Richard LeBlond
About nine miles north of Newfoundland’s Port aux Basques, near Cape Ray, the Trans-Canada Highway passes between two hills affectionately known as “The Tits.” They are less frequently, but with the same affection, called “The Dolly Partons.” I have heard these terms used as far away as the Strait of Belle Isle, nearly 450 highway miles to the north. The two hills are not only shaped like human female breasts, they are also positioned proportionately. It is as if the highway enters the green décolletage of a resting giantess.
On average, Americans and mainland Canadians are a little more prudish than Newfoundlanders. Some – especially among the Americans – may find the mildly vulgar “tits” indecent. Many of these same offended people are likely oblivious to the meaning of Grand Teton, the name of the Wyoming mountain and national park. Grand Teton is French for an impressively large female breast. If the U.S. ever makes English the official language, the site may have to be renamed as Big Tit National Park.
This is not the first time that adjacent earthy hills have been so coarsely handled in Newfoundland. In the 18th century, the British Admiralty commissioned the explorer James Cook to map the Newfoundland coastline. Cook gave the name “Our Ladies Bubies” to two mammalian mounds rising from the sea north of Port au Choix. Cook later changed the name to “The Twin Islands,” foreshadowing a more recent argument.
There has been a local movement to call the Cape Ray buttes “The Twin Hills.” This proponent of decorum recently got a D-cup’s worth of governmental support. Workers from the nearby Doyles office of the Newfoundland Transportation & Works Department erected a sign reading “Twin Peaks” along the highway near the hills. An official at Doyles said the sign came “from above,” from somewhere within the department hierarchy.
Considering there are several impressive mountains along the Trans-Canada Highway without name signs, the question must be asked: Is “Twin Peaks” a sneaky-weaselly passive-aggressive government crack-down on any vernacular that might scare the tourists?
The sign asserts itself day and night, but as I learned at the Port Club lounge in Port aux Basques, the vernacular hangs on. I have discovered during my travels in Newfoundland that lounges are part of the curriculum. They are not essential to meet people – for that, all one need do is show up on the island – but they do reveal other layers of the Newfoundland character, especially the sense of humor.
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All but two of the stools at the Port Club’s small counter were filled by four of the biggest, bearded, leathered, and studded bikers you or I have ever seen, along with three female traveling companions.
“I was wondering whether this place would be tough enough for me,” I said to the gathering as I walked up to the bar, reason left at the door. “And I think it is.”
They chuckled politely, being working-class gentlemen and gentlewomen from Moncton, New Brunswick. We chatted about the overhanging glooms – rain and the miserable economy – but they soon left, having appointments to scare the daylights out of someone on the night ferry to Nova Scotia.
Over the course of two beers, I spoke a bit with Trudy, the young, smart, and self-assured bar mistress. She was pretty enough to have qualified for work anywhere. Like so many of her generation, she could have found more profitable employment in Ontario or Alberta, but said she would "Never!" leave Newfoundland. That made me proud of her, my own nomadic life notwithstanding.
She mentioned that she lived 15 minutes from town, and I asked where.
"Cape Ray," she said.
"Near The Tits?" I asked with all the restraint of a school boy.
"Very near,” she said. “I live in the cleavage."
