The ship he’s on can deploy the CH-124 Sea King helicopter, designed to seek out and destroy submarines. It has a helicopter deck fitted with what’s called a “bear trap” allowing the launch and recovery of helicopters at sea. In my Mommy mind, it’s a war ship. 

Pride & worry

The Halifax carries weapons, like an anti-submarine weapon torpedo-thing. As I found out on Google, there’s a “RGM-84 Harpoon Block 1C surface-to-surface missile,” and for anti-aircraft self-defence the ship is also “armed with the Sea Sparrow vertical launch surface-to-air missile in two Mk 48 Mod 0 eight-cell launchers placed port and starboard of the funnel.” 

There’s 16 missiles, a Raytheon/General Dynamics Phalanx Mark 15 Mod 21 Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) for “last-ditch” defence against targets that evade the Sea Sparrow. For good measure, there’s plenty of guns, one capable of firing 2.4-kilogram (5.3 lb) shells at a rate of 220 rounds per minute at a range of more than 17 kilometres. 

Dear Lord, give me strength.

Let’s face it, none of the above is really great Mommy information to have when the kid you used to hold onto so tightly is sitting on a real-life version of a military-grade Lego model. The Halifax has seen a few things in its day.

From naval blockade work in the Adriatic Sea, to taking part in the NATO naval exercise “Linked Seas” off Portugal and the “Strong Resolve” off Norway to assisting in recovery following the crash of Swissair Flight 111, the ship my son sails on has made many a Canadian proud – and many a loved one worry. Eager to see the world, my lad took off to sea. Ironically, two weeks later, The Halifax sailed into St. John’s Harbour. 

While that no doubt annoyed my boy, it made his Mommy very happy – at least at first. I drove down constantly just to stare at the ship. I listened. I watched. 

On the day the ship left, I took my work to the deck at Atlantic Place and I stayed put as The Halifax prepared to sail away. Using the camera’s zoom, I spied like a mad woman on a mission as the many military men and women prepared for their next sailing adventure. 

Wished for more time

As the ship pulled away, I bawled like a baby. It was in that moment I realized my baby is gone. He’s on a three year mission at sea and when he returns to our NL  home – if he does – it will be as a guest. 

I took pictures. I posed for a few selfies. I took some video. And I wished for more time and for a mountain’s worth of do-overs. But, I knew that ship had sailed. As I watched The Halifax head out through the Narrows, I accepted that the time for embracing my son physically were pretty much done, at least for a bit, and now it was time to embrace the letting go. It’s not easy, though. While I’m incredibly proud, I’d take the agony of stepping on a stray Lego block over the heart pain of watching that ship sail out the Narrows. 

reflective feature, MacDonald shared the incredibly personal reasons behind why his 

professional and creative endeavours have blossomed the way they have

Meeting Newfoundland’s preeminent sculptor Morgan MacDonald in person is quite a treat, especially when it’s at the unveiling of one of his brilliant and touching creations.

On the grounds of Government House is where The Newfoundland Outport Nursing and Industrial Association (NONIA) held their 100th Anniversary Ceremony. Her Honour Judy M. Foote, Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador, as Patron, unveiled MacDonald’s latest statue and planted a commemorative tree on the grounds of Government House. 

The statue, depicting a child holding a ball of wool while Nan knits in a rocking chair passing down a long-held Newfoundland and Labrador tradition, is captivating. But then MacDonald is well known for his large monumental bronze works and sculptural interpretations of history and culture. 

Fine Arts achievement

An award winning artist – the recipient of the Memorial University 2016 Horizon Awards for outstanding achievement under the age of 35 –  MacDonald works alongside his artistic team creating from a foundry and studio in Logy Bay. As is on display at Government House, his works are highly realistic and technical in nature with an emphasis on expressive human qualities and captivating realism.

As a student enrolled in the Fine Arts Program at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, MacDonald was first introduced to the ancient practice of lost wax casting. It was while studying Business at Memorial University that he began developing the idea of his first major work titled “The Rower” which has become a local icon for the City of St. John’s.

MacDonald’s works can be found in collections as far away as Europe and throughout North America and have been unveiled by notable dignitaries including The Prince of Wales, The Princess Royal Anne, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other heads of state. Other prominent works of his include The Memorial to the three fallen RCMP officers in Moncton, the Sealers Memorial in Elliston, “A Time” located on George Street in St. John’s, Corner Brook’s Remembrance Square and The Conception Bay South Monument of Honour.

NONIA’s founding

When we spoke to MacDonald we ask where his motivation comes from. 

“It’s amazing how much you learn about history with every project that you do. Like with NONIA, I had always thought it was a knitting outlet and a place for traditional Newfoundland goods, but it’s so much more than that. It had its founding over 100 years ago and the whole idea was to provide extra income for nursing and health care services in the outports,” he began.

Being involved with something with so much history, and knowing the statue would be located on the grounds of Government House, also enticed him, he added truthfully. 

“We ultimately decided what a wonderful image would be – a grandmother passing on the traditions and the knowledge of knitting to her granddaughter. And it’s one of these iconic scenes that most Newfoundlanders of a certain age would be familiar with – the grandmother sitting in a chair, passing time knitting.” 

It’s a huge honour to have something on the Government House grounds, he added, and it’s the first bronze statue located there.

The caribou

MacDonald reflected on the pieces he’s done that commemorate this province’s sacrifice during war times. 

“We’re past the time when we were commemorating the 100th anniversary of Newfoundland and the First World War, but I came to that subject matter in my artwork because of my great grandfather, Joseph Babstock, who fought with the Regiment (Royal Newfoundland Regiment). He was captured as a POW at Masnieres in France at the battle of Cambrai. I never really had a chance to meet him and I only really knew him through my great grandmother, who lived to be 102.”

MacDonald felt a powerful need to know more, he added. 

“It was just this generational thing, this need to discover your family history and like a lot of Newfoundlanders, the amount of respect and reverence that we hold for that generation and the history and the terrible tragedy of it all and how it just became a pertinent subject matter to commemorate.”

The caribou was something that stayed with him, a very powerful image of what so many fought for.

“The Caribou is one of these iconic pieces that most Newfoundlanders are familiar with and they know what it stands for. And we try to create something in memory of these men who gave so much.”

MacDonald said he hopes to commemorate all those in uniform through his works.

‘Incredible honour’

“The one in CBS, it’s a focal point for the community. It was a huge undertaking, but I’ve just been really fortunate to be able to work with veterans to do the things I do. It’s an amazing honor to be part of something that will stand as a monument and a testament to those that served.”

There’s so much emotion. “I have to pinch myself sometimes because it’s an incredible honour to do these tributes for veterans and to have these statues around the province. It’s almost surreal when you think about it,  that there’s these places that people can go and really connect with our past, and our present.” 

Of course, the work that goes into these pieces is unbelievable. 

“Unless you visit the Foundry, you don’t really have a concept of how these things are made. You get the odd person that thinks these are dipped in bronze or they’re hammered out of metal,” he said. 

It’s actually quite a process, he explained. 

“It’s quite an involved process. It’s a practice that’s literally centuries old. A statue can take 12 to 14 months of work and when you put it out, it’s almost impossible to explain this verbally. It’s more of a visual explanation because there’s so many steps involved in melting and pouring the thousands of pounds of bronze, and that’s dangerous and dirty work. I mean, you’re talking 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.”

‘Thousands of hours’

It’s also an expensive endeavour, he added. Materials alone make the process costly, but it’s the time and the labour that really add up.

“You’re talking thousands upon thousands of hours just to create these pieces. And then when people see the finished work, it’s hard to conceptualize the amount of time that has gone into these things. Every square inch of a piece has been hours and hours of work just to create each aspect of it. There’s nothing by accident on any piece. There’s skill and dedication that goes into making these pieces.” 

How did this passion begin, we ask?

“I’m often asked that and I struggle with it because it’s one of these things that kind of gets to the core of who you are. It’s like, ‘why? Why is it that you do the things that you do? And how did you find your path in life?’ And I guess it’s probably a bit of fate, and maybe determinism.”

‘serendipitous’

There’s so much involved in what got him to where he is today, he added.

“There’s also an aspect of choice and discovering that you have an ability to do these things and … it was just a serendipitous thing, a class that I took many years ago. Then encouragement from my parents to learn about this. And it was just one of these things that I thought, it’s just not a hobby or an extracurricular activity that you’ve participated in.”

His determination certainly helped, he added. “Maybe I’m a bit naive, too, and stubborn. I just thought I could go and make a career path with this and I’ve been very fortunate. Upon reflection, it’s probably more just stubbornness and being incredibly naive that led me on this path so I can make a living at this.”

There’s a running joke at the Foundry, he added, and it comes up every time he begins a new project.

“It’s so much work and so much time and effort and dirt and dust and power tools and heavy lifting. And I go, ‘I should have been a painter.’”

‘The holy grail’

Making a living from the arts isn’t for the faint of heart. 

“It’s kind of the holy grail of trying to become a professional artist and it’s just incredibly difficult. And most people end up in a different career path because it’s almost impossible to make ends meet in this kind of career.”  

But, something keeps MacDonald creating. What is that something?

“It’s a little bit of everything, but knowing there’s things that I have created out there that provides some history or some context or preserves a bit of our culture, or offers comfort and peace and reflection? I guess that’s why.”

For more on the Newfoundland Bronze Foundry and the process of creating sculptures can visit www.newfoundlandbronze.ca or TheArtOfMorganMacDonald.com 

The book Operation Trafficked, fourth in the ‘Operation’ series, is getting lots of attention. In fact, it’s the first book Costco picked up from Newfoundland for sale in their Atlantic region. 

What is her latest about?

“Operation Trafficked is about human trafficking and slavery. People tend to think of slavery from something 100 years ago, and they’re not really aware that slavery happens right now. It’s happening right here in St. John’s and in Goose Bay and there are women forced to be in the sex industry and forced to service men,” she began powerfully. 

“Human trafficking is a crime against humanity. Some may look at these girls and go, ‘but it’s her choice. She wants to be there,’ but any industry that normalizes the selling and slavery of women does not empower women. And it’s not the oldest profession. That statement inflames me. No, it’s not. It’s the oldest form of oppression. No woman chooses to grow up to be a prostitute. They are forced into it either through poverty, through abuse, through drug abuse, through mental illness or intimidation by a partner.”

Working on a corner

Escott, who worked in policing, is nothing if not informed.

“No little girl grows up wanting to work on a corner and service 20 men a night. If you want to help women who are stuck in the sex industry, instead of allowing more massage parlors to open, open up facilities where they can get help for poverty, where they can afford child care, where they can get health care, where they can earn a living, where they can deal with their mental issues, where they can deal with their abuse issues and their trauma that they’ve been through. Finding more places for these women to be exploited is not helping women.”

‘Face your fears’

Escott has spoken up before about her PTSD, a tragic side-effort of her work with the police force, yet the topics she writes about are so raw. How does she do it, we ask?

“You have to face your fears. If you’re afraid of heights, then you have to edge yourself to that cliff and look down or you’re never going to get over that fear of heights. Same with PTSD. If you’re just going to lock yourself in the house and isolate yourself or medicate with alcohol or drugs, you’re not going to get better. You’re only going to get worse.”

You can take a pill and sit on the sofa all day, but when that pill wears off, you will still be left with nightmares, she added.

“You’re still going to have the trauma, you’re still going to have all that stuff you carry around with you. The pill is not going to cure it. The only way to cure PTSD is to get off the couch, go for a walk, do something creative, be social – no matter how small it is – even if it’s just meeting someone for lunch. I force myself to go outside my comfort zone to write and that’s how I dealt with my PTSD and everybody’s different.”  

‘A dark place’

And that’s where her writing comes in handy, she added. 

“When I go to this dark place, that’s a familiar place for me. Going to a dark place is not hard. It’s home. That’s where I feel my comfort zone. Sometimes I find it hard to get out of the dark place because I get so involved with these investigations that they almost become real to me. And my characters are real to me, and I talk out loud to my characters all the time and we have conversations because I’m not one of these authors who can know how the book ends. I have to let my characters play it out, and I’ll just follow them through.”

There’s times that she stays up all night writing, she added, and when she reads her words in the morning, it’s almost as if she didn’t do the writing.

Vicarious PTSD 

Besides her writing, she’s also known as a bit of a comedian and as a fashionista. Where does the light come from? 

“You have to have balance. Look at somebody like Robin Williams, who was brilliantly funny but also suffered from major depression and eventually died by suicide. That’s not uncommon. 

“Most of the funny people I know, the creative people I know, do suffer from some type of depression or anxiety or PTSD. I say I don’t suffer from PTSD, instead I almost enjoy my PTSD sometimes because it makes me creative. It’s that old saying, ‘sometimes I fight with my demons all day and other days I lay down and snuggle with them.’ And that’s the truth of it – that you just kind of go with it.” 

She reminds all that social media is not real, that it’s all smoke and mirrors.

“If you follow me online, I am the hardest working woman in entertainment, because you’ve got to keep the image going. I don’t need sympathy for my depression. I don’t think that helps you. I think what helps you is getting up, making your bed, getting showered, getting dressed, going for a walk and being there for your family.” 

Walking on eggshells

Always open and real, Escott added that she doesn’t want to pass her illness on to her children.

“I don’t want them to be have vicarious PTSD like I had from my mother. My mother dealt with a lot of trauma from my father who served in World War II and came back. Back then they called it shell shock, and now they call it PTSD. But back then you were told, ‘Be a man, go home, have a drink, deal with it, forget about it.’ And that’s what they were sent home to do. Of course, that’s not what happened. My father had severe anxiety and depression and PTSD from serving in war and so my mother had vicarious PTSD from dealing with him.”

Escott shared that as a child, she grew up “walking on eggshells constantly.”

“It was ‘don’t upset your father’ and don’t say this and don’t do that. I grew up in a family where Dad has been a sailor who served in the Royal British Navy and came back from World War II with PTSD. Then, of course, I go into a career in policing. You’ve got to remember – children who are raised in chaos become chaotic. People say to those who suffer from PTSD or who were brought up in chaos; ‘why don’t you just stop? Why don’t you just change it? Don’t you want a normal home?’ Yes, I do want a normal home. But what’s a normal home? The only normal home I know is a chaotic home. So if the home is chaotic, then it’s familiar to me. A peaceful home?  I don’t know what to do there. So I had to relearn everything.”

‘From outrage’

And that brings Escott full-circle back to her latest literary creation, Operation Trafficked. “My PTSD comes out in my writing. It comes from outrage. When I’m outraged, I write books about things I’m outraged about. You can go on Kijiji right now and order a girl to your room quicker than a pizza and that outrages me, and so I wrote about it.”

For more great reads from Escott’s collection, visit Flanker Press at  flankerpress.com