The Grey Islands

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities:
British Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and the author of The Salvation
Army and the Public.

The islands referred to in the title are situated a few miles off the
northeast coast of Newfoundland. Once the site of a thriving fishing
community, they now host nothing more than derelict homes, seagulls, a
herd of caribou, ghosts, and the occasional visitor like the author.

In the early 1980s, Steffler decided to spend a summer on the islands
in solitude and soul-searching. His record of that experience, pieced
together with poetic reverie, descriptive narrative, and stories of
people living and dead, is a masterpiece of wilderness writing. Its
brilliance lies in Steffler’s ability to see what’s immediately in
front of him, not to gaze at the background: “it’s enough to record
/ what’s obvious. / here in the foreground. / but always this is
what’s / hardest to see.” Whether it’s the people, the “rock’s
sweet lichen crackling underfoot,” or a sense of ghostly presences,
Steffler brings their faces close to the mind’s camera and invests
them with a tactile immediacy. His writing is at once lyrical and
comical (“burning wood. to dry wood. to burn”), and filled with
unforgettable moments of pathos and beauty. This is a book to linger
over and revisit when the far-off wilderness calls.