Pre-enjoyed sequels

What do Danny Williams and Stephen Colbert have in common?

Neither has much new material to entertain you with.

At least, some day, the TV strike will be over.

Danny? Meh.

His self-styled masterpiece, he'd have you believe, Lower Churchill XXXVIII: Going it Alone.

Not terribly original.

Then there's the spinoff series.

The Anglo-Saxon Route XIII: Seriously, We're Seriously Serious. Seriously.

The Anglo-Saxon Route XIV: New Finland to New Brunswick.

The Anglo-Saxon Route XV: From an Island to Rhode Island.

The Anglo-Saxon Route XVI: Hey Nova Scotia, No Hard Feelings on the Laurentian Boundary Thing, Okay?

Somehow you can economically build a submarine power cable under two straits, but not an overland one to the Straits.

Yeah, whatever.

Anyway, that predictable series got old years ago. Like, say, on July 3, 1964:

Labrador Power Sale Authorized

ST. JOHN’S, Nfld. (CP) — Premier Smallwood this week announced the Newfoundland government has authorized the Newfoundland and Labrador Corporation to market a large portion of the potential electric energy from the proposed Hamilton Falls power development in Labrador.

Mr. Smallwood made the announcement shortly before boarding a transatlantic flight to London, England, where he is to meet with British steel interests and take a vacation.

The premier said the government had initiated a study by a London engineering consulting firm, Preece, Cardew and Ryder, in co-operation with Nalco, as to the economis feasibility of transporting power from Hamilton Falls through the Maritime provinces to the New England states.

Transmission would be to southern Labrador, along the west coast of Newfoundland, under the Cabot Strait to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and then to the United States border.

The premier said 2,000,000 horsepower would be “dropped off” for use in Newfoundland, and another 1,000,000 horsepower would be reserved for use in the Maritimes.

The transmission line would terminate at the United States border, he said, from where the power would be transmitted by a private grid to all the New England states.

Or, as Ralph Surette writes in the Globe and Mail of November 25, 1978:

Gull Island is nothing more than a potential hydroelectric power site on the lower Churchill River in faraway Labrador. But Nova Scotia Premier John Buchanan sees it as tantalizingly close and the answer to the province's long-term electricity problems.

...

In order to supply both Nova Scotia's long-term needs and be sold in surplus to the United States, Mr. Buchanan saw this Labrador power coming down via submarine cable from Newfoundland to Cape Breton.

But he made the slight oversight of not consulting Newfoundland. He was gently but quickly reminded by Newfoundland energy officials of the difficulties involved in moving Gull Island power anywhere, let alone to Nova Scotia.

For one thing, according to Vic Young, president of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, the 77-mile cable across the Cabot Strait is an extremely poor prospect. Although a study two years ago stated it was technically possible, its capital and maintenance costs would be enormous. The electricity delivered would cost about twice what it would if brought down overland.

...

The problems with delivery have not been ironed out. If Gull Island electricity ever reaches Nova Scotia, chances are it will be neither cheap nor the answer to Nova Scotia's energy problems. But it has to get here first, and Mr. Buchanan may have long since come and gone as premier by then.

Or, as Robert Gibbens reported for the November 22 edition of the same paper:

Newfoundland said it wants to go ahead with development of about 3,000 megawatts at two Lower Churchill sites and the most economic route to markets outside its own territory is through Quebec. Newfoundland cannot use all 3,000 megawatts. It has claimed Quebec's terms are too onerous, and has had studies done of an undersea connection under the Belle Isle straight and another connection under the Cabot Strait to Cape Breton.