Granite Planet on the Rocks

The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and its inhabitants have been the subject of jokes, disparaging remarks and no respect (for example it is the only province that does not merit a definite article en francais) ever since it joined Confederation in 1949.  However, as I recently rediscovered, Newfoundland and Labrador (herein called just Newfoundland since I never got closer than 15 kilometres to Labrador) is a contrast in starkness and beauty, hustle and dawdle, and drabness and brilliance.  Most of all, however, it is a study in the fortitude and perseverance of people, both ancient and current, who simply call this province home.

I had visited Newfoundland (or more precisely St John's) several times over the course of my career, and had dabbled in short trips around the Avalon Peninsula, but I had never strayed further afield until September when my brother and I decided to make a pilgrimage to L'Anse aux Meadows and Gros Morne National Park.  While seeing these two well known landmarks was the principle reason for our drive across the province, we saw and experienced much more in a short eight days.

Our trip started with a bang. Literally.  Five minutes after picking up our rental car at the St. John's airport, we were cruising down the Trans Canada highway on a beautiful sunny and very warm (for Newfoundland) afternoon when a large stone impacted the windshield with a sound like a gunshot.  It had been thrown up by a dump truck that was at least 200 metres in front of us.  After getting our racing hearts under control, we sped up and flagged the driver of the dump truck down. And to my great surprise (being a CFA or Come From Away person used to Ontario drivers), the truck pulled over and stopped. The driver got out and I explained what had happened. He immediately apologized (even though it was not his fault) and in his Newfoundland brogue, provided his name and that of the company he worked for.  When we stopped again a few minutes later in Mt Pearl for provisions (liquid and otherwise) before heading out of the city, I called the rental agency and let the agent know what happened. He asked me if the windshield was intact and when I told him it was scratched but not broken, he thought for a few seconds, and then told me, "Well, just go on your way, then b'ye, and have a good time". 

And so we did. 

We soon left the four lane highway behind and headed northwest towards our first stop, the small community of Port Blandford where we had booked a Bed and Breakfast (Newfoundland is like Britain, there are lots of Bed and Breakfasts around and to me, this is the best type of accommodations to seek out as the proprietors are friendly, share their knowledge of their communities and province and you meet fellow travellers).  As soon as one is out of St. John's, one can see why Newfoundland is called 'The Rock'. The barren and stark hills of the narrow isthmus that leads from the Avalon Peninsula to the rest of the province is like one large rock garden, albeit without the garden part.  Small lakes (which Newfoundlanders call Ponds) sometimes provide the only colour in a landscape of grey granite and dark forests.

Port Blandford is located at the head of Clode Sound and it was the railway (the famous Newfie Bullet, which long ago bit the dust) that changed it from a community of 36 in the 1890s to the 580 or so people who live there today.  It now derives its business principally from tourism. We stayed at the Serendipity Bed and Breakfast where Elsie, the proprietor, immediately made us feel welcome. After relaxing over a local Newfoundland brew at the picnic table in front of the Bed and Breakfast, we asked Elsie where in town we could eat and she told us we had a choice of three places, all located at the same place (she explained that a pub, dining room and a snack bar in the Pro Shop were all located at a golf resort at the far end of town).  So with our minds made up for us, that is where we headed.  While waiting to order dinner and shooting the breeze with a couple of American golfers who were up from New England and already three sheets to the wind, we had the local twist on a Caesar - called an Inside Out. It had a large dollop of horseradish added to the glass.  Surprisingly it was good, once one got past the texture.  And I had my first of several Newfoundland feeds of fish (read cod) and chips for dinner.

The next morning after a hearty breakfast and a visit with other travellers (two of whom were from Belleville - my old stomping grounds). we were back on the road.  We had a fairly long drive ahead of us as our next Bed and Breakfast was in Deer Lake.  But first, we made a quick stop at the visitor centre in Terra Nova National Park.  I say quick, because it was closed (now on winter hours). So it was back into the car and westward ho.

Lichen in Terra Nova Park

In Newfoundland, lichen and other mosses make up some of the most prevalent plants.  The colours of these plants are quite varied, from almost white to greens to reds and yellows.  In Terra Nova Park, the colour of the lichens alongside the road was predominantly grey with purplish highlights.  Against the dark green colour of the pine trees, the effect was like a shag carpet on the forest floor.

Joey in Gambo

Our next stop was to visit with a Newfoundland icon and legend in the small community of Gambo. Unfortunately, the Joey Smallwood Interpretation Centre (could anyone really interpret the man?) was closed, however, Joey's presence was certainly front and centre in the town park in an interesting bronze statue of himself.  The park also contains a handcar from the Newfoundland railroad, and to continue this theme, a wooden child's play train. There was not much else to do in Gambo early in the morning - we wandered towards Freshwater Bay for a quick look at the water (and a canoe getting a ride in a beached row boat), then drove through the village before retracing our steps back up the hill to the Trans Canada highway.

Joey's Head

In case we had forgotten our visit with Mr. Smallwood, within a couple of kilometres he once again showed up (or at least his head did) at Joey's Lookout.  Joey is apparently looking out across the parking area where an entrepreneurial Newfoundlander was setting up a sausage/hotdog stand. It would certainly complement the other Newfoundlander's efforts as he had already set up what appeared to be a vegetable market in a large trailer. I suppose one could buy a complete meal from the two of them before checking out what Joey is really looking at which is a magnificent panoramic view of the town of Gambo and Freshwater Bay far below.

Silent Witness

We continued westward with our next planned stop at the memorial to the 256 US service men and airplane crew who lost their lives in the 1985 Arrow Air disaster on the shores of Gander Lake.  Located at the end of a dirt road just beyond the end of the Gander airport runway, the memorial includes a very poignant sculpture, entitled Silent Witness, of a soldier from the 101st Airborne Division which at the time was returning from a peace keeping mission in the Sinai Desert. The memorial seems well visited as evidenced by the many small US flags scattered around the crash site.

Australian Airman

Not as well visited, but certainly well worth a visit, is a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, located alongside a Gander runway, the entrance to which is almost across the highway from the Arrow Air memorial.  Attached to a civilian cemetery, the War Graves section contains the burial sites of 100 airmen from the Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and even one airman from the Royal Australian Air Force. These airmen were killed in Second World War accidents in the area when Gander operated as an air reconnaissance wing and as a major stop on the Atlantic Aircraft Ferry route between North America and Britain.

After stopping at Timmy's in Gander for coffee, we got back onto the highway and drove though kilometres of pine trees, ponds (lakes), rivers and not much of anything else. When we got to Grand Falls, we stopped to get gas and picked up a couple of sandwiches which we thought we would eat at a local roadside park.  We tried to find one that was on the map of Grand Falls along the Exploits River, but had no luck. So we continued for a bit down the highway before pulling off on a side road where we ate lunch while standing beside the car.  Since we were making good time towards Deer Lake, we took an hour to drive up to the Notre Dame Bay coast, to the small outport of Beachside at the very end of the road.  We were looking for icebergs as some of the guests at the Bed and Breakfast the night before had reported them in Notre Dame Bay.

Beachside Ice

And we found them, one of which was extremely close to the shoreline.  A local resident was also there and he seemed as amazed with the iceberg as we were, not having seen any in the cove at this time of year since he was a young boy. He told us about the area, about fishing, and about other icebergs that were slowly passing by (we could see a massive one on the horizon that he said would end up in the Twillingate area in a few days). Finally, he suggested we walk down the flights of wooden steps that led to the rocky beach about 30 metres below us where we could see pieces of the iceberg that had washed up onto the beach.  We did and brought back a piece of clean, clear, thousands of years old ice which we put into our beverage cooler to keep our beer cold.

We got to Deer Lake around 4:30 p.m. and found our Bed and Breakfast.  No one was home, but the door was open. A couple who was staying there was also arriving at the same time as us. The four of us stood inside the door, wondering where the proprietor was, when she entered carrying grocery bags.  That is when we were introduced to our 'sister' Margaret Macdonald, the name of the owner.  Maggie, as she insisted on being called, showed us our room and spent a few minutes talking with us about our common surname. She also recommended a few places to eat in town, all withing walking distance. We followed her advice and ended up at the local Jungle Jim's (a Nfld chain) where we shared the restaurant with a large group at a birthday party and several folks from a bicycle club from Quebec.

The next day, the weather had turned for the worse and the skies were overcast.  Maggie served a scrumptious breakfast to the 8 of us who were guests and we chatted with our fellow travellers.  Five of us were from Ontario, Don from Nova Scotia and one couple from Kentucky. They were heading in the same general direction as we were, so we jokingly said we would see them again later as we packed up and headed for the Viking Trail towards Gros Morne National Park where we planned to spend the day touring the park.

Grose Morne Mountain

The name for the park comes from the highest mountain in Newfoundland (806 metres) which is located in the park (the photo was taken on our way back - on our first day in the Park, the cloud ceiling covered most of it). Gros Morne is a World Heritage UNESCO site, so declared in 1987 because Gros Morne contains within its boundaries some of the best illustrations in the world of plate tectonics, the movement of the Earth's crust. In addition, the effects of glaciation can easily be seen in Gros Morne as represented by hanging valleys and fjords.  Not to mention ancient tropical seabeds now exposed, volcanic areas, and undersea avalanches from a collapsed reef, the remnants of which can be seen.  And this is just for geologists.  Combine this with spectacular coastlines, small fishing communities, lots of hiking trails for every skill level, waterfalls, lighthouses, wildlife and an amazingly friendly cast of park employees, and the park is worth a several day visit.

Woody Point

Unfortunately we did not have several days.  But we still managed to see quite a bit of it in the two days we spent there, even though the first day was blustery and wet.  There are two major parts of the park. The first one we visited is dominated by the Tablelands, this ancient upturned and glaciated piece of the earth's mantle accessed by Route 431.  But before getting to the Tablelands proper, you travel through a forested river valley, before descending to the South Arm of Bonne Bay, a fjiord, and passing out of the park through the small villages of Glenburnie and Shoalbrook.  We headed into another called Woody Point to check it out as it once was a major commercial centre of western Newfoundland.  Now, it is a sleepy village of 400 residents where the seagulls wait for scraps from the fishermen and tourists visit the heritage buildings and craft shops of the area. Cruise ships even visit the village so passengers can see Gros Morne. A water taxi in July and August runs between Woody Point and Norris Point across Bonne Bay.

Re-entering the Park, we stopped at the Discovery Centre to buy our passes (if you want to use any of the park facilities you need a pass - if you are just driving through, no pass is required. There are several different kinds of passes available, including ones that let you visit other Federal and Provincial parks and sites along the Viking Trail). The Centre provides a video introduction to the Park and its features, several exhibits, and staff who are more than willing to share their knowledge and answer questions.

Wnterhouse Brook

Leaving the Centre, we entered the long glacial valley that runs between the orange coloured rocks (peridotite) of the Tablelands and the Lookout Hills. Regrettably, the cloud ceiling was so low that the top of the Tablelands could not be seen. We stopped to look at the Winterhouse Brook waterfall in the distance as it descended the face of the Tablelands. If you don't have binoculars, the Park service has provided a free telescope here for public use (or you can use a telephoto lens as I did). We could see hikers crossing a small bridge at the foot of the waterfall.  As the rain swept in, we continued on down the valley and then up and over the top of the Tablelands mountain to the fishing community of Trout River. We walked the boardwalk that fronts the pebble and sand beach in this small village, past colourful fishing shacks that sit between the ocean and the small harbour. Three

Trout River Shacks

fishermen were cleaning their catch on a boat in the harbour (virtually every fishing boat was named for two people, with most having the names of a husband and wife) and we stopped to chat with them. They had gone out fishing before dawn, jigged cod until they got their quota and now were back enjoying a beer and cleaning their catch  They told us that the cod they had would be processed at the small fish plant that was just behind us as soon as the owner showed up to open it.

Tablelands Valley

We checked out Trout River Pond, another fjord, but because it was raining, we did not go down the trail that runs alongside it. Then we headed back up over the Tablelands into the fog (cloud) and down the other side into the valley, stopping at the trailhead that runs out to Wallace Brook.  And here we again met the people from Kentucky that had stayed at the same Bed and Breakfast in Deer Lake as us. They had just walked back up to the parking lot from the trail that goes down to Wallace Brook.

Southeast Brook Falls

With the rain now coming down heavier, we left the Tablelands behind and drove back up to Route 430 (Viking Trail) and headed north to the other major section of the Park. The road goes through the Southeast Hills and with the rain letting up a bit, we stopped to take the short hike into the forest to see the Southeast Brook Falls. This falls has a total descent of about 40 metres in stages, with a viewing platform built at the top.  The falls is also visible from the highway (when driving south), but there is no safe place to stop on the highway. It is well worth the half kilometre easy hike into the forest to see it - even in the rain.

With the weather getting worse, we stopped at the Visitor Centre to see what it offered.  However, it was not as interesting as the Discovery Centre so we did not stay long.  But we did find out what a Tuckamore is.  This term is used on the park's brochure and it refers to the name given to stunted and wind carved balsam fir or spruce trees that grow on the Northern Peninsula, particularly along the coast. Think Group of Seven paintings from Algonquin Park, albeit with pine trees more suited for Munchkin Land, and you can visualize a Tuckamore.

From the Visitor Centre, we followed the Viking Trail along the east arm of Bonne Bay.  With the weather improving slightly (the rain had stopped, the wind had not), we ducked out of the Park into Rocky Harbour to pick up some beer for later on.  The Liquor Commission in Newfoundland authorizes stores in small communities to sell liquor and beer and these outlets are called Liquor Express locations.  Newfoundlanders like to get their alcoholic beverages in a hurry, I guess, which is totally counter to how they conduct the rest of their lives. Unlike the town of Banff which is part of a National Park, communities within the overall boundaries of Gros Morne are not part of the Park. As Don explained, when the Park Reserve (precursor to the National Park) was being developed, the Federal Government did not buy any of the land that was part of a village. So the villages are all outside the Park boundaries even though the Park surrounds them.

Lobster Cove Lighthouse

From Rocky Harbour, we drove out the Lobster Cove Head road to the lighthouse located there.  We stopped at the Lighthouse door to read the sign that explained how to read the nautical flags that were snapping in the wind on the flagpole above us.  We started to puzzle out the five flags, starting with the top one.  It was a G. We consulted the board again, and found out the second flag represented the letter A.  Then we puzzled out the next flag, an L, and it was at this moment that we both exclaimed "Gale"! As we did, the park interpreter who was exiting the lighthouse door, confirmed that we were indeed having a gale, but that her name was not Gail.  The fact that my hat had just blown off my head also led one to that conclusion.  The interpreter who was not Gail invited us inside to view the exhibits, warm up and told us to have some of the hot tea and cookies that she had put out in the back room.  I suspect she was covering the costs of this hospitality out of her own pocket. The exhibits and old photographs on the walls of the lighthouse keeper's rooms provided an in depth description of the area and of the people and history of Newfoundland.  More than one exhibit spoke to the Newfoundland propensity for poking fun at oneself and also of making light of joining Confederation in 1949.

Modern Fathers of Confederation

After touring the lighthouse, we continued north.  The highway exits the park momentarily at the small community of Sally's Cove.  Originally supposed to be part of the Park, residents were encouraged to resettle elsewhere, but some refused.  So the Park did not 'buy' the community, but surrounds the 60 or so individuals who call it home. The population of Sally's Cove is in decline according to the census, so I guess Sally's Cove is slowly being resettled, one way or another.

With the weather still not cooperating, nor the tour boat schedule, we did not see one of the most iconic places in Gros Morne, the now landlocked fjord called Western Brook Pond. To even get to the tour boat involves a three kilometre walk in from the highway, and after Labour Day, only one tour is provided each day at 2 p.m.  When we drove past the entrance, (we could barely make out the cleft in the mountain range through the clouds), it was already 3 p.m. Having seen pictures of Western Brook Pond, and after talking to fellow travellers later on in our trip who had made the boat trip, it is a definite reason for a repeat visit to Gros Morne in the future.

Broom Point Fishing Site

We next stopped at Broom Point. This is a restored fishing site that once belonged to the Mudge brothers.  They came here each summer from 1941 until 1975 by boat. The family descendants sold their property to the Park when it was formed.  Typical of many temporary summer fishing camps, it contains their restored cabin (a three room building where up to 18 people from the three Mudge families once stayed), a fish store (a large fishing shed), flakes, the boats and nets they used and other artifacts from that period. Learning about the Mudges and how fishing was carried out was fascinating as well as humourous as recounted by a Park interpreter who grew up in nearby Cow Head and actually fished with his family in much the same way as the Mudges. He demonstrated (with a hilarious cod puppet that came apart piece by piece) how fish were cleaned, filleted, dried and salted and even canned on site. He talked of the 'truck' or barter system that was in effect since the nineteenth century whereby fishermen were loaned provisions by fish agents who then took the salted cod from the season as payment, thereby keeping fishermen in virtual servitude and poverty. Indeed, it was not until resettlement of many of the outports that fishermen could begin to sell their fish for, as he called it, 'real cash money'.

French Shore

As we learned more of the history of fishing, we also found out that various treaties from wars between France and Britain guaranteed French fishing rights, first along the north shore and then, later as English settlers encroached on the north shore and Britain became more interested in the fishery, rights were granted along the rugged western shore of the Strait of Belle Isle. That is one reason that there are so many French names for towns and geographically prominent areas of northern and western Newfoundland. Under terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, no permanent English settlements were permitted; however, the French seem to have shot themselves in the proverbial pied because they allowed some English families to remain year round as gardiens of their summer fishing camps. As fishing by the French declined, more and more gardiens mysteriously appeared and began to encroach on the French Shore, contrary to the Treaty. Further reducing the influence of France, as it continued to lose wars with Britain, treaties were renegotiated.  However, the French held fishing rights (although no longer permitted to come ashore) up until 1972! And they managed to hang on to St Pierre and Miquelon, two islands off the south coast of Newfoundland to the eternal gratitude of the rum smugglers.

Cow Head

With the history of the fishery fresh in our heads, we drove to the community of Cow Head, so renamed three times from Jacques Cartier's Cap de Pointe to Tete de Vache by French fishermen because as you approach it from the sea, a rock formation on the peninsula that protects the harbour looks like a cow's head.  Or so we were told by the interpreter at Broom Point.  One has to assume this story is true, because there certainly are no cows at Cow Head.  Here we stopped at our next bed and breakfast, which was in fact a house owned by the Shallow Bay Motel.  Indeed, most of the town seemed to be owned by the Shallow Bay Motel, judging by the paint scheme on most of the buildings.  Our room in the house was right on the ocean.  There are not a lot of food choices in Cow Head, so we decided to eat at the Motel dining room (our breakfast - the Number 1 according to our vouchers, was also served here).  The special the night we were there was Jigg's Dinner. While eating this traditional Newfoundland meal, I got to thinking that perhaps there indeed were cows in Cow Head, because Don and I were both eating what seemed to be salt licks.  The meat in the dinner was salted beef and as if this did not provide enough salt, a large piece of corned beef was added to the serving. Not to be outdone, the meat came with boiled potatoes (a bit salty from the water), boiled turnip (ditto), boiled cabbage (flavoured with salt), boiled carrots (in salt water), pease pudding (not too salty), mustard pickles (salty) and pickled beets (not sure if they were salty since I did not eat any).Thank goodness for the beer.  

Cow Head Peninsula

With our yearly salt allowance derived from this one meal, we headed back to our room to dilute the salt and get our blood flowing again with a couple of more beers. We also watched quite a spectacular sunset that ended what had been a wet and windy day. And because when one drinks beer, one craves salt, we munched on salt and vinegar potato chips while watching the Blue Jays win a game.

Parsons Pond

The next morning, because we had a long drive up to L'Anse aux Meadows, we were the first ones at breakfast in the Motel dining room.  We had our number 1s and then hit the road as other tourists and locals drifted into the dining room. We cut through the last part of the Park, then stopped to take pictures of the harbour and fishing shacks in Parson's Pond, the first village past the final Park boundary. This is the site of one of Newfoundland's first oil wells.  Discovered in the late 1800s, it operated for a few years near the turn of the century. But since it took 300 barrels of oil to operate the pumps to get 700 barrels out of the ground, the venture soon dried up, literally. Hibernia it wasn't.

Arches Provincial Park

Our next stop was not too far up the road at the Arches Provincial Park. Here, a limestone formation (Ordovician aged dolomitic conglomerates to be specific) is exposed to the sea and as a result of surf action, the sea has cut through a ridge.  Today there are three arches still in existence with a collapsed fourth one on the left as one looks out to sea.  It was close to high tide, so we could not walk through the arches (we did on the way back from L'Anse aux Meadows as it was low tide), but we could certainly hear the rumbling of rounded rocks under the arches as the surf continued to do its erosion thing. The Arches Provincial Park provides picnic tables and boardwalk steps down to the beach if you want to explore the arches more closely. A dead group of tuckamore trees glistened silver in the sunlight as we drove out of the parking lot and headed north on the Viking Trail.

Sleds on Western Coast

As we drove north, we travelled right along the coast for kilometre after kilometre, passing through a few small fishing villages on the way with long stretches of nothing in between.  Rarely did the highway get more than a few hundred metres from the coast and when it did, it was to bypass the odd village, or to head inland to go around inlets such as Hawke's Bay.  When it went inland, we passed through spruce forests; when we were close to the coast, we saw scattered tuckamores, lichens and windscrubbed rocks.  It is a beautiful if desolate drive because of the nearby ocean. I can only guess what it would be like in winter; some of the Newfoundlanders we talked to mentioned drifts of snow that would cover a transport truck. We saw evidence of winter along the coast in home made sleds, perhaps used to haul fish and wood, sitting exposed but ready for action along the coast.

Labrador (D. Macdonald)

We took note as we passed a couple of villages of possible interests to visit on the way back, but today, we had to get to L'Anse aux Meadows early enough in the afternoon to visit it.  We did make one more stop though on the way, as we reached the part of the Northern Peninsula that comes closest to the Quebec/Labrador border across the Strait of Belle Isle (Labrador Straits).  Here, we could easily see signs of human activity and habitation on the side, such as the Pointe Amour lighthouse. The highway was now passing through several small villages, with names that depict the hard and desolate life of the area; Deadman's Cove, Mistaken Cove, Nameless Cove (a bit of an oxymoron, that one), and, Savage Cove.

Vegetable Garden (D. Macdonald)

Barrens

At Eddie's Cove, the highway heads east across the tip of the Northern Peninsula through a barren and desolate landscape punctuated with scrub trees, rocky plains, shallow ponds and surprisingly, small garden plots.  The latter appear out of nowhere, in hollows or wherever a bit of soil has formed.  They are surrounded by fences, not to keep people from raiding them, but to keep caribou from the vegetables. In some of the gardens, crude scarecrows had been erected to also scare birds away.  This area of the Northern Peninsula is called, aptly enough, the Barrens. It is extremely flat, with muskeg, small shallow pools of water and scraggly trees scattered here and there.  In one area, it appeared that a glacier had stopped here and melted away, as it was littered with rocks strewn for a wide stretch on both sides of the highway.

Viking Cutouts

As the road turned momentarily south towards St Anthony, we came to the turnoff to go north once more to L'Anse aux Meadows. This road immediately climbs into bare rock hillocks with very little vegetation. It twists and turns through two or three small former French fishing communities until all of a sudden a cruise ship appears.  At least it did on the day we visited L'Anse aux Meadows. It was a ship from France that was making a circle tour following the trail of the Vikings from Denmark and Norway to Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland.  A couple of hundred metres in front of us was the very small village of L'Anse aux Meadows, at the very tip of the Northern Peninsula, but we turned left at the cruise ship (it was anchored in the bay) into the L'Anse aux Meadows parking lot and gazed up at the large relief of Vikings on a ridge above the parking area.

Read The Words

The Visitor Centre for this UNESCO site is a gem, situated at the base of a ridge so that it blends unobtrusively into the countryside. Approaching the centre, we passed a statue to the Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his wife, archeologist Anne Stine, who 'discovered' the actual settlement in 1960 that locals called the 'old Indian camp' by asking a fisherman if there were any ruins about.  The Centre itself contains excellent displays and interactive interpretations of the Norse, including artefacts from the 1960 and subsequent digs. The history of the area is also well documented, from the earliest ancestors of the aboriginals who settled here (called Skraelings by the Norse) to the French fishing period (when the location was called L'Anse a la Medee).  The staff, like all the federal and provincial parks we visited in Newfoundland, go out of their way to welcome you and answer questions. We noted that one of them is actually depicted on the brochure provided at the Centre. He told us to check out the moose lying in the bog below the Centre (the only live moose we saw during our trip to Newfoundland. albeit quite far away and only well seen with binoculars or our telephoto lenses).

Meeting of Two Worlds

But it was the actual Norse settlement site that we had come to see, so we walked out onto the boardwalk that passes through the bog to the site. On the way along the boardwalk, we also passed through a stylized sculpture, called Meeting of the Two Worlds. According to its two artists, one a Newfoundland immigrant and the other from Sweden, it is supposed to represent a Viking meeting an aboriginal (I reminded myself that art is in the eye of the beholder).

Ragnar

There are two sections of the site, the actual area where the Norse built their halls and other buildings and a hundred or so metres from it, a recreation of a hall and huts made of sod. As we entered the recreated great hall, we came face to face with a Viking. Ragnar, the settlement's Blacksmith, was sitting in front of a fire where he had just eaten his lunch. Miraculously he spoke English (and French) and he told us all about his settlement, about how he made iron nails from bog iron (look it up if you want to know how it is done), about the other members of the settlement and about life as it existed 1000 years ago in this remote spot. His interpretation and information about the house, about being a Blacksmith, what the Vikings ate (they brought sheep and cattle to supplement local foods) added immensely to our visit.

Donald Donaldsson

As a hands on site, visitors are encouraged to handle the Viking reconstructions of utensils, woven cloth, baskets, iron ware, and weapons.  There are even some Viking clothes available that visitors can try on.

Great Hall

We further learned from another interpreter who was guiding a film crew from the French cruise ship that the buildings are believed to be 90 percent accurate.  The only part of the hall that they are not sure of are the smoke holes on the roof, but believe what they reconstructed is close since they took the measurements from one of the Viking Sagas.  The great hall was divided into three rooms.  The one where Ragnar was eating would be for the Vikings themselves. A second would be for slaves and storage while the third was a workshop where women made woolen clothes. One thing that amazed us was the fact that the sod in the walls of the hall (which could accommodate up to 50 people) gave it an R thermal rating of 100!  It would be a warm, if somewhat dark place in the severe winters of the area.

In addition to the Great Hall, Ragnar's blacksmith hut has been reconstructed (although it was not as close to the hall in the real site), as has a small storage building where food would have been kept.

Original Viking Settlement

After visiting the reconstruction, we wandered over to the site where the original buildings were located.  They are just depressions in the ground, but are easily seen and are labelled as to what they were. The path back to the Visitor Centre crosses the small salmon stream that provided food and water to the Norse settlers and to the 'forge' dug into the bank of the stream where bog iron was smelted.

We also learned during our visit that L'Anse aux Meadows was not the Vinland described in the Norse Sagas (written two hundred years after Leif Ericsson's explorations) since butternuts and other items found at the site never grew in Newfoundland. The furthest north butternuts have grown is southern New Brunswick and Northern Maine. In fact, the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement only existed for a period of about ten years, although archeologists believe Vikings continued to visit North America for centuries until the Greenland colony was abandoned in the 15th century. But as the only recognized authentic Viking site found to date in North America, it was well worth the long drive to visit it. And with the visit, I could strike off another item from my bucket list.

Grenfell Centre

Leaving the Vikings (and the French tourists) behind, we drove to St Anthony where we were to spend the night in another Bed and Breakfast. After checking in, we headed downtown to see the Grenfell Historic Properties. We started our visit at the Grenfell Interpretation Centre. Dr Wilfred Grenfell was a British doctor (and missionary) who first visited Labrador in 1892 to investigate the conditions of the fishery.  Thus began his lifelong work in Labrador and Northern Newfoundland under the auspices of the Grenfell Mission. He and other volunteers practiced medicine, and built hospitals, schools and orphanages for the people of Labrador and the Northern Peninsula. His story is a fascinating one and the interpretive centre, which takes a couple of hours to tour, has many exhibits that highlight his life, that of his wife and the Grenfell Society. After visiting the Centre, we took a drive through St Anthony out to the mouth of the harbour to Fishing Point park.

St Anthony

From the top of this hill, where the lighthouse is located, the harbour and town are laid out below and we could see a small iceberg in one of the harbour bays.  After wandering around the point, we headed back down the hill and went for dinner.  Then, as there still was an hour or so of daylight left, we took a quick ride out to Goose Cove, a fishing village about 5 kilometres from St Anthony. With the sky ominously darkening in the west, we raced back to the Bed and Breakfast to barely beat a storm that was heading in from the Atlantic.

The next morning dawned sunny after rain most of the night, but it was cold. We ate breakfast with the Pig Man who was also a guest at the bed and breakfast.  Self named, he was a pork farmer from near Corner Brook who raised pigs and then sold his pork door to door all over Newfoundland. He was a very funny and witty man and we talked about Newfoundland, politics, the weather and even religion at one point. Sharing the table with him was a wonderful way to start the day. We were most likely eating some of his bacon because as we were leaving the bed and breakfast, I saw him bringing in some meat packages from his refrigerator truck.

Dr. Grenfell Goes Missing

We headed back down the hill to St Anthony to visit the Grenfell House Museum, located on a hill behind the hospital. It had closed before we could see it the day before.  It was to open at 9 a.m., so we were at the door a few minutes past 9.  Where we waited for fifteen minutes. Since no one had come to open it, we scooted down the hill in the car to the Interpretive Centre. Don ran in to find out why the house was not open. He returned a couple of minutes later with a young man in tow. We gave him a ride back up the hill as he explained that with the summer holidays over, the Centre was short of staff so that they could not have someone at the House all the time. He unlocked the doors when we got to the House and we toured the house and its exhibits almost all donated by the family of Dr. Grenfell, other volunteers who had been part of the missions over the years, and even some of the orphans and patients treated by the Mission. In the closed verandah, I could see why no one had opened the door for us; Dr. Grenfell had apparently disappeared, leaving behind his parka, pants and boots in the wicker chair where he had been sitting.

Sign of the Times

Then it was time to start the long trek back to Cow Head. But first we stopped at Timmy's and filled up our travel mugs (the next Timmy's was over 400 kilometres away, so we could be assured that it would cool down enough to drink before we got there).  As we came out into the parking lot, we bumped into the Kentucky woman and her husband again who were just going in. Apparently they had developed quite a taste for Tim Horton's on their travels in Canada. We exchanged pleasantries with them (although the woman looked frozen in the cold wind) and then we were off, heading south back down the Viking Trail. On the way out of town, it being the first day of the moose hunting season, we stopped to take a picture of signs which were obviously oxymorons.  Because, after crossing the barrens, we saw men who had been hunting, but none who were working, unless you count the guys butchering their moose along the side of the highway.

Flower Cove Lighthouse

We stopped in Flower's Cove because on the way up to L'Anse aux Meadows the day before, we had seen a large sign advertising thrombolites.  And we also wanted to see a church that was built from donations raised by selling seal boots. The church was no big deal, but we did like the remoteness of the lighthouse located on a flat island just off shore with the Pointe Armour lighthouse in Labrador visible across the Strait. We then started to look for the thrombolites even though we had no idea what they were.  Noticing a guy working on his transport truck, we stopped to ask him where they were. He gave us directions to get to them, but when we asked him what they were, he said he did not know as he had never seen them. He then mentioned a rare wild plant called Long's Braya that only grows a few kilometres from Flower's Cove. We asked him what they looked like and he said he had never seen them either. He then proudly let us know that he was an expert on the area as he had lived his entire life in Flower's Cove.  Apparently, he did not go outside much except to get into his transport truck.

Thrombolites

After walking down a very long boardwalk (we could have parked much closer we found out later) through a salt marsh, we came to the thrombolites or living rocks as they are called. Resembling large buns (or Chinese Almond cookies), 3.5 billion to 650 million years ago they were the only living organisms in existence. Comprised of clotted (thrombo) unicelled algae and bacteria remains, they grew in a shallow and warm sea (today being cold and windy, they would have been icicolites). They are very very rare, with the only other example located in Western Australia.

St Barbe - Blanc Sablon Ferry

Suitably frozen from the cold and biting wind, we hiked back to the car and continued south. Although we were not going to take the ferry over to Quebec/Labrador, we decided to pop into St Barbe to look for a restaurant for lunch.  We did not find a restaurant, but we did find the ferry boat.  It was loading for its next trip.  Don went down to talk to one of the crew to see how much the boat cost, what the schedule was etc.  He came back to report that the crewman did not know (what is it with the lack of knowledge on the Northern Peninsula?) and that if we wanted to find out, we would have to go to the office which was located in the motel back up the road. I later checked online, and if you are ever in this neck of the woods and want to cross over, the costs are very reasonable. Much, much cheaper than going to PEI for example.

We did find a restaurant a little further down the highway in Plum Point where we had some excellent seafood chowder.  For some reason, the server thought I had asked for clam chowder and told me that there was no clam chowder in Newfoundland (oh contraire - I had some a few days later in the Air Canada lounge in St John's). Must have been my accent I guess.

We continued south and tried to visit a salmon research station, but it was closed for the season (despite what we were told at a nearby store - again that knowledge factor). In the local people's defence, most small museums and other 'attractions' do close right after Labour Day; federal sites like L'Anse aux Meadows close at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, so bear this in mind if you go to Newfoundland in the autumn.

Arches at Low Tide

Our next stop was at the Arches Provincial Park again, this time to see them at low tide.  They had not eroded much since we saw them the day before, but with the tide out, we were able to walk through the arches to the other side (on a very rocky, cobbled beach mind you).  We arrived in Cow Head (we were staying at the same Bed and Breakfast, in the same room as before) around 3 p.m. so decided to go look for an abandoned lighthouse on the 'Head' or peninsula behind the village.  The Head used to be the site of summer fishing villages (the current community was the winter site) before the 1960s. We abandoned the car part way up the hill as the road quickly turned into an ATV track and walked down (or mostly up) a well maintained trail through a tuckamore forest to the small, iron (which is rare) lighthouse that had been built in 1909. 

Cow Head Lighthouse

The lighthouse is partially restored, so it is possible to climb up to the small cupola at the top for views out over the ocean. The lighthouse was manned until 1960, automated until 1988 and then abandoned.  The trail, if one is so inclined, splits near the lighthouse with one part going down to the 'beach'. Apparently there have been archeological digs on the Head which found evidence of Maritime Archaic, Groswater, and Dorset Eskimo sites, dating back 4500 years. Cow Head chert has been found as far south as New England and as far north as Ramah Bay Labrador as a result of trading among these groups.

Cow Parsnip and Snails

On the way back to the car, I stopped to look at a field of Cow Parsnip (or maybe it was Giant Hogweed - I will go with Cow Parsnip as I was in Cow Head).  The stems of the plants were covered by snails (look closely at the photo).  I am not sure how snails tolerate the sap, because if humans get the sap on their skin, a phototoxic reaction can occur which results in burns.

Norris Point Table and Tablelands

The next day, at breakfast, we again met a couple of people that we had met in Deer Lake.  They were on their way north, so we exchanges information with them about things to see and do. As it was a beautiful, mostly sunny day, we decided to check out a couple of the places we had missed while in the Gros Morne area two days before. So our first stop was in the picturesque town of Norris Point where we walked around the harbour.  Norris Point is the home of the Bonne Bay Marine Station, operated by Memorial University and it can be visited, although it was too early in the day for us to do so.  The Norris Point Lookout on the road into the town is well worth a stop for magnificent views of the town below and also the town of Woody Point and the Tablelands across Bonne Bay.

Gros Morne Landscape

After visiting Norris Point, we stopped a couple of more times in Gros Morne for photographs of areas that we could not see because of the weather on our visit two days before.  However, since we were now on our way to Grand Falls and did not have a lot of time, we did not buy a daily park pass. Once we got to Deer Lake where the Viking Trail and the TransCanada intersect, we filled the car with gas and picked up a couple of submarine sandwiches to eat later when we found a picnic park. We checked online through a wifi hotspot for the location of any icebergs on the north coast and saw that there were some seen near Triton so we checked the map and saw that we could do this side trip on the way to Grand Falls.  We set out to backtrack our route from a couple of days before, this time heading east on the TransCanada.  The TransCanada is a great road, but there is one problem I have with it.  There are no picnic sites on it. Maybe people in Newfoundland do not have picnics (after all they are known for camping in quarries and sandpits), but those of us from away are used to finding these along the highways. So we did what he had done on our last trek across the province, we ate at a side road standing beside the car.

Cressie

We turned north at South Brook and headed up towards Triton which was almost at the end of the road. Before getting there, we crossed a couple of tickles (small passageways between islands) and went through the town of Robert's Arm.  According to legend, Cressie, a large serpent lives in Crescent Lake which is just before Robert's Arm.  A model of Cressie sits beside the lake and I had a chance to tame the monster, using just one of Robert's arms.  When we got to Triton, we drove through the village (which seems to be quite prosperous judging by the size of some of the houses), but we found no icebergs.  So it was back down to the TransCanada and on eastwards, to Grand Falls-Windsor where we were staying the night at the Hotel Robin Hood (you didn't know he made it to Newfoundland, did you?).

Grand Falls

We asked the clerk at the motel where we should go for dinner and he named a couple of places in town for steak and other basic foods.  Not having had a lot of vegetables over the past few days, we asked him about Chinese food.  He told us that there were two or three places in town, but that he did not trust the ones that were buffet style, then told us the name of the restaurant that he preferred.  More on that later. Before we went to eat, though, we asked directions to the falls for which the town is named. He told us that the falls were closed.  Doubting that one could close a waterfall on the Exploits River, we asked him to elaborate and we found out the Park and Salmonid Interpretation Centre were closed for the season, but that anyone could still go into the grounds to see the falls. So we drove out behind the now closed huge AbitiBowater Pulp and Paper Mill, across a couple of really rickety bridges and along a poorly maintained road to the Park (Grand Falls-Windsor folks, if the Salmonid Centre is your major tourist attraction, you might want to think about some improvements on the route to it). We parked by the gate (it was chained) and walked in to the Park and down to the Falls.  Or perhaps a more accurate description is we went down to the dam. I suspect the falls is more spectacular in the Spring and when the salmon are running, visiting the Interpretation Centre probably would be interesting.

Now it was time to try the Chinese Restaurant.  Located in a strip mall, we went in and checked out the menu.  Immediately, we became suspicious because 90% of the menu items started with the word sweet. And that notorious red sweet sauce covered all of the food at the table next to us. However, a Chinese cook emerged from the kitchen to talk on his cell phone so we decided to stay.  There were a couple of non-sweet sounding dishes on the menu, both called something Delight, so Don ordered one and I ordered the other. When they came out of the kitchen, they looked identical, save that mine had a couple of scallops in it and Don's had some beef.  Both were in a pale yellowish sauce. We shared them and they both tasted exactly the same - bland and syrupy and not very delightful.  As we were leaving the server asked us what we thought of the food and to be polite, the only answer we could give was 'different'.  So if you find yourself in Grand Falls-Windsor, you might not want to eat at the Chinese Restaurant which begins with a T on Cromer Street unless you like sugar.

Bishop's Falls 'Trestle'

The next morning, we had the continental breakfast at the hotel (I already was missing the Bed and Breakfast style breakfasts) and started out on our trip to Twillingate. We drove through Bishop's Falls, a couple of kilometres down the TransCanada to see the advertised longest trestle bridge in Newfoundland, left over from when the Newfie Bullet ran. Now I have an image in my head of a trestle railway bridge as something that is built on multiple cross hatched legs, whether these be made of timber, iron, or steel. The Bishop's Falls bridge, while quite large, has none of these attributes. It is an ordinary bridge to my engineering-uneducated eye.  The Bishops Falls Dam on the other hand was more interesting.

A few more kilometres eastwards, we turned left on Highway 340 and headed north again towards Twillingate.  We passed Lewisporte (where ferries and other transport ships head up to Labrador in the summer) and continued past Boyd's Cove where we headed out across more tickles to a series of islands, the most interesting name-wise being New World Island. Could it be so called because right after you go through Virgin Arm, you come to Dildo Run Provincial Park?  Gotta love those Newfie names!

Icebergs in Twillingate

Crossing another tickle brings you to South Twillingate Island and shortly to the town of Twillingate.  A corruption of Toulinquet, the original French name for the island, the town is one of the more picturesque we visited on our trip and not just because it also had the largest concentration of icebergs. Twillingate and its sister community of Crow Head on North Twillingate Island are blessed with pretty harbours, lots of historical buildings, an amazing lighthouse, Beothuk Indian relics, an abundance of whales in the area and, as the self proclaimed Iceberg Capital of the World, icebergs (the best time usually to view icebergs is the late spring and early summer; as mentioned before this was an unusual year - one hopes). And icebergs we saw. Based on iceberg descriptions, we saw pinnacled ones, blocky ones, drydocked ones, domed ones and even some bergy bits. The colours, when the sun struck them, ranged from blindingly white through various shades of green to deep sapphire blues. There were several places to see them and the roads leading out to the small coves and bays where the icebergs were concentrated were full of cameras attached to tourists like us.

Long Point Lighthouse

After checking out the icebergs, we decided to check out the rest of the burg.  We drove up to Crow Head to see the Long Point Lighthouse. Located on a cliff 110 metres above sea level, the lighthouse was built out of stone in 1876. The views from the cliff called Devil's Cove are amazing. We could see large icebergs far out to sea, as well as the many islands that surround North Twillingate Island. There are several walking trails around the point although with names like Nanny's Hole, Horney Head Point, Cuckold Point, Wild Cove and Sleepy Cove, I am not sure how much actual walking goes on here.

We drove back into Twillingate and stopped at a seaside restaurant for lunch.  The fish and chips were quite good here.  Don managed to get almost two beers for the price of one; after consuming most of his draft, the food arrived and he picked up the pepper shaker by its top which immediately came off. The now liberated glass pepper shaker crashed into his glass, breaking it.  Not a bad trick.

After a leisurely lunch (except for fast food places, don't expect rapid service at Newfoundland restaurants, which is OK by me), we started our trek back to the highway which we decided to join at Gander.  On the way up to Twillingate, we had noticed that the province had a Beothuk Indian Interpretation Centre at Boyd's Cove, so we popped off highway 340 to go see it.  It is situated along the Cove and is well worth the detour.

Beothuk Statue

The Centre, located less than a kilometre's walk from a prominent Beothuk Habitation site, provides a detailed and captivating history of the Beothuks based primarily on archeological findings. Unlike other North American aboriginals, the Beothuks avoided contact with Europeans and as Europeans settled on the coastlines of Newfoundland, the Beothuks headed inland. Deprived of their normal hunting and fishing grounds, and exposed to European diseases when limited contact was made, archeologists and anthropologists have concluded that the Beothuks, who probably never numbered more than 15,000 in all of Newfoundland, were wiped out by starvation and disease. Shanawdithit, the last known Beothuk, died in St. John's in 1829. After touring the Centre and talking with the energetic interpreter, we headed down the 1 kilometre trail, past the bronze statue of a Beothuk, to the habitation site which is located on top of a flat moraine near the mouth of a stream. The site probably had no more than 30 or 40 people living here at any one time, in 3 or 4 pit dug wigwams. The pits are still visible in the ground today.

As it was getting late in the day, and we had to drive to Port Blandford where we were staying at Elsie's Bed and Breakfast again, we hightailed it down Highways 331 and 330 to Gander where we joined the TransCanada again.  As we were driving through Terra Nova National Park, we passed several highly decorated cars going in the opposite direction which were participating in the 2200 kilometre Targa Newfoundland Rally. While we did see Porsche Targas in the race, the Targa title just means competition, so all kinds of different cars in different classes, including some fairly old cars, take part.

After arriving at Elsie's and the same room we had several nights before, we met an American couple who were retired scientists and who were just starting out on their Newfoundland visit.  We had dinner with them at the Golf Course and talked about highlights of our travels, politics both in Canada and the US and several other subjects.  Then it was back to the Bed and Breakfast for a nightcap and bed.

Dildo

Our second last day in Newfoundland was sunny and bright. After another huge breakfast which included toutons, a Newfoundland style pancake made with fried bread dough and served with molasses, we packed up and began our trek back to St. John's via Heart's Content and Carbonnear. We turned off the TransCanada at Highway 80 and headed north. And soon came to one of the most famous places in Newfoundland if in name only.  Dildo actually is a beautiful fishing village and as to where the name came from, no one knows. There is a rumour that Captain Cook (yes THE James Cook) sometimes gave humourous or contentious names to places when he was surveying Newfoundland for Britain. Anyway, we took the requisite picture of the sign and of the town before moving on north.

Heart's Content

We came to the three Hearts (Heart's Delight, Heart's Desire and Heart's Content) after driving along the Trinity Bay coast.  Again, no one is sure where the names came from, although places in Newfoundland were often named for ships and apparently there was a pirate ship with a similar name that operated in the 1620s which could have been the origin.  In any event, Heart's Content is famous for being the North American terminus of the first Trans Atlantic submarine cable.  A brick building, which is now a museum, marks the spot and the old cable conduit can be seen entering the sea in front of the former Cable Station.

Petty Harbour

We then lit out for St. John's where we arrived shortly after lunch.  I called Roger, my brother-in-law, who was in St. John's with his wife Linda who was at work there for a few days, and we met him at his hotel. Don, Roger and I then drove out to Petty Harbour, about 20 minutes outside St. John's.  Petty Harbour is a beautiful spot and is a working fishing village.  We talked to a couple of fishermen for a few minutes who were filleting cod - about 130 kg worth for their personal use during the winter. I asked one of them how the inshore fishery was doing and he said not too bad. He told me that he was actually making more money in the crab (snowcrab) fishery than he had been before the cod moratorium.  But he also said it was not fishing.  I guess putting crab pots out and then picking them up is more like trapping.

Travellers on George Street

We drove back to St. John's, dropped Roger off with plans to meet him and Linda on George Street a little later on, and checked into our hotel on the Hill O'Chips Street. It is so named because there used to be a sawmill located here.  We then headed out and walked down to George, met Roger for Happy Hour and after a couple of beers, went to get Linda.  All four of us then went out to George again for drinks and dinner.  We did not go crazy on George (easy to do as I discovered on my first business trip to Newfoundland with more bars and pubs per square metre than any street in North America) and actually returned to our hotel by 10:30 p.m.

St. John's

The next day, our last in Newfoundland, we went in search of breakfast.  Breakfast for some reason is very expensive in St. John's and after checking out the menus at a couple of places, Don asked a taxi driver where we could get a decent breakfast at a good price.  He directed us to a restaurant in front of the Hotel Newfoundland.  We then checked out of the hotel and went on a bit of a tour of St. John's.  First on the agenda was a trip up Signal Hill.  It has a lot more interpretive signs on it than the last time I was there.  With a cruise ship in the harbour, it also had a lot more tourists on it than the last time I was there.

Quidi Vidi Fishermen

We next went to Quidi Vidi, a small and quaint fishing suburb of St. John's in a cove behind Signal Hill.  No one really knows where the name came from; there are theories it could be a corruption of Portuguese, Spanish or French names. We walked along the harbour to the Quidi Vidi Brewing Company (we had a lot of their beer on the trip, so paying a visit was only a natural thing to do) but the next brewery tour was not scheduled for a couple of hours and we had a plane to catch.  So we made do with a walk through the village, checking out one of the oldest private houses in St John's as well as more whimsical places.

It was time now to say goodbye to Newfoundland, so we headed to the airport, turned our car in (we put 2800 kilometres on it) and went to the lounge where we had clam chowder, which as I was once told, you can't get in Newfoundland.  But you can get beautiful scenery, fantastically friendly people, an interesting, intriguing history, excellent fish and chips (and other strange dishes) and a myriad of memories in Newfoundland - so at some point, you have to go there - b'ye.