Summers in Squid Tickle A Newfoundland Odyssey

Sometimes a place finds you when you need it most. For Robert Finch, that place was Burnside—a windswept coastal village of fifty souls on Newfoundland’s rugged northeast shore, accessible only by a hundred-mile ferry crossing. Arriving in 1995 with a broken heart and uncertain future, Finch discovered more than refuge in this remote outport. He found a way of life worth chronicling.

Summers in Squid Tickle is an intimate portrait of a vanishing world, where the rhythms of the sea still dictate daily life and neighbors know each other’s stories by heart. With the elegant prose that has made him one of America’s most respected nature writers, Finch weaves together personal memoir and cultural observation, documenting three generations grappling with profound change—the collapse of commercial cod fishing, the exodus of young people, and the fragile hope for new ways to sustain community.

What begins as escape becomes belonging. Finch buys a house, plays organ for the church, fishes local waters, and eventually finds love. Through vivid portraits of hardy fishermen, vigorous retirees, and close neighbors, he captures the essence of the Newfoundland character: resilient, generous, deeply connected to an unforgiving but breathtaking landscape.

Even as the fish vanish from Squid Tickle’s waters, Finch celebrates the enduring relationship between village and sea—for sustenance, work, leisure, and the rich tapestry of community life. This is a book for anyone seeking to understand what we lose when remote places disappear, and what we might learn from them before they do.

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