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Chris was a caring, attentive husband and father. He was a talented, hardworking journalist, dedicated to thoughtful storytelling, too. I’m sure Chris taught me everything I know about writing a story with heart. He was my friend and I miss him, as does everyone who had the pleasure to know him.

he ferry was called the MV Apollo and it had seen better days. Caked in rust, it had a pronounced list to the port side, I thought. It did have a cheap, hot breakfast and plenty of coffee on board and that made it OK in my book.

Before we left Happy Valley-Goose Bay (again) Dean and I stopped at the highway department headquarters to get a report on the road conditions.

Our first stop on a daylong tour of the town was the E.J. Broomfield Arena and the 7th annual Guardian Hamilton Drugs Junior Labrador Soccer Cup. We watched teams of kids and teens from Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Churchill Falls and Labrador City kick the ball around, arena football style, in a converted hockey rink.

May 31, 2018 — I woke to the sound of rain pattering on my tent. It wasn’t a torrent. I got up. Dean and I huddled around his Jetboil, not talking much, till the coffee was ready. The rain let up and we packed our things.

May 29, 2018 — The next day dawned clear and cold. The sky was a painful blue. Sunglasses were a must. After a hot breakfast, and a farewell in French, we headed north on a paved road.

Dean and I had ridden north, into the wilderlands, to see if there was any adventure left in a Trans-Labrador Highway ride. Once known as the longest dirt road in the world, it’s now largely paved. Most of the adventure bikers that once flocked to it have since moved on to other, more remote gravel challenges.

Influential Irish folksinger Luke Kelly once met his poet counterpart, Patrick Kavanagh in a pub off Grafton Street in Dublin one day, or so the story goes.

When doctors gave her just two years to live in 1954, Wilkins took all the money she had, bought an old summer camp horse named Tarzan and hit the road to California.

From the archives: Originally published December 26, 2017 Eric Foster remembers gassing up, downing a mouthful of Gatorade and taking a picture of a beautiful flower. After that, Foster got back on his motorcycle and took off down the road. He was nearly 900 miles north of Montreal and 300 miles from his goal. Foster […]

I wrote this song in the voice a former Maine milltown worker who finds himself old, alone and stuck in a community fading away on the banks of a river. I was going to film it in one of the larger cities where they used to make blankets, shoes and paper — like Lewiston, Biddeford […]

I originally set out to write a blues-type brag song but my song came out a lot sillier than those old gems.

Written, performed and recoded by me as part of my “Alone Beside the Road” video series.