The late Ron Pollett has left a timeless legacy of richly textured literature on outport life. He was born in New Harbour, Trinity Bay, in 1900, and like legions of Newfoundlanders before and since, he emigrated to foreign shores in search of work. In the last ten years of his life, he felt compelled to describe in detail his rural heritage. He was ever mindful of its drawbacks but, in his essays, vignettes, and stories, concentrated on the virtues of living as “outharbour people.”
At the same time, Ron Pollett also let Newfoundlanders know what life was like in crowded, dirty, and noisy towns and cities, where, to him, life was measured in numbing increments by the incessant factory whistle instead of the leisurely pace of the four seasons of nature.
“The Outport Millionaire” was the title of Ron Pollett’s first published article, appearing in the Atlantic Guardian in July 1946. Readers of the Atlantic Guardian voted Ron Pollett “Newfoundland’s Favourite Storyteller.”