The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

Narrative & Memoir 71 times, to a cold island in the Canadian North Atlantic, the province of Newfoundland. Of these fifteen trips, I have gone on five. This was my fifth trip and we were visiting one of our favorite spots on that island, a driftwood shelter. Driftwood is wooden debris that strong waves snatched from coastline forests, whoosh, and, during a storm thrust to shore, swoosh. While in the sea, the salt water pierces the wood hardening and bleaching it. In Newfoundland, the sea covers whole beaches with this debris. On one particular beach, fifteen years ago, my grandfather piled some of this driftwood against a cold cliff side and started a shelter. I saw this shelter during my first visit to Newfoundland in 2003. Unfortunately, in a large storm, the sea claimed it. Without hesitating my grandfather constructed another shelter in the same location only to have the sea take it as well. Not an ideal situation but he persevered and pioneered a new location for the shelter to be located. Now, during this last trip to Newfoundland in 2015, my brother and I were carrying a large piece of driftwood towards the third shelter. The salty air scent touched my nose and I thought of all the sea had done against not only that piece of wood but also the other shelters my grandfather had erected. We stopped to look upon his creation a scattering of loose tree limbs, lobster traps, and rope. It is not, by any means, a beach resort. It does not fully keep the rain out nor does it provide great seating inside its wet, mossy interior. Nevertheless, its value, like Newfoundland itself, does not rely upon its amenities; it is about its meaning to him and the rest of my family. It is a sign of his love for that island in Canada. I climb up the face of the shelter with one part of the beam in my hand and the other in my brother’s hand. The beammakes several loud clunks on the rocks below but I continue to hoist one side while my brother supports the other. It takes a while but we finally lift it above the structure and send it straight through the driftwood below. We are building a roof for the second floor of the shelter and that piece will serve as a support. As my brother and I set the beam in place, my grandfather stands back from his fire and admires our engineering feat. I also like to think that he was proudly thinking about how we will continue on his love for the shelter and, more importantly, the island of Newfoundland.