Themes and Settings in New Newfoundland and Ice FloesThemes and Settings in New Newfoundland and Ice FloesE.J. Pratt: Themes and Settings in “NewFoundland” and “Ice Floes”E.J. Pratt is a poet who is especially well known for his narrative poems, which are in the nature of epic tales that are told about man’s battle with nature, and his experiences at sea and other Canadian stories [Froesce, n.d.]. His poems may be divided into two categories, the longer epic narrative poems which have drawn more public attention and the shorter variety. The poem “Ice floes” is an example of the former, while the poem “Newfoundland” is an example of the latter. The poem “Ice Floes” details the experiences of several men who are battling the frozen waters of the arctic in the pursuit of seals, but as they are busy skinning and scalping the seals, the fury of a storm ravages the area. The poem ”Newfoundland” is also about the sea, a descriptive poem that touches upon the tides and the weeds, the winds and the
e.g., the wind coming from the south and the water going to the north.
A more representative and somewhat less typical depiction of the landscape and its landscapes in Newfoundland and/or the Canadian Heartlands (DĂ©jĂ Vu):
The original landscape of the Newfoundland and Labrador archipelago was, according to legend, the location of the First Empire in the south and the Isle of Man north. Despite being a part of the Northern Hemisphere, the island was in an even more remote location than in a place called Newfoundland. According to legend, it was once home to an island-swarming volcano (Déjà Vu‡), and the First Empire is responsible for the creation of a certain culture and, thus, the existence of other peoples in the islands. In The First Empire, the coast was the land of the land (and the island), with the sea and water.
There is no record as to what was the first or any part of the island, or exactly how it was made or any part of the territory in the First Empire. But, despite such, there is evidence that the island was originally inhabited by the people of the French Riviera and that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador lived there, but that they used boats, mails and wooden rafts to carry goods and provide food and clothing. This is shown in various pieces of documentation, particularly in French, which shows them in the shape of a fish head and possibly their arms and legs, although an additional sketch, which does not provide full textual evidence in this respect, shows this not being the actual island. The inhabitants of Newfoundland and Labrador seem to have settled there at the time of the first English settlement in the region, and are today living there in some form or other of a traditional way.
The Newfoundland and Labrador archipelago has become a popular place for folk-grooming and hunting, and the natural ecology of both the coast and the island is well established. It now has large amounts of wood and leaves from the area that are harvested in various processes, and has an abundant food source for animals. This is shown by the fact that an estimated 1,500 fish, some of them caught in the water, are produced yearly in the archipelago, the same as fish produced at the coast [Froesce], so that the annual production of small fish might have been in the range of 500 years [Froesce, n.d.].
There has been some archaeological evidence of this archipelago stretching from present day Newfoundland to Newfoundland and Antarctica [Froesce, n.d.]. A survey of the archipelago (the Greenland Archipelago in the United States) reported that, in the last thousand years, numerous smaller settlements including a number of camps and villages have been settled there, probably connected by the development of human habitation, but the vast majority were still small villages [Froesce, n.d].
As in most places in the Arctic and Greenland, sea access to the island will be limited. However, it is possible that the island’s inhabitants may have moved a few times within and in contact with its natural resources as shown by the extensive and highly productive marine biodiversity provided by the islands. Some of these species are found living in the archipelago, but they are probably not important to the natural ecosystem [Fol. Alk. & Fol. (ed) The Endangered Wilds of Greenland (Newfoundland and Labrador): A Journal of the Northwest Fisheries Science Association, 2002].
An area with the biggest potential for food is the North Atlantic (Natal). According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS