Last week it was all about feminine hygiene; this week, it’s all about curling and cowichan sweaters. By putting the two of these singularly-unbeatable elements together in one mighty blog post, I have apparently trounced all 102 of my other posts and generated a media monster of Frankensteinian proportions. No other post even comes close to the day-after-day, unassailable popularity of the post about bloody curling!

Did you even know that they closed the schools in Newfoundland when the curling final was on, so the kids could stay home and watch? Geez, I think that’s a bit optimistic. I mean, have you been to Newfoundland? I’m not sure they all have electricity, let alone cable. Hell, I’m not sure they all have opposable thumbs. Cartier described it as, “The land God gave to Cain,” and I don’t think he’s given it back, either. Ever met a Newfie? We should all take note of the fact that the definitive Newfie song was written over a bajillion and a half years ago by a 15-year-old cabin boy and they’ve come up with nothing better since.

They were so thrilled to have a celebrity describe their godforsaken rock, they turned the quote into a folk song. Remember what Tom Lehrer said about folk songs? “The reason most folk songs are so atrocious is that they were written by the people.” Makes hella sense, eh?

The Land God Gave to Cain

Long before the white man came
To haul the shining cod
When the wild and stately caribou
Traversed the snow-clad sod
The native man he walked these hills
And he fished the silvery lakes
Content with what the land would yield
Not one bit more would take

But soon the word it was put out
To every country
For to find a northern passage from
The sea to the shining sea
And the first to come were trappers
Then the men of God who preached
That they would return in hundredfold
An equal share to each

For years the men of Newfoundland
Those fishermen so poor
Sent down each year in springtime for
To fish on the Labrador
But soon the fish they were all gone
With the fur it was the same
And the native suffered silently
In the land God gave to Cain

The years went by, and as time passed
The companies moved in
For ore, and wood, and the hydro power
The struggle it did begin
And the working men on both sides
Tried to live their lives the same
And the native suffered silently
In the land God gave to Cain

But now it’s for the future
Both sides do shed a tear
For the old ways they are passing like
The caribou and hare
And now they all are wondering
If it was all in vain
And the native suffers silently
In the land God gave to Cain