Hold fast: How a nautical phrase inspired the motto of our times

On May 1, Dr. Janice Fitzgerald took her seat at a table in Confederation Building and began what by then was already a familiar routine: telling residents of Newfoundland and Labrador the latest changes with COVID-19.

In that stage of the pandemic, Newfoundland and Labrador was still in the throes of lockdown. There had been 259 cases of the infection in the province to that point, although the picture was clearing. That day, there was just one new case of COVID-19, the chief medical officer of health reported.

The province was still more than a week away from its first step in loosening public health restrictions, although the day before, Fitzgerald had introduced the concept of "double bubbles" a way for families or close friends to connect.

At the end of her remarks, Fitzgerald rallied the public.

"I am more confident than ever that as long as we remain strong and resolute in our efforts we will keep COVID-19 controlled in our province," she said.

Then she added, with words that would become intrinsically associated with her identity: "Hold fast, Newfoundland and Labrador. We are in this together."

This was, as best as I can determine, the first time Janice Fitzgerald used the phrase "hold fast" during her COVID-19 briefings, at least according to the transcripts I searched.

That was a Friday. She said it again the next Monday, the day after that (it was the first time we quoted her on it online), again the next day and, well, many times after that.

The phrase clearly resonated. When I compiled a list of quotes of 2020 in December, I opened the whole thing with Fitzgerald's "Hold fast, Newfoundland and Labrador." It seemed to sum up the year succinctly.

You can see it everywhere: T-shirts, rug hookings, dog bandanas, cakes and cookies, countless pieces of digital art. A Facebook fan page dedicated to her has numerous postings that incorporate the phrase.

A tribute that came out of the oven

4 years ago

Duration 3:29

Robert Power talks about the spectacular cookies he made as an homage to Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, N.L.'s chief medical officer of health

Sowhere did it come from? How did Fitzgerald happen to use that phrase, and what does it mean to her?

My colleague Peter Cowan asked Fitzgerald about it in an extensive interview we aired earlier this week.

She told us that she spotted the phrase in a graphic that a member of the government's marketing and communications team had developed for a social media campaign.

WATCH | Janice Fitzgerald talks about the origins of "hold fast" during a wide-ranging interveiw with CBC's Peter Cowan:

Dr. Janice Fitzgerald on vaccines, tough calls and what she misses most in the pandemic

4 years ago

Duration 19:54

N.L.'s chief medical officer of health speaks with the CBC's Peter Cowan

"And I thought,'Oh, that is just perfect,'" she said. "It has its origins in sailors and our connection to the sea, but it also really does just mean to hold fast, to hang on, to hang in there. We're all in this together and we can all work together and get through it.

"So I just thought it was really, really appropriate for us to be using."

A book before it was embroidery

Before it was embroidered, knitted, cross-stitched and retweeted into our daily consciousness, "hold fast" was Hold Fast, the book.

Kevin Major's debut novel is a classic of what's now called young adult fiction, and has never been out of print since it launched in 1978. It's the story of a young boy whose parents are killed, who is sent to a city to live with relatives far away from the community where he grew up, and who struggles to hold onto his identity.

And yes, Major noticed Fitzgerald's use of the phrase and was delighted.

"The first time I heard it, I was a little bit taken aback oh, that's a good promotion line. Yeah, it struck me," Major said in an interview this week with The St. John's Morning Show.

"It's a great line. It's a great two-word phrase, and, of course, meant a lot to me. It was the title of the first book that I ever published," he told host Ramraajh Sharvendiran. "It was a great idea to bring it back again. And I don't think Janice necessarily saw there was a connection. But, you know, [it was there] for me, and maybe readers have also seen that connection."

• Weekend Briefing: Read earlier editions of this column

I was among those who felt the link. When the book came out, I was an adolescent boy around the same age of Major's two protagonists, and I ate up the story. Looking back, it was an unusual thing at that time for a young Newfoundlander to read, too: a book firmly located in our own culture, about themes and places and, yes, phrases, that meant something to me. I was hardly then (and am not now) an expert in nautical lore and terms, but when one of the boys says, "You've got to hold fast" I got it.

Major said he tapped into his own upbringing and background to find the phrase that inspired his title.

A teacher before he became a full-time author, Major had been intrigued by the language used to describe seaweed.

"I also have a background in biology. I studied at university, and a holdfast is the appendage by which certain seaweed hold onto the rocks on the shoreline," Major said.

LISTEN | Kevin Major talks about Hold Fast, the book, and "hold fast," the phrase:

"I was thinking, you know, just the way [his character, Michael] is kind of pushed back and forth by circumstances, the same way that a piece of seaweed is thrown back and forth by the waves, but holds on to the rock, which, of course is the rock of Newfoundland."

Major also revealed there was another literary inspiration: the brief Langston Hughes poem Dreams, which opens with these lines: "Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly."

"It was common when I was growing up," Major said of the poem. "And I often saw that on posters. So maybe that was playing in my mind as well."

Tenacity, perseverance, dreams, hope even seaweed.

It's been marvellous to see how a phrase as old as the ages has become a motto for us all in an era we'll never forget.

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