Last Day of Sightseeing

Today we drove north through the Bonavista peninsula all the way to Bonavista itself. Along the way we saw some very typical sights:  such as this house.  To me, this is a very typical Newfoundland house: square, front door in the middle downstairs with a window on either side, and three widows evenly spaced on the second floor.  The only atypical thing here is the replacement window on the left, obviously a newer window.  This house seems to be abandoned.

Then there are the typical towns, houses scattered along the hillside, facing the water.  We drove by a really good photo op, but with a vehicle behind us and a narrow road, we said, "We'll just remember how nice that was."  Here there were driveways we could pull into.






Around noon we came to Bonavista and stopped to visit the Ryan Premises, a National Historic Site.  We found this very worthwhile and spent about two and a half hours here.  These buildings are the Retail Shop on the right,which is a souvenir shop, and that building also includes the old office of James Ryan, the proprietor.

The second building behind that is the Retail Store--which contains the orientation centre with an excellent introduction to the east coast fishery story.  This was a comprehensive display that also taught much about the cod themselves.  There was a history of the whole fishery, and of the Ryan Premises themselves.  James Ryan was the merchant who supplied the needs of the fishermen and took payment in dried cod.  He had a large house across the road from these buildings.

On the second floor is the Bonavista museum, a large room with lots of old objects donated by townspeople and organized into area by topics.

There was an excellent display case with drawings and text that explained how the fishermen knew where they were on the water.  They memorized the landmarks all around and lined themselves up front and back by these landmarks.  That could tell them just where they were on the water, and over what area of sea bottom they were placed.  Certain areas were excellent for fishing at certain times.  It was possible to catch a ton of cod overnight, just using a "handline."


We had learned much about the plight of these desperately poor, incredibly hard-working fishermen and their families in other displays, and it was a bit unsettling to read about it from the merchant's side of things.

There were two other buildings on the site, a Fish store with more displays and a Salt Store, used to store the huge amounts of salt needed for the cod fishery until modern times when the catch was quickly frozen.  Now it contains a display of "Outport furniture," furniture made by the residents of the isolated fishing villages, known as "outports."  They made use of whatever they could find, mainly shipping crates, as can be determined by looking at the back of the furniture, or the undersides of drawers, where the original printing is still found.

We were so fortunate to catch a demonstration by this guide, Rick, of how fish "were made."  He's carrying a cod for the demonstration--but this cod is made of cloth and has detachable parts.  Rick was terrific: dressed as a typical fisherman, he talked and demonstrated just how the fish were handled once they were caught.

The season began sometime in May when the cod came in close to the shore following the run of cappelin.  The main catch followed until sometime in July/August.  The work was intense because the cod would spoil if left in the heat of summer.  As soon as the boats came in the fish were flung onto the "stage" with pitchforks.  Men, women and children worked together to quickly move the cod to tables where they were beheaded, slit open, the livers saved to make cod liver oil, the rest of the offal thrown back into the water under the stage.

They were then salted and left for some time, after which they were rinsed and laid out on "flakes" which were platforms held several feet off the ground.  There they were dried by the sun and the weather, turned several times.  When they were dried they were stored and in the fall taken to the store to be applied against the debt incurred when the necessary supplies had been bought "on credit" in the spring.

All that work had to be done very quickly, to preserve the quality of the cod, and because in a few hours there would be another couple tons to process.  Men, women and even children worked incredibly hard, just to maintain a miserable level of subsistence.


Here's a view of the Bonavista harbour today, a lovely, colourful place.  You can see that the weather has improved over the course of the day.

Twillingate and back

This morning we drove to the end of the
road past Twillingate where the Long Point Lighthouse is located.  There are some frightful cliffs here, but some secure viewing areas.  I thought the water dashing on the rocks was beautiful.

What you can't see in this picture, but what I was able to get with my good telephoto capability in my Canon G10 was this fishing boat, working out near this point, pursued by a large flock of gulls.

One of the signs at the viewpoint was quite informative on icebergs.  And my made-up word "berglet" doesn't make the list.

We left the point and drove back through Twillingate and as far as Boyd's Cove where we took the road to Gander.  The other choice was a long, winding road along the coast, and we've seen lots of coastline.

Along the way I snapped a photo of an iconic roadside sight:

These trash containers are everywhere.  They look like two lobster traps, the lower one bottom up and the top one bottom down.  I don't know if that's intentional, but wherever we've gone this is the style of trash container out by the road.  Your garbage cans fit into here and are neatly out of sight while waiting for pickup.

That is one thing we have noticed here--there is very little littering along the roads.  People take pride in keeping the province clean and "presentable."  The other thing we notice is that very few properties are landscaped.  Of course, there are some places with lovely gardens, but I would guess that a good majority, like this nice new home, have no formal landscaping.  Now that's something that we tend to notice, since we run a garden centre!

We drove along Hwy 1 as far east as Clarenville where we looked for a B and B but ended up in Clarenville Inn, a large hotel on the highway.  No complaints, though, we have a groundfloor room facing away from the highway, and we're sure it will be quiet here tonight.

  

The Beothuks

Today we visited the Beothuk Interpretation Centre at Boyd's Cove on the way to Twillingate, a fine centre, worth going out of your way for.  The Beothuks were likely the descendants of the people known as Recent Indians.

They had a wonderful site for their village here on the Notre Dame Bay.  This is a gravel esker, which provided drainage for rainy weather, with a fresh water stream running  beside it (now called Indian Brook) which has, and had, a heavy smelt run in the spring, a wonderful food resource for them.

At this grassy site there are eleven shallow depressions here showing that there were elven dwellings.  Starting in 1981, when the site was discovered by archaeologist Ralph Pastore, four of these dwelling sites were excavated.  A huge amount of artifacts were recovered.







Another advantage of this site was the protected beach where they draw up their canoes.

There were many animal resources nearby also: caribou, black bears, polar bears, plus lots of berries and a variety of trees that provided wood for their needs. There were many kinds of birds: duck, geese, seabirds, used as meat and eggs.

The Beothuks were here when the Europeans arrive to fish these waters, but rather than initiate trade with them, the Beothuks withdrew, avoiding contact.  When the Europeans would leave at the end of the season, the Beothuks would return and scavenge the gear and old boats left behind.  They burned the boats in order to "free" the iron nails which they then fashioned into useful tools for themselves.  So this contact opened the way for a new technology to be developed.  Of course, when the Europeans returned and found their gear and boats missing or destroyed, then viewed the Beothuks as enemies.

This contact had two main harmful effects (other than the enmity), one of which was the introduction of European diseases against which the natives had no immunity.  The other was starvation as they were driven away from their traditional sources of food.

Later the Europeans tried to make matters better by capturing a few Beothuks with the idea of teaching them English and using them as interpreters.  However, both women captured, Mary March and Shawnadithit, died within a year of being captured.  Before her death Shawnadithit provided many clues to the Beothuk culture with her drawings and words, but as she was the last surviving Beothuk, when she died these people were gone forever.

The Visitor Centre has excellent displays, though not extensive, and a good 20 minute film showing the discovery, excavation and interpretation of the site.

We then drove north on 340 to Twillingate and got the last room at Kelsie's Inn, a lovely, spacious room in a quite new facility.  Had supper at R and J's restaurant, including a soft serve cone to eat on the way "home."

Sunny Day

Thursday, August 18
After a fine breakfast at Jeannie's we started south on Hwy 430.  It was a sunny, windy day.  There were lots of whitecaps on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, along which we were travelling.







To our left, the mountains that we couldn't see at all for fog on the way north were now visible.  At first, they were totally covered with clouds, but slowly the clouds lifted and I was able to  get this picture.








Our first stop was at The Arches Provincial Park, which is immediately beside the highway.  This is an example of the action of rocks and waves over the ages in breaking down some of the limestone cliffs along the shoreline.

The vegetation along the shore is severely battered by the wind, and often the windward side is bare of leaves and looks quite dead, while the lee side seems fine.  There was this grove of dead trees at the Arches, and I wondered what had killed them all.  Was it a fire that destroyed them?  They were just bare, white skeletons of trees, and in the morning sunshine they seemed quite striking and even beautiful.







The roadsides in Newfoundland abound in wildflowers.  Here is a closeup of just a few fireweeds, but in many areas they turn the entire roadside a beautiful mauve.  There are many other flowers also: more buttercups than we've seen anywhere else--probably because a lot of this land is boggy.

Although the land along 430 northward is fairly flat once you leave the coastline to head toward Deer Lake, you enter the hilly areas.  Newfoundland is definitely rock, hills, water and flowers.

Although we were warned of many moose, we've seen only one, and that was at L'Anse Aux Meadows where there are five moose in residence. Most likely they realize they are protected from hunters there in the National Site.

We stayed the night in Grand Falls-Windsor.  The three B and B's we tried were full up, and we're at Hotel Robin Hood, with a great corner room, breezy and bright with windows on two sides.  Today we head up the "Discovery Trail" toward Twillingate.  There's a good Interpretive Centre on the Beothuk Indians at Boyd's Cove that we hope to visit.

Icebergs and lighthouses

There was a patch of blue in the sky when we got up this morning, so we decided to drive down "iceberg lane" on our way out of St. Anthony.  But by the time we were at St. Anthony's Bight the sky was overcast so the icebergs were not shining as they had been on Monday.  Nevertheless they were exciting to me.

I was able to take some pictures and to speak with a local whose home was at the end of the road turn-around.  He said it was unusual to have so much ice in August.  The miserably cold, wet summer they've had kept the bergs from melting completely.

There was a little "sales table" in front of one home at which you could buy some iceberg ice for $2.50.  You have to admire people who try to turn a circumstance into an advantage!  We passed up the offer and headed back toward Dear Lake, intending to work our way slowly back to St. John's taking in as much of the sights as we can along the way.

We took Hwy 432 (Grenfell Trail) back to 430.  From the St. Anthony airport corner to Roddickton corner it was a good new road.

This is one of the many private gardens we have seen alongside the highways in this Northern Peninsula.

Between Roddickton and Plum Point there was 20 Km. of very rough road--speed limit of 50 Km/hr.  On this roadway we saw three abandoned Tim Horton's coffee cups.  Later back on 430 I stopped bought a cup of take-out and discovered they were not Tim Horton's, but Mother ---- (forgot the name).

This part of the trip reminded us very much of northern Ontario, especially where there were rock cuts alongside the road.  I guess there's a reason that Newfoundland is called "The Rock."

We decided to leave 430 and go to Port Au Choix where there is a National Historic Site.  Hoping to stay here overnight we dropped in to Jeannie's Sunrise B and B and were happy to get a lovely room.

The visitor centre explains the history of habitation on this point of land, dating back to about 5,000 years ago.  The first people to make use of this very rich seacoast area were the Maritime Archaic Indian people.  They were followed by the Groswater and Dorset Paleoeskimos, then the Recent Indians, ancestors of the Beothuk.  The earliest Europeans came in the 1700's: Basque, French and English fishermen.  There is a representation of an ancient home, plus very many interesting artifacts that have been recovered here.  There was a particularly rich burial ground that yielded many clues to how the peoples lived here.

Our final stop was at the lighthouse at Point Riche.  This looks out over the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which at this point is so wide you cannot see the other shore, even with binoculars.  I don't know if the lighthouse is still in operation, but rather doubt it, as the door was boarded up.  There was no sign giving information about the history of this lighthouse, but it seems in excellent repair.

Just a note on bakeapples.  We had heard of this fruit, but had no idea what it was.  I took this picture at the Salmonier Nature Park.  We were guessing that these were bunchberries.  When we took the guided tour at L'Anse Aux Meadows, we learned that these are bakeapples.  I was given one to taste and was surprised to find they take like applesauce!  Later the guide at the Visitor Centre there explained the name.  The French called these "Baie Q'Apelle," which translates to "the berries that are called...."  But the English picked up only this first part, and not the actual name, so they became bakeapples.

A Rainy Day

Yesterday as we approached St. Anthony I was very excited to see some (small) icebergs in the water.  I'd never seen an iceberg before and was struck by how very white and luminous they are.

We drove into town to register at Hotel North, and lost sight of them.

On the way to L'Anse Aux Meadows we saw them again, and farther on the way saw a whole lot of little, little pieces.  There was no place to safely pull off the road to get a picture, so I figured we'd catch them on the way back.  I did get this picture of what I'm calling "berglets" as they are very tiny fragments.  Closer to St. Anthony we turned left toward St. Anthony's Bight and were trying to find a place with a good view of the ice.

Unfortunately, the Dear One was finished for the day--headache, etc., so we gave up before we got a picture, saying we'd try again in the morning.

Today dawned dark and drizzly.  We drove to an overlook, but because of the fog could see nothing at all.  This was definitely a day for indoor activity, so we took ourselves to the "Grenfell Historic Properties" which is right in town here.  There's a lovely Interpretation Centre with excellent displays.

Dr. Wilfred Thomason Grenfell was an amazing person.  Born in England in 1865 he chose to be a doctor, and inspired by Dwight Moody he committed his life to serving God through the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.  In 1892 he came to the Newfoundland/Labrador coast and found his life's work, helping the impoverished fisher families along the isolated coast.

Full of energy and daring he set up hospitals, orphanages, schools, even a co-op trading post to try to help the fishermen escape their eternal indebtedness to the merchants who supplied them and took their catch in payment.  He married an American woman who was well connected in "society" and she, too, worked with enthusiasm in all his adventures.  Their impact on the lives of the coastal people can hardly be exaggerated.

One of their endeavours, particularly of Anna's, was to establish craft cooperatives to give the women a chance to earn some money also.  Their hooked rugs became immensely popular and sold very well through many outlets in England, Canada and the U.S.  They also produced very fine, hand-embroidered outerwear.  In fact, a new cloth, called Grenfell cotton, a 600 thread per inch fabric, was invented in response to Dr. Grenfell's request for protective clothing for the north country.

I visited the Gift Shop and saw the very well done handknits and hooked rugs.  When we were at the Gift Shop in Hawthorne Cottage I saw other beautifully knit mittens, hats, etc. and commented to the saleswoman, "That looks like Briggs and Little yarn!"  She gave a noncommittal reply.  Evidently she's not a knitter!  And here in the Gift Shop at the Grenfell Properties I noticed the same thing.

And then I saw BINS of Briggs and Little Yarns!  Wow!  At home I would have to order them over the internet, and here they were in volume and lots of gorgeous colours.  You have to be a knitter to understand my excitement over this.  And they were only $4.99 for four ounces!  I limited myself to four skeins, enough and more for two wonderful pair of wool socks.

Then, as a souvenir of Newfoundland I chose this lovely little (7 1/2" x 9") hooked rug.  The workmanship on these hooked rugs is marvelous.  And this little red house with the sky and seabirds in the background looked pretty typical to me.  I'll put this on our coffee table at home and remember Grenfell and his wonderful contributions to the wellbeing of the people on the Newfoundland / Labrador Coast.

Since it was still a rainy day, we didn't feel like going for a hike as we had planned, so we returned to our hotel for a quiet afternoon.  I used the time to continue knitting on my project for this trip: a pair of socks for Dear Daughter #2.  This is a Mary Maxim yarn made from 75% bamboo and 25% nylon in a colour called "Hibiscus."  This is a very fine yarn--32 stitches to 4 inches, so it's taking a long time to knit.  It's a pretty lace pattern that I'm enjoying, and it's only the second pair of socks that I've ever knit from the toe up.

There's another "Yarn Tale" connected to these socks that I had planned to blog earlier, but then my computer went down and took the yarn pictures with it.  Maybe they'll be back sometime in the future.

The Northern Peninsula

First a few photos that haven't made it to the blog yet, because of various difficulties.  Here we have a carefully laid cobblestone floor from the Avalon colony, still good four hundred years later, and showing the drainage system.  The larger cobbles at the right slant downward toward each other, forming a shallow ditch that channels rain and waste water away from the buildings.

The building outlined in the rear was a storage building, proved to be such by a lack of a fireplace, and therefore an unheated building.

Baking bread in an open hearth:  the bread is in the Dutch oven, which has a lid.  The pan (called a Dutch oven) is placed in heaped up coals on the hearth, and more hot coals are shoveled on top of the pot.  After about half an hour the bread is ready.

Walking on the 14 foot wide, cobblestoned Main Street of the Avalon Colony.  The selfsame stones that Lord Baltimore and all the other colonists walked on in the 1600's.

Some additional comments on Sunday's drive: Highway 1 west is mostly a 2 lane highway, but with many, many, many, many passing lanes, so few people are tempted into dangerous passing.

In St John's there was a noticeable absence of horn blowing in spite of congested, narrow streets with traffic often at a standstill.  Drivers trying to exit a parking spot and enter from a side street were allowed into the traffic stream.

Seems that Newfoundland drivers have good manners!

Cross-country impressions: lots of stunted trees, rocks (all sizes), water: ponds, lakes, inlets, coves, bays, ocean, clouds, and of course rain and fog!

Sunday evening we were fortunate to find a room at the Candlelight B and B in Rocky Harbour in Gros Morne National park.  This nifty place used to be a church and was converted to a B and B by Winston Pearcey, who runs the place singlehandedly.  We certainly admired him, with all his accomplishments and his friendly way of doing things, including cooking the breakfast for all of us this morning.  The only reason there was a vacancy was because St. John's was fogged in and the planes were unable to take off for Deer Lake.

Monday morning we drove north of 430, Viking Trail.  This is a 2 lane road, dotted with many small villages, with the Gulf of St. Lawrence on our left. The land around here is quite level and very boggy.  We drove through patches of sun and fog and I kept watching for moose, but never did see any.

Gros Morne Park is overrun by moose--around 500 of them--way too many.  They are altering the ecosystem by their numbers.  After much discussion it has been decided to "harvest" some moose.  The hunters are called "harvesters."  Nowhere are the words, shoot," "kill" or "butcher" used.  It's funny, beef are butchered, moose are harvested.  Are we more unfeeling toward our domestic animals than toward wild animals?

By the time we reached St. Anthony the weather was gorgeous.  Best day of the summer they've had here.  We had managed to reserve a room at Hotel North, (newly renovated and under new management) and were able to check into our room.  We have a good room complete with a small kitchen, so I went across the road to the Foodland and picked up some groceries, including lots of fruit.

By 3 p.m. we were at L'Anse Aux Meadows, the site that Vikings stayed at 1000 years ago.  There is a very nice visitor center with a good film about how the site was discovered and authenticated.  Authentication actually depended upon the finding of a bronze cloak pin (typical of Norsemen), one iron nail and a stone whorl, which is the weight used on a drop spindle.

The name L'Anse Aux Meadows is a corruption of the French "L'Anse Aux Medea"--Anse meaning a cove and Medea after a ship that anchored there, which ship was named after the tragic Greek heroine Medea, wife of Jason the Argonaut.

I've been attracted to L'Anse Aux Meadows ever since I first heard of it many years ago.  It's the pull of touching history--visiting the very spot where the Viking worked and lived 1000 years ago.

But it was a little disappointing.  In contrast with John Guy's colony in Cupids and the Avalon Colony, there is not much to see, just these grassy areas that show where the walls and doors were.  The excavation has been filled in again.  This indentation was identified as the women's workshop--because the weight for the drop spindle and several stones used as loom weights were found here.

Of course, these building were made with sod walls and sod roofs on top of wooden frames.  So there is really nothing remaining as there was in those other colonies.  Also, this was not a permanent settlement, but a way stop for repairing their ships and it was occupied during a 25 year span, perhaps not even continually occupied.

There is a separate area where the settlement is replicated.  We're told that this is 90% accurate.  All was carefully researched both by archaeology and by a careful study of the Norse sagas.  Here Jim is peering into one of the small dwellings.




This is an interior of one of the sod homes, showing some of the activities that would have taken place there.  I had some other pictures taken in the large building, with a woman in period costume who explained much of the work that had been carried on there, but those pictures turned out too dark to include.

We're glad we went.  It was interesting.  Two other interesting things we learned today: There are loads of piles of cut wood beside the highway.  Families obtain a permit to cut logs in a certain area.  They go in and cut and stack the logs for their winter firewood.  There are also many small fenced gardens in the cleared areas beside the highway.  One of the rangers working the L'Anse Aux Meadows explained that the gardens are there because that soil was turned over in road construction and the tannic acid in the soil leached out the bottom, leaving dirt that has a pH high enough for growing a garden.

Now it seems to me that these piles of firewood and vegetable gardens, unprotected and unmolested beside the highway, say something pretty good about the character of Newfoundlanders.