On our first (and only) trip to Newfoundland years ago, we arrived a day before the convention we were to attend began. At the airport the first thing we did on arrival was rent a car for the duration of our stay. And once we had checked into the hotel where we had reservations and where the conference was to take place, we set out to do a little bit of exploration. Not of St. John's, that would come later, on foot, but of the island itself.

We drove along the coast on this rocky outcrop in Canada's east where the vast Atlantic sits resplendent and the rock that is Newfoundland showed us ample evidence of what existence alongside the ocean where storms frequently blow in and the terrain has long since been swept of any arable soil that might have accumulated without the influence of the constant winds was like for vulnerable botanical specimens. The size of the occasional gnarled, dwarf trees clinging tenaciously to the rock, growing in whatever sparse soil was available, constantly buffeted by salt spray and high winds told all.

We drove, and we drove, slowly and determined to see and assess what life in this hostile but forbiddingly beautiful environment was like for its stalwart people. We came across one tidy and colourful outport fishing town after another, marvelling at the sense of wry humour displayed in neat picket fences hammered into the granite surrounding each house. None of the householders would have need of a lawnmower to do the usual gardening chores that such fences implied. They were picture-perfect vestiges of human determination to make do with whatever survival mechanisms are available in various types of environments.

The villages were quiet and serene in appearance, some with small fish-processing facilities apparent, others just silent, and with a haunting look of sad and reluctant abandonment, though fresh laundry was seen, white and flapping ceaselessly, as though a message of surrender to the environment representing a version of the provincial flag.

Because the hotel was close by we had no need to drive to Signal Hill, and climbed it early one morning, me wearing a pair of red leather dress shoes with a tiny stump of a heel, certain to have been ruined in the process. Who might have thought to bring along boots to a conference? I should have known enough to reckon with my husband's never-ending sense of curiosity. From the top of the promontory looking out over the wild, deep and wide Atlantic, we looked with wonder at waves crest and smash against the shore, and far out on its vast stretches we watched dimly-perceived shapes we were certain to be whales.

When it came time to leave, one of St. John's famous fogs muffled the landscape, and our flight was repeatedly delayed. People waited at the airport in droves, milling about restlessly, many with hand-luggage representing lobster-packed boxes to take back home. We had stuffed ourselves with an endless offering of lobster at the end-of-conference dinner that had featured a stand-up comedian who treated us to the best of the island's wry, cynical humour. The audience responded with gales of laughter at his famed patois of Newfiespeak and the vast cultural divide he emphasized existing between Newfoundlanders and those from "away".

One wonders now what the perpetually quipping Newfoundlanders make of the news out of St. John's of a 20-year-old woman driving her car over Signal Hill, abandoning it just as it plunged over the cliff high over the Atlantic. Not everyone's idea of a nice restful Sunday. Breaking free of the car's plummet, the woman landed 45 metres down the cliff face, to be rescued 20 minutes later by emergency crews and taken to hospital with serious injuries.

One woman has been taken to hospital after a dramatic single-vehicle crash on Signal Hill, Sunday, Apr.3, 2016. . . THE CANADIAN PRESS/St.John's Evening Telegram-Keith Gosse