Route of the Matter

In The Road across Canada, from 1963, Edward McCourt described a section of the Trans-Canada Highway in Newfoundland and Labrador as “an endless succession of iron-surfaced washboard, gaping potholes, and naked rock — a shoulder-twisting, neck-snapping, dust-shrouded horror.” There’s still satisfaction in the line: we can be glad it’s McCourt having his bones shaken and bladder squeezed rather than us. Later, in the coastal village of Rose Blanche, we’re relieved to find “a Venice in miniature — if you can accept a fish-packing plant for a doge’s palace and a rowboat for a gondola.” Driving the same stretch sixty years later, Mark Richardson notes the road is now “wide and smooth,” surveyed in such a way that it would “only take 45 minutes to get to Walmart.” As for Rose Blanche, there’s no sensuous portrait, no noteworthy tidbits (although it’s the birthplace of Jimmy Buffett’s grandfather!), no satisfying denouement or juicy descent into hotel hell. Perhaps that’s...