People flock to Newfoundland seeking the friendliness of Come From Away – and find it
GANDER, NL – Janet Hayward didn’t show too much outward excitement Friday night when she walked into a theater in Gander, NL, to see the musical that inspired what she calls her “Newfoundland Quest” — but she did show up for a full hour on too early.
The 54-year-old Indiana high school teacher has spent the past three weeks driving across Newfoundland capturing the essence of the people, culture and landscape and passing it on to her students. She started dreaming of the trip after watching “Come From Away” on Apple TV Plus over a year ago. The musical tells the story of the city’s efforts to care for thousands of people stranded there in planes grounded after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.
The story grabbed her and she couldn’t let it go. So she applied for, and won, a special grant for teachers in Indiana to begin the journey.
“It’s the kindness of the whole thing,” Hayward said in an interview. “I really wanted to meet the people behind the kindness.”
She is one of many, from all over the world, who have come to Gander in search of that kindness. And she was not disappointed.
On September 11, 2001, 38 planes carrying more than 6,500 people were ordered to land at Gander airport. companies to shelter the “airplane people” during the five days they were stranded. The characters are based on real people in Gander and the real things they did to assuage the passengers’ horror when they learned what had happened.
The musical was a hit on Broadway and ran a record at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater in New York City for five years. According to Michael Rubinoff, the play’s original producer, the Gander production is the first fully staged presentation of the musical in its hometown. He congratulated Friday night’s audience for getting “the hottest theater tickets in the world.”
Barbara Amiel Pearson first saw the musical in 2017, during a particularly dark time in her life. She lives in Florida and said she was “despondent” after Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory. “I had lost hope in this country, I had lost hope in the world, I had lost hope in people,” said them in an interview this week. “And when I saw this piece… and I felt like I had to go and see if people could really be that good.”
She first arrived in Gander in October 2017. “I had one goal: I wanted to meet Newfoundlanders,” she said. So she went to the Tim Hortons across from her hotel and started talking to people.
Amiel Pearson, 72, said she met people she is still friends with on that trip, including Gander resident Diane Davis, who is the inspiration for the character Beulah Davis in the play.
As is common for many visitors to Newfoundland, both Pearson and Hayward were invited to strangers’ homes for meals, tea, and long conversations.
Amiel Pearson returned to Gander in 2019 and she will be returning next month; she has front row tickets to the “Come From Away” performance on August 12. She says her will contains instructions for her two daughters to use part of their inheritance to visit Newfoundland. “It really made a profound change in my life,” she said.
Derm Flynn said he’s heard many stories, like those of Hayward and Amiel Pearson, but he’s still moved by each one. He was mayor of nearby Appleton, NL, on September 11, 2001. He and his wife, Dianne, took six passengers with them. “We’re not used to it being made such a point that we can invite someone to our house for tea,” he said this week, adding that Newfoundlanders don’t want to be seen as “blowing on their own two feet.” horns.”
“There are opposing Newfoundlanders, just as there are opposing people all over the world,” he added.
The story of the Flynns is told by the character Derm Flynn in ‘Come From Away’. About a year after the play opened on Broadway, they started hosting an event for tourists called Meet The Flynns where they invited people to their homes for lunch, tea and a chat. They have received guests from the rest of Canada, the United States, Australia and Germany, he said.
They charge for the visit, but it’s a way to give people who’ve seen the play the welcoming experience they’re looking for, Flynn said.
Hayward hopes to instill in her students a sense of the friendliness she discovered in Newfoundland. To that end, she plans to create an after-school social club. She will bring students together to talk about themselves and their interests and what they want to contribute to their community. And then together they will undertake “one wonderful act of kindness or service per month,” she said.
Meanwhile, her husband and both of her sons have joined her for different parts of her Newfoundland adventure, and have enjoyed it as much as she has, she said.
“We’ll definitely be back.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 8, 2023.
