Sunday, July 30, 2006
Newfoundland and Labrador
Today is Saturday, July 29. We have our first Internet access – in the parking lot of the Clarenville, Newfoundland city library – since arriving at our campground in Doyles, Newfoundland at midnight on July 14, after a 5-1/2 hour ferry ride from Nova Scotia.
On Friday the 15th, we took a bus tour of the southwest coast of Newfoundland. This part of Newfoundland features the south end of the Long Range Mountains. The coast is rocky and is characterized by high winds, stunted fir trees, and rocks. One of the local berries in known as bake-apple, an apparent corruption of the French “baie qu’appelle” or “what is this berry named?” Tourists are known as CFA [come-from-away] people.
Sunday was a free day on which Carol and I did laundry at a laundromat located in the back of a pub and drove to the end of Cape St. George to the rocky, windy shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That evening we attended a screech-in at the campground and became honorary Newfis after eating traditional Newfi food (bologna), talking Newfi talk (long may your big jib draw, etc.), dancing a Newfi dance, chugging a shot of Screech (Newfi rum), and kissing a codfish.
Monday we drove the motorhome up the west coast of Newfoundland from Doyles to Rocky Harbour, stopping en route to shop at Wal-Mart and buy diesel fuel. Tuesday we continued our drive to St. Anthony, on the northern coast of the island. The coast was a mixture of mountains and rocks, low land and rocks, and high land with glacial ponds. En route we saw two moose. Another feature of the western Newfoundland coast are gardens and wood stacks in the road right-of-way. Since the land is rocky, it’s hard to find garden sites. When the highway was completed in the 1980s (?) local families began to plant gardens in the road right of way and the practice continues to today – no one bothers any one else’s garden. Most of the land is owned by the province (Crown land) and for $23 a Newfi can get a permit to cut 8 cords of firewood each season. This too is stacked by the side of the road until winter, when it is hauled by snowmobile to the family’s home.
Tuesday evening we attended a Viking feast in St. Anthony, after which several of our group were accused by other member of heinous crimes (e.g. traveling under false names) and stood trial before a Viking court.
Wednesday was a bus tour of Norstead (a recreated Viking village) and a Viking heritage site where there are remains of an original Viking settlement. This part of Newfoundland was “discovered” by Lief Erikson in about 1000 AD and was called Vinland. Labrador, to the north, was known as Markland.
Thursday and Friday about half of the group (including us) took an optional tour to Labrador. We bussed back down the coast for a 1-1/2 hour ferry ride to Quebec. From the ferry dock, it was less than 5 miles to the Quebec/Labrador provincial border. After checking into our hotel and having lunch, we were bussed eastward to the end of the paved road at Red Bay, where we learned about the Basque whalers who visited this area in the 1500s. On Friday, we visited a boat works, a small museum, a waterfall, and a fish processing plant. We also climbed 128 steps to the top of the Port L’Amour Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in Newfoundland and Labrador. Our local bus driver/tour guide also stopped at a small B&B where the proprietress showed us (and one of our tour members played) a piano that had been rescued from a 1920 shipwreck of a British naval vessel, the HMS Raleigh. The piano had been a gift to the proprietress’ grandmother, who boarded the captain and several other seamen in her house following the wreck. The day ended with a ferry and bus trip back to the campground in St. Anthony.
On Saturday, we drove RVs back down the coast from St. Anthony to Port au Choix. Carol and I walked a local trail and happened upon an Eskimo archaeological site where a university professor and 7 graduate students were re-excavating a home that had first been studied in the 1960s.
Sunday was a short drive down the coast to Rocky Harbour. In the afternoon, Carol and I explored the local area, including another lighthouse. That evening the group had dinner at the Senior Citizen Center where after dinner entertainment consisted of a local guitar player/singer and a half dozen skits by the local seniors – it actually was quite good, better than it sounds.
On Monday, five of our group (including Carol and me) took a boat tour of Western Brook Pond, a fresh water lake located where a glacier had retreated about 10,000 years ago. The pond is several hundred feet deep, 10 miles long, and is enclosed on two sides by cliffs that range up to 2100 feet tall. We got our exercise, since the boat dock is a 45 minute walk on a gravel and boardwalk path from the roadside parking lot.
After several days of overcast, Tuesday was finally a sunny day. We left the coast and took out motorhomes inland to Gander. That evening was a steak dinner in the campground pavilion and after-dinner entertainment by a three-piece local band.
Wednesday morning was a bus tour of Gander, including the airport which has a fantastic mural and to which 38 international flights had been diverted when U.S. airspace was closed on 9/11. We also saw a planeload of American troops on a charter flight headed for Iraq. The afternoon was free, so we once again caught up on laundry.
Thursday we took a bus tour up the peninsula to Twillingate (a corruption of the French Toulinquet) where we visited a museum, a lighthouse (what else) and a winery that produces berry wines. After sampling several varieties, we bought bottles of Black Crowberry, Partridgeberry/Apple, and Rhubarb wine. In the afternoon, we visited a museum featuring the native American Beothuck who had inhabited the region from the 1650s to the 1800s. This tribe is now extinct, the last member having died in the late 1800s.
Friday we moved on to Clarenville, where we are dry camping in a high school parking lot. Saturday was another bus tour up the Bonavista Peninsula. The day was overcast, and the tour included a beautiful rocky coast, another lighthouse, and a museum and replica sailing vessel (HMS Matthew) honoring John Cabot (a corruption of Giovani Cabota), the Portuguese captain who, sailing for the British, discovered this peninsula in 1497. After lunch we visited the Ryan Premises, a national historic site, dedicated to a merchant who was a major salt fish (cod) exporter. The afternoon also featured a four-member local music group which was joined for several songs by one of the two local guides who accompanied us in Gander and Clarenville. These two guides (both women) have been exceptional, and the last couple of bus tours have been the best of the caravan so far.
Back at the campground, we found the Internet access at the library and downloaded two weeks worth of e-mail and financial information. This evening (Saturday) I am composing this message in Word and will upload it to the blog tomorrow morning, before a short drive to St. John’s.
Overall we are having great time on the caravan, and on Friday I phoned Winnebago Tours to sign up for next years “Great Circle” caravan which tours national parks and other sites in the Southwest.
Since we are dry camping, the battery on my laptop is getting weak, so I will not try to post photos today. If we have Internet access in St. John’s, I’ll try to put up a few photos there.
On Friday the 15th, we took a bus tour of the southwest coast of Newfoundland. This part of Newfoundland features the south end of the Long Range Mountains. The coast is rocky and is characterized by high winds, stunted fir trees, and rocks. One of the local berries in known as bake-apple, an apparent corruption of the French “baie qu’appelle” or “what is this berry named?” Tourists are known as CFA [come-from-away] people.
Sunday was a free day on which Carol and I did laundry at a laundromat located in the back of a pub and drove to the end of Cape St. George to the rocky, windy shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That evening we attended a screech-in at the campground and became honorary Newfis after eating traditional Newfi food (bologna), talking Newfi talk (long may your big jib draw, etc.), dancing a Newfi dance, chugging a shot of Screech (Newfi rum), and kissing a codfish.
Monday we drove the motorhome up the west coast of Newfoundland from Doyles to Rocky Harbour, stopping en route to shop at Wal-Mart and buy diesel fuel. Tuesday we continued our drive to St. Anthony, on the northern coast of the island. The coast was a mixture of mountains and rocks, low land and rocks, and high land with glacial ponds. En route we saw two moose. Another feature of the western Newfoundland coast are gardens and wood stacks in the road right-of-way. Since the land is rocky, it’s hard to find garden sites. When the highway was completed in the 1980s (?) local families began to plant gardens in the road right of way and the practice continues to today – no one bothers any one else’s garden. Most of the land is owned by the province (Crown land) and for $23 a Newfi can get a permit to cut 8 cords of firewood each season. This too is stacked by the side of the road until winter, when it is hauled by snowmobile to the family’s home.
Tuesday evening we attended a Viking feast in St. Anthony, after which several of our group were accused by other member of heinous crimes (e.g. traveling under false names) and stood trial before a Viking court.
Wednesday was a bus tour of Norstead (a recreated Viking village) and a Viking heritage site where there are remains of an original Viking settlement. This part of Newfoundland was “discovered” by Lief Erikson in about 1000 AD and was called Vinland. Labrador, to the north, was known as Markland.
Thursday and Friday about half of the group (including us) took an optional tour to Labrador. We bussed back down the coast for a 1-1/2 hour ferry ride to Quebec. From the ferry dock, it was less than 5 miles to the Quebec/Labrador provincial border. After checking into our hotel and having lunch, we were bussed eastward to the end of the paved road at Red Bay, where we learned about the Basque whalers who visited this area in the 1500s. On Friday, we visited a boat works, a small museum, a waterfall, and a fish processing plant. We also climbed 128 steps to the top of the Port L’Amour Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in Newfoundland and Labrador. Our local bus driver/tour guide also stopped at a small B&B where the proprietress showed us (and one of our tour members played) a piano that had been rescued from a 1920 shipwreck of a British naval vessel, the HMS Raleigh. The piano had been a gift to the proprietress’ grandmother, who boarded the captain and several other seamen in her house following the wreck. The day ended with a ferry and bus trip back to the campground in St. Anthony.
On Saturday, we drove RVs back down the coast from St. Anthony to Port au Choix. Carol and I walked a local trail and happened upon an Eskimo archaeological site where a university professor and 7 graduate students were re-excavating a home that had first been studied in the 1960s.
Sunday was a short drive down the coast to Rocky Harbour. In the afternoon, Carol and I explored the local area, including another lighthouse. That evening the group had dinner at the Senior Citizen Center where after dinner entertainment consisted of a local guitar player/singer and a half dozen skits by the local seniors – it actually was quite good, better than it sounds.
On Monday, five of our group (including Carol and me) took a boat tour of Western Brook Pond, a fresh water lake located where a glacier had retreated about 10,000 years ago. The pond is several hundred feet deep, 10 miles long, and is enclosed on two sides by cliffs that range up to 2100 feet tall. We got our exercise, since the boat dock is a 45 minute walk on a gravel and boardwalk path from the roadside parking lot.
After several days of overcast, Tuesday was finally a sunny day. We left the coast and took out motorhomes inland to Gander. That evening was a steak dinner in the campground pavilion and after-dinner entertainment by a three-piece local band.
Wednesday morning was a bus tour of Gander, including the airport which has a fantastic mural and to which 38 international flights had been diverted when U.S. airspace was closed on 9/11. We also saw a planeload of American troops on a charter flight headed for Iraq. The afternoon was free, so we once again caught up on laundry.
Thursday we took a bus tour up the peninsula to Twillingate (a corruption of the French Toulinquet) where we visited a museum, a lighthouse (what else) and a winery that produces berry wines. After sampling several varieties, we bought bottles of Black Crowberry, Partridgeberry/Apple, and Rhubarb wine. In the afternoon, we visited a museum featuring the native American Beothuck who had inhabited the region from the 1650s to the 1800s. This tribe is now extinct, the last member having died in the late 1800s.
Friday we moved on to Clarenville, where we are dry camping in a high school parking lot. Saturday was another bus tour up the Bonavista Peninsula. The day was overcast, and the tour included a beautiful rocky coast, another lighthouse, and a museum and replica sailing vessel (HMS Matthew) honoring John Cabot (a corruption of Giovani Cabota), the Portuguese captain who, sailing for the British, discovered this peninsula in 1497. After lunch we visited the Ryan Premises, a national historic site, dedicated to a merchant who was a major salt fish (cod) exporter. The afternoon also featured a four-member local music group which was joined for several songs by one of the two local guides who accompanied us in Gander and Clarenville. These two guides (both women) have been exceptional, and the last couple of bus tours have been the best of the caravan so far.
Back at the campground, we found the Internet access at the library and downloaded two weeks worth of e-mail and financial information. This evening (Saturday) I am composing this message in Word and will upload it to the blog tomorrow morning, before a short drive to St. John’s.
Overall we are having great time on the caravan, and on Friday I phoned Winnebago Tours to sign up for next years “Great Circle” caravan which tours national parks and other sites in the Southwest.
Since we are dry camping, the battery on my laptop is getting weak, so I will not try to post photos today. If we have Internet access in St. John’s, I’ll try to put up a few photos there.
