Bernadette Shea dropped into the Oran office to share her news of writing a book on a trip to Newfoundland called Thumbin’ the Rock.
-by Beverley Phillips
What in the world would possess two 60-plus-year-old women to hitchhike for two weeks around Newfoundland with one bag, a guitar, and a Scrabble board on a shoestring budget?
And yet, that is just what Bernadette Shea and her sister Dolly Pigeon did in 2012, when they were 60 and 72 years old, respectively. Shea has just written a book on their adventure.
Shea was born in Glace Bay. Her father was a coal miner, but when the mines started closing down, they moved to Onaonaping, Ontario, a nickel mining town, when she was five. Though she didn’t grow up in Cape Breton, she heard stories of the family’s time there from older siblings and knew she was a Cape Bretoner. It turned out that she was the only one who ever moved back.
Some readers may remember her as Bernadette Goth, the singer who started the regular live entertainment at the Normaway Inn. Though living in Lanesville (near Stewiacke) now, previous relationships had her living in Margaree for three years, and Mabou for nine. “I’m very fond of that whole western coast of Cape Breton,” said Shea. “My mother was from Cheticamp. So right down the coast, that’s where I call home. I’m a Route 19 girl.”
And while she loves Inverness County and hopes to retire here someday, she also loves visiting Newfoundland and Labrador, as does her sister. They never went there together, but always said they should. But life happens, and the trip never did.
The idea for the adventure came one evening as Shea was washing dishes and listening to CBC’s As It Happens. A story came on about an 83-year-old woman from Norway who had just hitchhiked across Canada. It hatched her plan. Shea thought to herself, “Well, this woman did it at 83, she crossed Canada. We’re just going to get in the boat and hitchhike Newfoundland.”
She immediately called her sister and said, “Doll, you still want to go to Newfoundland?” She said, “Yes, and I’m not getting any younger.” I said, “Well, look. I think we should make a trip.” She says, “When do you want to do it?” I said, “Well, could you be here in four days?” She said, “Four days?” And I said, “Yes.” She said, “I’ll do it.”
And then Shea told her that there was one stipulation – that they were going to hitchhike. “She could have said I’m crazy, or that’s not safe, or a million other things, but we’re cut from the same piece of cloth. She said, ‘I’ll be there.’ And I picked her up four days later. We didn’t save any money. We had a few hundred dollars each and an old grocery buggy we pulled behind us, and I put my guitar in my back, and that’s how we started.”
Though her sister needed no convincing, her husband Brian did. But he, too, loved Newfoundland and fished and hunted moose there every year and relented, saying, “You know, if it was anywhere else on earth I would really have a problem with this, but I think in Newfoundland you’re going to be fine.”
Her son and daughter are thrilled about the book, but they didn’t know at the time that she was on such an adventure. She said, “I thought if I could deal with my husband, that’ll be enough. They don’t have to know.”
Shea and Pigeon left their car in North Sydney and walked on to the ferry. They sailed into Argentia and from there had to find rides to St. John’s, around to Twillingate, up to St. Anthony, and down to Port aux Basque to catch the ferry back to North Sydney. They covered the whole island in two weeks, with no car and no reservations.
The book chronicles their journey from that evening doing dishes to back home again, and a few final stories to wrap up the adventure. Shea is a natural storyteller and a ball of energy, and it translates to her writing. She writes as she speaks, and the book is an entertaining ride as she shares the rides that picked them up, the random places they stayed, and the people they met.
To stay within their meagre budget, they split meals and stayed in youth hostels when they could, where they were, needless to say, the oldest guests. They depended on the kindness of strangers for just about everything. They were very thankful for every act of kindness, great and small, though perhaps especially thankful when they got rides as they hitchhiked in the rain and wind of Hurricane Leslie.
The adventure led Shea to become part of Twillingate lore. “I got myself a gig in Twillingate,” she said. “And my son works up in the Arctic, and he called me one day, and said, “The whole of Twillingate is talking about you.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, there’s a young guy who just got on board today from Twillingate. I told him my mother just wrote a book on Twillingate and there’s a great big chapter on Twillingate.” And he said, “Is that your mother? The whole town is talking about your mother, and they’re waiting for the book.”
Her stories point to her philosophy on life. “When you’re lying on your deathbed,” said Shea, “you don’t want to be saying, ‘what if,’ or ‘if I’d only.’ If you’ve got a burning desire to do something, just do it, do it! Because we don’t know if we’ve got tomorrow. And I don’t want to lie there with those kinds of regrets if I really wanted to do something. Do it. It might not work out, but you can’t say you didn’t try.”
And as Shea was inspired by the woman who hitchhiked across Canada, she hopes their story will motivate others to believe they can go on such an adventure, too. “We think travel is usually something for the wealthy or the young, or for men,” she said. “But a lot of women, especially if they’re our age, or they don’t have a lot of money, they don’t think that they are capable or have the means to travel. And I think, as we went on, we just may motivate some women to think, ‘I don’t need to be a man. I don’t need to be rich. I just want to have an adventure.’ And you can do it too. We had the trip of a lifetime. It was unbelievable, and it wasn’t just about one ride after another. It was about the people of Newfoundland. The people who stopped, and every one of them had a story to tell, and the stories we heard! Well, they’ll just blow you away.”
To read more about her adventure and some of those stories, the book comes out on June 18th and can be ordered through most bookstores and online. The ebook is available for pre-order now from most ebook retailers. If you happen to be in Halifax this summer, copies of the book will also be in stock at the Dartmouth Book Exchange.
She plans to have a book signing in Inverness. No date has been set yet. Keep an eye out for details at: somewhatgrumpypress.com/thumbin .