It is the 28th of June 2005, roughly 6:30 p.m. as we take our seats at tables set, with wine glasses, for a special dinner. The room is full of cheerful greetings, earnest debates, discussions, whispers and children’s laughter — in short, noise of a kind that always accompanies a community gathering on a celebratory occasion. The community that I have joined — indeed, been warmly welcomed by — is North West River, Labrador, familiarly known as North West. The gathering of which I am a part is a symposium on Labrador exploration. But the celebratory occasion? Ah well, that is the point and why we are all here, those of us from North West, Happy Valley and St John’s, and those of us from away — as Jar away as Vancouver in Canada, and from the United States, England and Ireland.