One of Canada's foremost poets, E. J. Pratt was born at Western Bay. He taught and was briefly a Methodist minister in Newfoundland before going to the University of Toronto to do graduate work. There, at Victoria College, he spent his teaching and writing career. By the 1930's he was Canada's leading poet and for many years remained a major voice in Canadian letters. His poetry deals with grand themes such as evolution, the heroic in history and man's struggle with the forces of nature. In many poems the images of sea and rock echo his Newfoundland beginnings.