several hotels) in the past is astonishing.

Why Southeast? Well, it's sheltered on all sides (so it's always a few degrees warmer!), the arm is usually calm as a pond, and the Southeast River has some of the finest fishing in the province. And let's not forget, before the construction of the Argentia Access Road, the road to Conception Bay and St. John's wound its way along the Southeast Arm, too. Beautiful, tranquil, and accessible.

One has to wonder, if the shamefully neglected Route 91 connecting to Colinet and on to the Salmonier Line were ever properly paved and maintained, would Southeast return to some of its prior prominence? In terms of actual kilometres traveled, that route to St. John's is actually shorter than the Access road. Of course, anyone who has traveled its gravel lengths knows which one is quicker!

Skewed weathermaps

If you're anything like me, some maps of Canada can be irksome. Why? Well, because we're so far east here in Newfoundland, they cram us into the upper-right hand corner of the map. You'd swear we were next door to Greenland, to look at them.

Well, the next time you want to give a smug "oh-you-must-be-used-to-the-cold" Mainlander a little trip, ask him which city is further south, Vancouver or St. John's. The answer? Why, our dear old St. John's Town, of course, by 187 kilometres too (so here in Placentia, we're more than 200 km south of that balmy BC metropolis).

Just as a trivia fact, we're also further south than Paris. In fact, the French Capital of Newfoundland (our own Plaisance, naturally) is 179 km to the south of the French Capital of . . . er . . . France.

If you click below, you'll see a little display I made up, with the aid of Google Earth. (In fact, all of these figures were calculated with Google Earth . . . what a great time-waster!) This is if major Canadian cities were on the same east-west latitude as St. John's.

As always, click to enlarge the image

Placentia's Floodplain

Since it's such a rainy day, I thought it might be interesting to take a brief look at Placentia's flood-y history.

Tropical Storm Chantal was a bit of anomaly, as floods go. Up until the 1990's, it wasn't rain that would flood us, it was tide, and it wasn't Dunville or Ship Harbour or Southeast or Point Verde that was at risk, it was the flats of Placentia itself.

Check out this flood risk map, from the Water Resources Atlas of Newfoundland. As you can see, naturally most of Placentia floods approximately once every 20 years; the lighter pink floods once every 100 years. It seems only the area from the Star Hall through to CONA is in the clear. The historic district of town seems to be most at risk.

Unfortunately, Old Placentia's prognosis is not good, from an environmental point of view. According to a Memorial University-run website, although the embankment facing the open sea and the seawall all along the Orcan protects us now, "it will be increasingly difficult to protect Placentia from floods" "if one of the effects of global warming is a rise in sea-level."

I guess we'll deal with it as we always have done. Placentia has had some terrible floods over the years, and in future entries I'll delve further into this aspect of our history. It's part of the geographical nature of the town --- we're Newfoundland's version of Venice or New Orleans.