STUCK on the west coast of Scotland, Prestwick, like Gander in Newfoundland and Shannon in Ireland, is one of those out-of-the-way aerodromes that owe their existence to fog and propellers.
And so it is with the moose in Newfoundland.The moose may be a Canadian icon, but in the island of Newfoundland it is an alien, introduced a century ago when local leaders reckoned their presence would attract hunters and tourists to what was a struggling British colony.
Diamond prospectors found the deposit near the coast of Canada's easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1993 (see map); the mine, which is operated by Vale of Brazil, opened in 2005.
The Portuguese, who had been selling salt to Scandinavia since the 12th century, quickly set up cod-fishing outposts in Newfoundland, and salt cod became deeply ingrained in Iberian culinary culture (both Spanish and Portuguese use the same word for "cod" and "salt cod": (bacalao and bacalhau, respectively).
Its fishing boats roam from the coasts of Newfoundland to Namibia.
By 2009 Newfoundland is likely to join Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia as the only provinces whose tax base is strong enough not to qualify for a federal top-up under a scheme to equalise provincial finances, says Wade Locke, an economist at Memorial University in St John's.
It will not happen quickly.The government of Nunatsiavut, an Inuit region of northern Labrador established in 2005, has already taken back human remains from museums in Chicago and Newfoundland.
As Mark Abrahams, a biologist at Memorial University in Newfoundland, points out, it is not just the fish that have been modified by man, but also the environment in which they could escape.
Newfoundland will allow concentrate to be shipped to smelters in central Canada in the early years, provided that ore is imported later from Inco's other mines to be processed in a full-scale plant at Argentia (to which the federal government will contribute C$150m).
Last week in Newfoundland and Labrador province, two couples began court action under the equality clause in the federal constitution's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
On July 1st 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the Newfoundland Regiment the Dominion's only contribution to the war suffered over 90% casualties, far higher than any other independent participant in the war.
