Lac McPhee, QC - Tanya LeBlanc
My name is Eric Green. I’m a captain with McKeil, I’ve been with McKeil for just a year.
I am from a place called Francois in Newfoundland – the most beautiful place in the world. I grew up on the water, but my powerful memory was being born when my poor ol’ mother’s water broke when she had me. That was the big one, you know – during birth. That was the most important one for me anyway, and hopefully for her as well. We lived 50 ft from the salt water and in Francois where I grew up it was all boats so you cut your first teeth on a gunnel of a dory. You are always off on the dories because you had nothing else. Going around the harbour, rolling around. I think growing up on an out port in Newfoundland it was such that it gave you a better vision of what we have today. It makes you better people. Parents were there, not parents going off to work here and there, the old community raised you up and they taught you values in life. A lot of kids today unfortunately don’t get taught.
Water is important to me, salt water is because I make a living off the sea. But also fresh water is something we need. As I was telling our friend from Dublin, it is one of the natural sources in the world that we are losing so fast and people don’t realize we are losing the water.
Up where I come from, the place where we used to play with boats is dry now. People should realize that it is a resource that we shouldn’t be flushing down through the toilets and the sinks and we are throwing away every day. It’s something that we need to survive. Water in where I live in Francois, well the only way to get out of there is by water. There is no roads or cars there. One thing about water vs. flying is if your engine breaks down you are going to drift and then you are going fall very far.
So water is very important to all of us, it should be important to all of us. I guess not to the land-lovers, but to us sea-going people it is pretty good.