Any number of pundits and public policy think tanks will tell you the kindest thing Zita Cobb could have done was to put Fogo Islanders out of their misery. Don’t prolong the agony, just give each of them a pocketful of money if she felt so inclined and call it a day. Last person to leave has to turn off the lights.

Because, let’s face it: rural populations are fading. Dr. Fazley Siddiq, dean of Business at University of New Brunswick Saint John and fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, has compiled considerable statistical research that shows nonmetropolitan Canada is declining. In a May 2013 presentation titled “Prosperity or death of a thousand cuts?”, Dr. Siddiq noted that nonmetropolitan areas of the country accounted for 55 per cent of the population in 1961; they accounted for only 31 per cent in 2011.

Speaking directly to the issue of rural sustainability, Fred McMahon, Michael Walker chair of Economic Freedom Research at The Fraser Institute, admits that it’s a real tragedy for older people in any community when younger people drain away. But, he says, the greater tragedy is when governments try to change things with promises that can’t be fulfilled via programs that artificially prolong an area’s relevance. Further, he credits a century-long migration to urban centres with creating prosperity.

Granted, McMahon isn’t talking about Fogo Island. And his criticism is of public rather than private sector intervention in what he sees as the natural evolution of society. Still, the underlying message is loud and clear: rural is passé; urban is the future.

Zita, as she’s called by everyone on the island, whether they know her personally or not, disagrees. Quite emphatically, in fact.

“Absolutely not!” she says in response to a comment that rural places should be allowed to decline, that they are unnecessary relics of a past best forgotten.

Lose rural places, she argues, and we lose essential knowledge. “Human beings are becoming dumber and dumber all the time. Our worlds are shrinking into this binary, over-intellectualized digital world.”

She worries about what could possibly be next for humankind when we’ve lost our capacity to interact with each other and the natural world. Witness the number of people who can’t have dinner or sit around a campfire without pulling out their ‘smart’ phones. Or those individuals who routinely ‘unfriend’ someone on Facebook rather than try to work out their differences. What happens, she ponders, when this is all that we know? “Do we just dedicate our lives to chasing the almighty dollar?”

It’s a curiously ironic statement from someone who has often been cited as one of the richest women in Canada, a woman whose wealth is directly derived from the digital sphere. She’s made her fortune and can afford to indulge her parochial fantasies. But what about the rest of us? Why shouldn’t we be allowed to chase our own technologically-guided, perhaps urban- based, dreams of prosperity?

It doesn’t have to be an “either/or” proposition, she counters. “Not everybody needs to live in a rural place. We need great cities too. We need both. We can have both.”

In her mind, the challenge (and the solution) – the Zen of Zita, if you will – is finding a way for rural communities to be connected to the fabric of the world on their own terms. It’s about reaching out, while holding on. Fostering change that protects and preserves. Countering the globalized conformity of a fast food chain on every street corner. Rallying against a world where everyone looks and sounds the same.

You know she’s preached this gospel countless times over the past eight years, but she still makes it sound… authentic… original… sincere. Especially here, in her special place: at the Inn she helped build, standing against an endless North Atlantic backdrop where, at present, 15 two-person crews in locally-crafted wooden punts race against time and tide, heaving their oars into a rising gale. “Whatever I know, whatever good that is, it came from this place. I learned some things in the business world, but the essence of it came from here,” she says.

If this were a Hollywood moment, an unseen sound crew would cue for rising orchestral strings, maybe even call for a bass drum and cymbal clash to mimic the crash of wave upon shore. But this is reality and reality, Zita admits, has not been kind to rural places. Business, she asserts, has played a terrible role in the destruction of our cultural and natural environments. If she has her way, business will also play a significant role in its resurrection.

Zita has a plan.

It was the day before the four-hour drive that would bring us to the delightfully- named town of Farewell. There, we hoped to board the 3 PM ferry to Fogo Island.

Our soon-to-be hostess, Chrissie Oake, was on the phone. She was calling with a recommendation on when to start out (“It would be best if you were on the highway by 8:30.”), a warning of potential traffic slowdowns (“There’s a lot of construction on the highway in Terra Nova National Park.”) and advice on when we should be in the ferry lineup (“There’s no reservations, just load and go. You should be in the lineup by one o’clock to guarantee your spot.”).

“I’m really looking forward to meeting you,” she said before ending the call.

The Oakes hadn’t wanted our credit card number to hold the reservation. Was this their diplomatic way of confirming that we were still coming? Did they have another potential client on a wait list, in case we canceled?

Or, was it something else?