Bully boys and ‘turning the buoys’: it’s a pivotal date for the summer

August 2024

The Royal St John’s Regatta is scheduled for Wednesday, August 7 – or, famously, maybe not. There are a lot of distinctive facts and singular traditions linked to the event: it’s longevity (dating to 1816), it’s association with the Newfoundland Regiment, even the pronunciation of the lake it is held on, but it is also the only holiday in North America to be determined by a civic committee. They study the weather, particularly wind conditions, and make the call at 6am. Hence another ritual: Regatta Roulette.

(Painting above: Regatta at Antwerp, 1906, by Othon Friesz)

Fiction

NORTHERN DETACHMENT

BY Clancy Margaret

The wind was still, but the cold was biting all the same. Stepping outside made her sinuses burn and her eyes water. She brushed the snow off the seat of her snowmobile—a mid-nineties Ski-Doo, always giving her trouble. She surveyed the town as she waited for the engine to warm up. It’s squat vinyl sided homes glowed amidst the dim winter daytime. Snowmobile tracks crisscrossed on the road but not a person was in sight. She checked her handheld GPS. The coordinates lined up with somewhere northwest, about a forty-five minute ride under the blanket of dark. There were no stars today. It was always cloudy.