Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec Aug. 26-29; Maine, NH, and Home Aug. 30-Sept.1

We reluctantly left Prince Edward Island after a very relaxing time there and headed across the ten-mile long Confederation Bridge across the Northumberland Strait into New Brunswick. We then went north up the eastern coast of New Brunswick. It is also called the Acadian Coast as so many Acadians live there. We didn’t stop to see anything as we had already visited some Acadian sites earlier, and we were anxious to get to the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec for some new adventures.

The Gaspe Peninsula was rated by National Geographic as the third most beautiful destination in the world after the Norwegian Fjords and the Kootenay and Yoho National Parks in British Columbia. Because there is a town named Gaspe, a Cape Gaspe, and the GaspeNational Park, the Gaspe Peninsula’s common name is Gaspesie.

We crossed the Restigouche River from Campbelltown, NB into Pointe-a-la-Croix, Quebec. The first thing we noticed was that all of the signs were only in French. In New Brunswick they had been in both French and English. This caused us a few problems when we were trying to talk with the natives, not many of whom spoke English. We could get the meaning from some signs, but not others. The second thing we noticed was that most of the churches had silver spires and silver roofs.

By mid-afternoon we stopped in the pretty town of Carleton-sur-Mer for the night. The village has really gone all out to attract tourists to this beautiful area with the Bay of Chaleurs on one side and the Chic Chocs Mountains, on the other. The mountains are the end of the Appalachian Mountain Range. After being in PEI where the tallest place is only 400 feet above sea level, this was quite a change.

The town has created a huge campground on a long, narrow spit of land that ends at the lighthouse. There are miles and miles of bike paths linking the campground to the village shops, the wharf, playgrounds, etc., so we took advantage of that and biked for a few hours before setting in right next to the bay for the night.

The next day we headed along the shoreline, passing many beautiful fishing and tourist towns. The prettiest, and also most touristy town, was Perce which is on a peninsula overlooking Bonaventure Island and Perce Rock, a huge rock with an arch that boats can go through when the tides are right. All along the coast were coves, bays, peninsulas and points extending into the beautiful water of the Gulf of S. Lawrence. After going through the town of Gaspe, we reached Forillon National Park where we camped for the night near Cape Gaspe where seals play in the water.

In the morning we went to Grande-Greve in the park, the site of a former cod fishing town. People would come here every summer to work in the cod fishing industry, and a few stayed all year. The “Company Store” would trade goods or credit to the fishermen in return for the cod which were packaged and shipped to Mediterranean Markets. Most of the time, the fisherman ended up owing the store more than they made with the codfish. The Company Store here was owned by wealthy business men from the Jersey and Guernsey Isles. The store manager in Gaspe made a little money, but most of the money earned from fishing went outside the country.

Women and children worked right along with the men. Those whose families were staying all year also worked in their nearby garden plots to grow what they would need to make it through the year. They canned vegetables and fruits, and “put up” fish for their use, also. They had pickled or dried herring and mackerel, salt-dried cod, and pickled cod heads. The only things they bought from the company store were tea, sugar, flour, and molasses.

Here is the recipe they gave for pickled cod head: Yuck, yuck, and more yuck!!!!!
Put coarse salt into a bucket of hot water
Let it soak for 24 hours.
Drop a potato into the brine. If it floats, the brine is good, but if it sinks, even a little, the brine is too weak.
For a stronger brine, stick a nail in the potato. If it floats, your brine is very strong.
et the cod heads soak in the brine until they are to be eaten.

Each worker had a particular specialty. Some were the fishermen, those who caught the cod, or those who caught the herring which was used for bait. Others worked onshore in special jobs for processing the cod: dressing, salting, and drying out the cod. As soon as the morning’s catch arrived at the stagehead, the cod were unloaded and taken to the splitting cabin. Splitting or “dressing’ the cod, which required both speed and precision,, was done by teams of three working at splitting boards. A skilled team could dress thousands of cod each day. The “throater” cut the cod’s throat and slit its belly. The “header” removed its liver and guts and beheaded the fish on the edge of the splitting board. The “splitter” cut the fish wide open and removed the spine.

Then the salter took over.  The dressed cod were salted to extract their water and kill bacteria. Workers, called fishlayers, arranged the split cod, flesh-side up, in a circle in round wooden salting tubs. As each layer was completed the salter sprinkled just enough salt on each fish to preserve it without burning the flesh with too much salt.

After sitting in the salt for several days, the salted cod were washed in large wooden tubs filled with lightly salted water. Workers used long-handled mops to remove the salt and the last impurities.

Then the drying crew took over. The cod were laid on racks, called flakes, in the sun. There were usually not enough flakes, so the fish were also laid on the pebbly beaches to dry. It was better if the wind was from the northwest, and the sun was not too hot. The weather had to be watched constantly by the head dryer. The fish were turned every few hours, with women and children usually having that job. At night the fish were gathered into piles of fifteen or twenty each, with the flesh side down, the largest on top to act as a cover to the rest. In the morning they were spread out with the flesh up. If the sun got too hot in the middle of the day, they were turned with the flesh down to prevent being burned. On evenings when rain was forecast, the cod were gathered in small piles and covered with haggots, small wooden covers that looked like pitched roofs.

When the cod was sufficiently dry, which took about three weeks, large round piles of them were made, each containing as many as a ton and a half of fish. The piles were then covered with birch bark held in place by heavy stones so the pressure on them would squeeze out any moisture that remained.

Once the drying process was finished, the cod was taken to warehouses where experts arranged it in stacks according to the size and quality. The stacks allowed any moisture remaining to evaporate.

The process of packaging the cod for shipping also took place inside the warehouse. The dried fish were stuffed into huge barrels called puncheons, and a large “fish” screw was used to tighten the barrel lid onto the barrel. Depending on the size of the fish placed in the barrel, each barrel weighed between 400 and 500 pounds.

Cod could be bought from Norway and Newfoundland, but the Gaspe cod was always ready ahead of the other since their climate allowed the cod to dry faster. This allowed the Gaspe cod to hit the market sooner in the fall, and they had no difficulty getting rid of their cod. Italian, Portuguese and Spaniards were the biggest importers of dried cod because as Catholics, their religion required them to avoid meat for more than 100 days each year.  Inferior grade cod was shipped to ports in the West Indies and Brazil to be used as cheap food for plantation slaves. Dried cod was never very popular in Quebec. People there only liked salted fish, not dried, or fish that was only partly dried.

Cod from Gaspesie was famous for its pale, translucent appearance and its virtual imperishability, and the process used to dry it was called “Gaspe Cure.” The curing process they followed was the same that have been used in the 16th century, and was still viable in the 19th and 20th centuries. Cod is still cured the same way in processing plants nearby. We saw the outdoor flakes that are still used today.

The northern part of Gaspesie has mostly small fishing villages where the southern part has tourism as well as fishing. There were also a few small farms. As we got back around to the entrance to the peninsula on the north side we did see more tourism and farms. In the middle of the peninsula it is mountainous and there are very few towns, just mostly wilderness and the huge Gaspe National Park. We drove through there hoping to see some wildlife, but didn’t see any. Rain from Hurricane Irene was just starting as we went through the park. Thankfully when the worst of the rain and wind came, we were camped in an isolated spot along the bay.

We lucked out again with the weather as the rain had stopped by morning, and by mid-afternoon when we left Gaspesie, the sun came out. As we headed to northern Maine we passed many small farms with long, narrow fields of hay bales nearby. Next to the run-down barns we saw long, narrow plastic wrapped bales of silage fifty or more feet long.

When we crossed the border into Maine, we were surprised to see that churches there along the border also had silver spires like those in Quebec. Aside from the couple of border towns in northern Maine, there is not much other than trees and wildlife.  We thought we’d see some moose, but we didn’t. We camped next to Eagle Lake surrounded by lots of pine trees.

The next day we drove to the coast of Maine and wandered down to the Pemaquid Peninsula where we stayed for the night. I really like driving on the roads in the small New England villages. They are narrow (not much wider than one car width) and winding, with trees making a canopy over most of them.  The old, old homes are huge, often with attached barns and sheds. There are lots of little bays, lakes, ponds, and rivers along the way. We found a great lobster pound and filled up on lobster for dinner. We also cooked several to take home to our daughters.

The last night we were on our trip, we wandered into New Hampshire and camped at a large state park next to a lake. There were 300 campsites there, and we were the only campers! Then on Thursday, Sept. 1, we headed for home via back roads, and our wonderful vacation came to an end.




Click here to view more pictures

Prince Edward Island - Aug. 16 - 25

Beaches, beaches, beaches! Vivid colors: rusty red cliffs, sapphire blue water, every shade of green in the grasses and trees, white sand, pale yellow fields of grain, an artist’s palette of colors for the wildflowers, rainbow colored deck chairs marching across lawns, and the most spectacular sunsets and moonrises imaginable. Fields and fields of potatoes, soybeans, buckwheat, oats, barley, wheat, corn, and more and more potatoes extending all the way to the ocean shore. Fishing fleets, lobster boats, mussel and oyster farms. Gift shops, tourists, bike paths. Peaceful, pastoral, serene. That is Prince Edward Island!

PEI is a very small island, less than 170 miles across from east to west, and much less from north to south. It is almost three islands because there are three definite parts, each just barely attached to its neighbor. The southern shore is on the Northumberland Strait, the northern shore is on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Eastern Point gets blasted by the North Atlantic and its strong winds. The middle gets the most press and the most tourists, probably because Charlottetown, the largest city with 65,000 people, is there as well as the National Park and Anne of Green Gables. The other 65,000 people who live on the island are scattered all over with most towns having only a few hundred people in them.

If you can’t tell, we love it! We still love Newfoundland best because it was so different: harsh and rugged and vast, but PEI is a beach lover’s paradise, and I love the beach. As usual, we’ve explored all of the nooks and crannies, trying to find the best camping places. As often as possible we found campsites at the end of one or another red dirt road right next to the sandy beach. One night we camped at the end of a red dirt road right next to a lighthouse with red cliffs between us and the beautiful ocean. So you can tell that there is a lot of red dirt here. We met some musicians who wrote a song called, “The Red Dirt Road” about PEI!

We’ve seen beautiful sunsets and moonrises. The first night we had a campfire on the beach we suddenly saw something in the distance that looked like a tent that was so brightly lit it must have been on fire. Then we realized we were looking at the moon on the horizon, and watched in awe as it rose slowly into the sky like a hot air balloon. As it rose, it’s color changed from orange to pale yellow. While that was happening, the last redness from the sunset was fading in the east, and the white frothy waves were being drawn into shore. The waves looked eerie, almost iridescent, because a floodlight from one of the cottages down the way was shining on them. They were coming into shore quickly, their paths seeming to change, and they looked almost like they were being pulled into shore by fluttering ribbons, much like those used in gymnastics. After that every night we looked for the moonrise as much as the sunset!

Of course we had to visit Green Gables. Both of us have watched the videos made from the books, and love the characters. Watching the “Anne” movies and the tv show “Avonlea” was one reason we decided to take our Maritime Provinces trip. We loved the scenery in the shows, which were supposed to be here on PEI. Of course, most of the shows were shot elsewhere in Canada, but in locations that looked like PEI did 100 years ago.

Green Gables, which Lucy Maud Montgomery used as the setting of her books, is now a National Historic Site. Lucy didn’t live there, she lived with her grandparents nearby, but her cousins owned Green Gables and she spent a lot of time there. I think she patterned Anne after much of herself: an orphan raised by an elderly man and woman, a young girl who liked to use her imagination and also to write, a young lady who taught in the one-room school near her house, and a young lady who loved the area in which she grew up.

One day we went to Avonlea Village. We weren’t really sure what it was, thinking it was just another town where restored buildings are brought in and demonstrations of the time period go on. We were pleasantly surprised! Avonlea Village is an experience! Luckily we got there when it first opened, because the action starts then. They have the characters from the Anne books, and recreate scenes from the first story in different places in the town. We saw Anne’s arrival on the island, the first time she met Matthew and Marilla, her green hair dye, and when Diana accidentally got drunk. Later we went to school, where I called called up to the front, and gave the wrong answer. No dunce cap for me, though! The schoolmaster just figured people from New York didn’t have the “right kind of learnin’ like they do in PEI”. There were more scenes from the book reenacted during the day, lots of singing by a great ceilidh band, beautiful houses to explore, buggy rides, lots of stuff for kids to do, and constant street scenes with Gilbert and Charlie doing what little boys do. One little boy of about 10 told his grandmother after the first scene reenactment that “this is for babies.” He soon got into the action, following Gilbert and Charlie around, playing pranks with them and on them. After a short time, he was totally hooked, and will probably long remember his adventures in Avonlea.

One night we went to the musical “Anne of Green Gables” in Charlottetown. It was wonderful. They had chosen shorter actors and actresses to play the students, and taller people to play the adults, so it didn’t look unreal. The woman who played Anne was about 30, but played the part of 11 year old Anne to 16 year old Anne very well. She was probably less than 5 feet tall and very slight, but she had the biggest voice! She was excellent in the part.

I, of course, bought some Anne books. For the 100th anniversary of the release of “Anne of Green Gables,” an author okayed by LM Montgomery’s descendants wrote a wonderful book about where Anne came from and how she happened to have such an astounding vocabulary. It is called “Before Green Gables” by Budge Wilson.

There are bike trails all over the island. The old railroad bed has been made into a bike trail, and extends from east to west. Also, the national park which owns most of the coastline in the northern central section of the island has miles and miles of paved trails running right along the ocean. It was really fun to ride along the coast and see the spectacular views of the cliffs and the water.

PEI was having Old Home Days at Charlottetown last week. That is like our county fair. PEI is a province, and that is like a state, but because PEI is so small, their fair was more like our county fair than state fair. The women’s craft exhibits and young 4-Her’s exhibits were wonderful. Besides beautiful quilts, hooked rugs, needlework of many kinds, jams, jellies, and pies, they had categories for photography and scrapbooking. I think I could have competed in those!

When we went to the western third of the island, it was lobster season! The other parts of the island are through with their lobster season as it was in May and June. Of course we had to get fresh lobster right off the boat! We had been watching tens of boats off the shore all morning pulling their traps, checking their catches, and putting the traps back down, or taking the traps to a different location. When we got to the harbor, we watched them unload their catch, then went and bought two big ones!

We also saw boats unloading what we thought at first was Irish moss, a seaweed that is harvested here and used to make carageum (sp?) to thicken ice cream, cottage cheese, pudding, and many other things. At the second harbor we visited, we found out it was not Irish moss after all, but fuscilarium or “foo foo.” Foo foo is an invasive species that is taking over the Irish moss beds. It is harvested and used as an additive to thicken paint, but foo foo only brings 6 cents a pound whereas Irish moss brings 25 cents a pound. Both seaweeds are harvested by boats dragging rakes across the sea bottom. Irish moss also comes into shore with high winds, and people of all ages will rake it up and put it on wagons or trucks to be hauled to the “Seaweed Store.” They also use workhorses pulling rakes near the shoreline to harvest the moss.

Since this is supposed to be Irish moss territory, we went to a restaurant and had Seaweed Pie. It sounds horrible, but it was delicious! The carageum is just used to thicken the pudding that covers the top of a delicious sponge cake topped with berry syrup!

The Maritime Provinces were all heavily settled by immigrants from Scotland, Ireland, and France. When Britain finally got control of the land here from France they, at first, deported all of the French settlers who were already here. Then they said that the area could only be settled by non-British settlers. At the time, of course, anyone who was not a British subject was their enemy, so that meant there was no one to settle here. The government of Britain soon changed their mind, and welcomed Scottish and Irish settlers to these lands, After a few years, still needing more settlers, they allowed the French back in also. Later, of course, people from other areas, including New England and England, settled here.

Anyway, those three cultures have heavily influenced the music here in the Maritimes. We’ve been to several performances in all of the provinces except New Brunswick, and we’ve enjoyed all types of music. Here in PEI, we’ve been to a couple of ceilidhs and to a wonderful performance at the College of Piping. The ceilidhs here included lots of songs about PEI with fishing, potatoes, and the red roads being a large part of the lyrics. That sounds funny, but the songs are quite good, and really tell about the province and the feelings life here evokes. The Highland Storm concert was great, too, spotlighting the Scottish and Irish heritage. Most of the performers were high school and college students who are studying there. There were lots of bagpipers and drummers, one fiddler, and several highland dancers as well as step-dancers. It was an energetic performance to say the least!

Unlike Newfoundland which was settled to provide codfish to England, PEI was settled for its great farmland, not fishing at all. Besides farming, it was also important in the shipbuilding industry. In its hay day in the mid 1800s, hundreds of ships were being built here every year. We visited the ship building museum, though not many items related to that trade are still around. They did have a lot of information about the ships that were built, however. The best part of that museum was the huge house that had been built by the Yeo family who were the island’s richest boatbuilders. It was a huge house with 3 stories and a cupola on top. Unlike most museums, we were allowed on all of the floors and in all of the rooms. From the cupola, you could see the bay and where the ships had been built. The house is furnished like it would have been in the mid to late 1800s, and guides there explain what all of the little strange-to-us items were used for at the time. The house was lived in until the late 1950s.

There are hundreds of small farms dotting the island, and like I mentioned previously, farmland goes all the way to the ocean. There are fancy houses along the ocean, but there are also farms and businesses selling cars, auto parts, or whatever. Not all of the shoreline has become “prime real estate,” probably because there is so much shoreline, and the farms were here long before tourism. Most of the farms grow potatoes, and some grow other vegetables or grains. Several have dairy or beef cows, and a few have horses, sheep, or alpacas. Most of the “interior” part of the island is still farmland. Seeing all of the farms and dirt roads reminds me a lot of Candor in the 1950s when our prime industry there was farming.

I have loved all of the beaches: some with white sand, some with red, a few with just red rocks. There are so many that except in the national parks, most of the beaches are not crowded at all. There are beautiful red sandstone cliffs, and miles and miles of sandy dunes to admire and walk along. The harbors are all very interesting, too,with fishing sheds lining the shore and crab pots and unused lobster traps piled here and there. With fishermen bringing in their catch of the day, and boats going in and out, there is always lots of activity there to watch and fishermen around to explain things to curious people like us.

It will be difficult to leave this friendly place, but in a few days we’ll start heading home, spending a few days in Maine along the way.

Click here for more pictures

Aug. 13 to 15, Southern and Western Coasts of Nova Scotia

Saturday Aug. 13, South Shore of Nova Scotia

We visited lots of little and medium sized outports as we drove along the coast of Nova Scotia south of Halifax. This area looks much like towns on the coastlines of New England with lots of antique shops, gift shops, seafood restaurants, etc.

Our first stop was Peggy’s Cove which is the most visited and most photographed fishing village in Nova Scotia. The reason for that is that it is only 45 minutes from Halifax, and it is a very picturesque, tiny village that looks like it came from the past, and every tourist guidebook recommends a stop there. It has been declared an historic district, so nothing can be added to it to make it look more modern. I feel sorry for the people who live there (about 40 residents) because they have a constant parade of outsiders in their village. Actually I think most of the original residents have moved away to be replaced by a few small tourist type businesses. It is not much different from other outports we saw, with the exception that Peggy’s has an accessible lighthouse and huge rocks for climbing on, or falling off from if one is not careful!

We passed several equally picturesque villages before stopping at Mahone Bay which seems to be a fairly upscale place with lots of condos on the bay, sailboats in the harbor, etc. It is definitely not a fishing village any more! It’s claim to fame are three beautiful churches lined up along the bay.

From there we went to Lunenburg, a much larger place with perhaps a population of 2,000.It is still a major port and fishing harbor. Most of the houses and businesses date to the 1800s and they, and the town, have been well preserved, giving it the distinction of being a UNESCO World Heritage Town. Many of the houses have ornate Victorian trim on them, several have widow’s walks, and several have a bumped out window above the front door, which is now called the “Lunenburg Bump. “ Many of them are brightly painted with orange, teal, magenta, purple, green, bright blue, and lots of other shades. There were also some unique metal sea creature signs hanging along the street: lobster, mackeral, scallops, squid, etc. The town was originally settled by German farmers to help supply fresh meat and produce to Halifax.

Sunday, Aug. 14 The Acadian Area of Nova Scotia

Today we learned what it really means to say everyone in your town is related. There are 1500 residents of a town called West Publico. 800 of them have the last name of D’Entremont and are all descendants of the first French settler here 12 generations ago! Those whose last name is different are also related! On the whole peninsula which includes two or three other towns, there are 400 entries in the phone book for the last name D’Entremont! There are so many people with the same first and last names that they often have to include the father’s or even grandfather’s names as a preface when they are talking about someone, like Joseph D’Entremont, son of Pierre, grandson of Henri.

Acadians are of French descent, and came to Nova Scotia and other provinces to settle as early as the 1600s. They called what later became Nova Scotia Acadia after the word the Micmac Indians used for it which was Kady.

Then England and France kept fighting over the land, and when England won the land, they decided in 1755 that people of French descent could no longer live here. That was the time of what they call the Great Upheaval when the French, called Acadians here, were removed from the land and sent back to France, England, or the American colonies. Some fled the area, a lot settling in what we now call the Cajun (slurring of the word Acadian) country in southern Louisiana, many in Quebec, and some went to other areas. Over the next ten years almost half of the original Acadian nation was lost at sea or died from famine and disease. In 1765, a mere 1,600 survivors was left in Nova Scotia, and most did not get their original land back.

The original D’Entremont was much luckier. He had fled to Boston where he stayed for 9 years. After that time, the English were allowing the French back into Nova Scotia, and Mr. D’Entremont was given his land back, an entire peninsula sticking out on the southern coast of Nova Scotia. Through the years, the D’Entremont family multiplied many times over! Now the Acadian culture is once again strong in Nova Scotia in three or four main areas. In the Acadian communities the children attend French speaking schools and learn about their culture. They do take courses in English so that they can function in a land where most of the people speak English.

The people here are mostly fishermen who have a much easier time making a living than the fisherman in Newfoundland. For one thing, the lobster season here is six months long, not two as in Newfoundland. Also, they can fish most of the year for other types of fish. Many of the fishermen here band together in co-ops to form their own fish processing plants, and some stay independent.

We learned a lot about lobstering from Olin D’Entremont who works at the Acadian Village, a recreated village, during the months when he is not lobstering. Olin clearly loves both of his jobs, and loves to talk about them. He has a license for 375 lobster traps and employs two men, one being his son, to help him. He does not like going far out to sea to get his lobster, preferring to stay only 3 to 12 miles from shore. He is fussy about his bait, wanting the freshest he can get, and preferring fat herring that have eaten a certain kind of red krill-like food. He feels that he gets more lobster with this kind of bait. Here, like in Maine, the lobster must be a certain size to be kept, and they can not be a female carrying any visible eggs. Unlike Maine, however, there is no upper limit to weight. He showed us lobster claws from lobsters that had been 19 or 20 pounds! His wife said that the big lobsters were not any better than the small ones, and often didn’t have as much meat in them as you would think they would have. Olin went on to say that one really needs to keep up with technology to be a good fisherman these days, so he had spend a lot of time learning to use the computer that aids his navigation.

At the village Olin shows the crafts related to fishing that every good fisherman must know. He showed us how he makes and repairs nets for bait bags, lobster traps, and fishing nets. He is also making a dory in the boat shop there using the methods they would have used in the 1920s. Yesterday he and the blacksmith at the village created a part to fix the 1915 Model T truck they have there.

They had cod there being salted as we have learned about in other places. After the cod is caught, it is gutted, cleaned, and then split so it will lay flat. Then it is layered in a wooden box with salt covering each layer. Surprisingly, a lot of water leeches out of the cod creating a brine. The salted cod is then laid on a flake, or rack, to dry. Olin said the best conditions for drying would be a northwest wind and slightly overcast sky. If it is too sunny, the cod might begin to cook, and that is not what they want. After it is dried, they pull off all of the bones and skin it. In olden days they would make a kind of glue from the skin using vinegar and something else. Other fish are often salted and dried in the same manner.

Shirl, Olin’s wife, explained that when one cooks salt cod, they usually soak it for several hours, changing the water frequently to get most of the salt out of it. They often use salt cod when making fish cakes or brewis. She said that she doesn’t deep fry fish any more as it is not healthy, but she sometimes panfries mackeral. When she cooks cod she dips it lightly in flour, then in a mixture of egg, milk, salt and pepper, then rolls it in cracker crumbs and bakes it.

Shirl, who also works at the village, was cooking a typical Sunday brunch for them over a wood fire. She was making bacon and baked beans to go with their eggs. During the time when they have no guests coming to the village, she keeps busy doing crafts like women would have done in the 1920s. She is braiding rags to use for rag rugs and sewing quilt squares together for quilts that will be sold in the village shop. She is also hand quilting a quilt for a Children’s hospital in Halifax.

There are two old houses in the village. The larger one, which had a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms downstairs, and an unfinished attic, was once home to two families which between them had 21 children! The smaller house had a kitchen, living room, two small downstairs bedrooms, and an unfinished attic where their ten boys slept. Their three daughters slept downstairs!

We had a great visit with both Olin and Shirl, and ended up with their email address, so will probably continue to correspond with them.

They told us to make sure that we went down to the local wharf because they were sure we’d be able to buy some fresh fish right off the boat. So off we went to Dennis Point Wharf, the homeport of at least 100 fishing boats, one of the busiest fishing ports in Canada. The boats range in size from 25 feet to over 100 feet in length. This fleet keeps about 350 fishermen in business and generates over $40 million a year. They keep six fish processing plants busy which employ another 300 people. So you can see that fishing is the life-blood of this community.

At the wharf several men dressed in colorful rainsuits were offloading their catch of haddock from a large boat with rainbow colored buoys hanging off the side.. They had about 80,000 pounds of haddock just today! They use drag nets to catch the haddock, and at times catch other kinds of fish in their nets. The fish were kept on ice in the boat in plastic bins. When they got back to port the bins were stacked four high and lifted off the boat with a winch to a platform from which two men would dump them into a trough. The trough was connect to a conveyor. The purpose of that was to remove as much water and ice as they could from their catch since the catch is weighed and they didn’t want to include the extra weight in their tallies. Occasionally a fish that was not haddock would come through, and one of the men would get it out of the bin and throw it into another bin to be sorted out later.

The haddock went down the conveyor belt landing in a large bin that contained about a foot of slushy ice in it. Each of these bins could hold about 1500 pounds of fish. When the bin was full, it was covered with more ice and a plastic cover, weighed, then taken by forklift to the back of a waiting tractor trailer. There were two trucks waiting there. One was hauling east toward Liverpool, Nova Scotia, and the other was hauling west toward Digby.

We asked to buy a cod fish which had been accidentally caught in their net, so they picked out a fish weighing about 10 pounds and charged us $5! They gutted it for us, then Bob filleted it, and we’ll get a few meals out of it. We have been eating seafood of some kind every day as it is so fresh and so cheap here to buy.

The Acadians live in villages all along the shore here. It seems like one might be traveling in France when driving through, because all of the signs are in French and there are Acadian flags everywhere. They look just like the French flag except they have a yellow star in the upper left corner. The children speak French and English in school, and probably just French at home.

We camped on the beach at Saulnier and had panfried cod for dinner along with some fresh vegetables we picked up at the farmer’s market in one of the little fishing villages we went through yesterday. The village was having a celebration and there was supposed to be a parade of decorated boats and fireworks on the beach, but the fog was so bad those things were cancelled. We had a nice campfire on the beach and listened to the music of the waves coming ashore.

Monday, Aug. 15 Acadian Area of Nova Scotia

We started at Eglise de Sainte-Marie, the largest and tallest wooden church in North America. It dwarfs everything around it, and one must look several times to see that it is not a stone church, but built entirely of wood. It took only two years to build, between 1903 and 1905, with the help of 1,500 volunteers using only handsaws and hammers! The priest in residence at the time was from Reims, France, and wanted to build a church like the one in his hometown. Plans for the church were sent from France, and a master carpenter in the area, though illiterate, was able to understand the plans and direct the massive undertaking. In today’s dollars, the church would have cost a little over a million dollars.

The church was originally 200 feet tall, but in 1914 lightning struck the steeple and started it on fire. Rain soon put out the fire, and when the parishioners rebuilt the steeple they made it 15 feet shorter due to their superstition that God started the fire because the steeple was too tall!

The stones collected from digging the basement were used to erect a thick foundation. It was long, hard labor done with only picks and shovels. Since the building is so large and so high, lots of large timbers were used in the construction to protect it from strong winds and storms. 40 tons of ballast help anchor the steeple in high winds.

Inside the church 70 foot columns, each made from an entire Norwegian Red Spruce tree trunk covered in plaster, support the arched ceiling. The religious paintings on the ceiling were painted by an artist who hated heights, so along with his paints, he brought a huge bottle of wine! The walls and ceiling are covered with canvas painted white. There are 41 beautiful stained glass windows that were shipped from France in crates of molasses to protect them.

We also visited Port-Royal National Historic Site. This is a reconstructed fort using the original plans for the French settlement built in 1605 when Samuel de Champlain and several others started the first French settlement here. The rustic buildings form a rectangle around a courtyard within a walled compound. There was a priest’s house, a governor’s house, a bakery, guardroom, trading room, sail loft, artisan’s area, etc. Several firsts happened here including Canada’s first play written and produced here, the continent’s first social club, called l’Ordre de Bon Temps, and the New World’s first grain mill.

In 1613 while the members of the village were several miles away harvesting their wheat, settlers from the Jamestown Colony in Virginia came ashore, pillaging and burning the settlement. The French settlers were saved by their strong alliance with the MicMac Indians who gave them shelter and food for months until their supply ship arrived and they left the area for good.

We stopped in Digby to eat some scallops because Digby scallops are supposed to be the best. We were not impressed, thinking Digby scallops taste no different from other scallops. They did, however, taste a lot better than the dinner of seal flipper we ate later. We bought the seal in Newfoundland, and cooked it all day as had been advised. That really didn’t help it, either. It tasted very gamey with a taste like beef that has been soaked in seafood. Neither Bob nor I could finish the seal, but at least we can say we gave it a try!

Tuesday morning - We passed through lots of farm country on our way to the ferry to PEI.

Click here to see pictures.

Thursday and Friday, Aug. 11 and 12 Halifax

The skies have finally cleared, the sun is out, and we are back to wearing shorts! The sun feels so good after over 2 weeks without seeing it very much!

We have really enjoyed being in Halifax for two days, spending most of our time in the old part of the city by the harbor. They have a great boardwalk there, and we enjoyed walking along it looking at the ships and the buildings. Halifax is a city of about 400,000 that has done much to retain the character of its original city. There are many old buildings there that have been kept in good repair and are still in use today.

One of those historic buildings is the Alexander Keith Brewery where we went on a tour. This was the best brewery tour we have ever been on. It was more of an interactive play than a tour. There were four different guides, all dressed in period costumes for the year 1863, who kept us entertained for an hour in this brewery that is the oldest in North America dating back to 1820. They actually gave us two large mugs of beer for our tasting while they sang, danced, and told stories in a great stone-walled bar that had originally been Keith’s basement in the house that dates to the early 1800s.

We also visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. There we saw artifacts from the Titanic and other shipwrecks, lots of different boats, dozens of model ships and a model fishing village with people about 5mm high that looked pretty realistic. There were also exhibits showing the horrible disaster that took place in Halifax in December, 1917 when two ships collided in the harbor. One of the ships was carrying a load of explosives. The explosion that took place after the collision leveled much of the city of Halifax, killed 2,000 people, and left thousands homeless. Evidently Boston, the closest city of any size, sent lots of help in the form of people, doctors, building supplies, tents for the homeless, etc. In return, Halifax sends a large Christmas tree to Boston every year that rivals the tree in Rockefeller Center in height.

High on a hill above the city is a fort called The Citadel built in the early 1800s as a defense for the city. It is now a national park with lots of costumed guides giving informative tours. The best part was the military precision marches and drills preformed by about 20 young men dressed in the kilt uniform of the Cape Breton Highlanders. The men are not really soldiers. They are college students doing this as a summer job, but I’m sure they’ve learned a lot from the job, like following orders and working as a team as well as the military marching skills. They put on a special firing drill in the afternoon, showing how they could all fire their rifles at once, or one at a time in a precision drill. Along with them, we saw a company of men fire the cannon several times. It, too, was done in precision, with everyone having a certain task to do. We also saw them fire the noon cannon, something that has been done 364 days a year since the fort was finished in 1856. They related a story of how the US Secret Service swarmed around Bill Clinton when he was downtown one day and the cannon went off :) There was also a drum and bagpipe band that played many great Scottish tunes, and the Army Band of the Atlantic Provinces also took part. There was a lot of pageantry, so it was a lot of fun.

On the boardwalk we saw several different “busker” shows. This is the 25th annual 10 day busker festival in Halifax. Buskers are street performers doing acrobatics, juggling, comedy, music, etc. Five shows were going on simultaneously in different parts of the boardwalk, each one attended by a couple hundred people. Everyone was having a great time and the shows were quite entertaining. We saw one guy with phenomenal drum skills who showcased his art by beating on 5 gallon plastic pails. Using his feet to raise and lower one of the “drums” against the sidewalk while he beat on the upturned pail with his drumsticks, he was able to create a bass drum sound. He entertained us by druming on just about everything around from baby strollers, to garbage cans, light poles, and people’s heads. Another busker showed his prowess with juggling soccer balls. Others did acrobatics, leaping over 6 people at a time, or rolling around in large hoops. Some did magic, some sang, etc. They really drew the crowds to the harbor front.

Newfoundland - Central and Eastern

Wednesday, Aug. 3

After taking the ferry back from Labrador Monday afternoon we camped along the coast on a rocky beach. Tuesday we headed south, going back to Rocky Harbour (once you’re in Newfoundland, you do a lot of backtracking, because very few roads make a loop - you have to go back on the same road you’ve been on before). At Rocky Harbour we stocked up on fresh and smoked fish. Surprisingly, in this land of fisherman and fish of all kinds, there are very few places to buy fresh fish. Most of the fish is taken from the ships directly to a processing plant where it is immediately taken care of and sent on its way. Rocky Harbour is the only place along the western and northern coasts to buy fresh fish!

As we headed east on the one east/west highway, we began to notice lots of differences from where we’d been. In the interior, and fairly close to the coast, the trees are much bigger, so there were actually some lumber mills. Also, people here seemed to have more money than their neighbors on the western and northern coasts, possibly because there are more residents and therefore more jobs available for the spouses of the fishermen, or jobs for men that do not involve fishing. The houses were bigger and more decorative, whereas on the other coasts the houses were just a place to live, with nothing much done to beautify anything on the outside. I found that even the schools on the western and northern coasts were drab and uninviting, but here in the central and eastern sides, they are more welcoming. Also, more people here seem to live away from the main part of town, so not all of the houses are clustered together. I also saw houses with for sale signs here. In the north and west they probably don’t need signs, just word of mouth if they want to sell their house.

There are many lakes, both large and small, along with bay after bay, and it began to look more like America with houses spread out along the shore and pleasure boats and jetskis, something that I had not seen at all on the western and northern coasts. If people here have gardens or firewood piles, they are by their houses, not along the road, because most of the land along the road seems to be privately owned, not owned by the province.

We camped for the night on the Bay of Exploits, an area that reminded me of the Thousand Islands because of the number of islands sprinkled all over. If you look at a map of Newfoundland, it’s sometimes difficult to discern where the bay ends and freshwater lakes begin because the whole area is blue with a little green around it.

Today we drove on to the tip of one of the clusters of islands to a town called Twillingate. It is supposed to be part of iceberg alley, but there were no icebergs anywhere around. We went to the end of the peninsula to see Long Point LIghthouse, a milkbottle shaped lighthouse built of stone. It was perched high on the cliff and we could see the Atlantic all around us, but no bergs. The fishing villages here are much closer together than the fishing villages on the west and north, and they run together to make one fairly large town. People still fish here, but it is turning into more of a tourist area.

From there we headed to Musgrave Harbour in honor of Frank and Eva Mae. It was on a point of land jutting into the Atlantic with no other nearby villages. We went to the harbour where we saw the day’s shrimp catch being iced down for shipment. Here, the boats are quite large as they fish in the Atlantic and must be able to withstand the rigors of the sea. The temperature here on the Atlantic side is very different, too. It’s 10 to 20 degrees cooler than what we were experiencing last week. The locals are used to it, however. It’s 57 degrees and Bob and I have on jackets, but the kids here are in shorts and tank tops!

Our next stop was Newtown, called “the Venice of Newfoundland” because of all of the canals, called “tickles” here. It is made up of many islands of all different sizes. The early settlers would have a whole island for themselves and all of their kinfolk, and would get about with boats. Now the islands have been joined by bridges, or in some cases, fill, giving the area the “Venice” look.

A wealthy family of fishermen had owned one island and built a school, a store, a boat shed, and two huge houses there. They have been turned over to a trust and are now a museum. The houses were gorgeous, but the best part of the trip was our guide, Jesse. He is an 18 year old whose ancestors on both sides have always been sea captains, fishing the waters around here, some of them even being involved in the dangerous seal fishing industry. Jesse plans to follow in their footsteps, but he’ll be the first in the family to actually attend a university to learn his trade. He is working at the museum so he can “get on the government roles by paying taxes” (probably something like our social security, or maybe something to do with his college payments). Like all of his relatives, he has worked on boats since he was very young, but this young man knows that the fishing industry is going downhill, and his goal it to be certified to captain larger ships, perhaps even cruise ships one day.

Jesse’s dad and uncles own their own fish processing plant and three huge boats. They fish for snowcrabs and shrimp, working at that about 4 months of the year. I guess each boat is allowed 1 million pounds of crab a year which Jesse said they get in about 15 trips. Fifty crab pots are tied to the main trap line about twenty feet apart, and then dropped overboard in a large circle with a buoy at one end of the trap line. They set two trap lines, usually one day apart, so they are picking up crab from one of the lines each day, rebaiting them, and then putting them back down. Jesse said that the whole line usually yields about 80,000 or more crabs at one time.

When they fish for shrimp, they are also allowed 1 million pounds. For that they have huge trawling nets attached to their boats with a weighted part under the water. They have to be real careful as they troll, because they don’t know what their net might snag on at the bottom of the sea, and if it snags, it can drag the boat under.

They don’t fish for lobster, because you don’t need very big boats to do that. Lobster don’t grow well in deep water, so they are fished for much closer to shore. For the crabs, they sometimes go 200 miles off shore. During crabbing season, Jesses said the men might only come into port for a few hours of rest before heading back out, or they might stay out overnight. Definitely not something I would want to experience!

Thursday, Aug. 4

As we were driving today, we noticed a cove full of blue and white buoys. Knowing that it was not lobster season, we were curious as to their use. We found out that they belonged to a mussel farm! Who knew such things existed? Evidently the mussels attach themselves to the ropes coming down from the buoys and are thus easily harvested.

Speaking of animals, today was the first time that we saw any farms or farm animals in Newfoundland. We saw dairy cows, horses, sheep, pigs, and chickens. We saw several of them grazing on the rocky cliffs, where unlike other rocky cliffs we’ve seen, there was grass. Some of the horses were blocking the road we were driving on, much like the buffalo in Cody State Park did last summer. They came right up to the RV and didn’t want to move. One looked right at Bob through his side window, and one looked at me through my side window. Bob rolled his window down a little to pet the one on his side, which seemed to satisfy the horse enough to move on to a safer place along with his buddies!

We stopped for a while in the tiny coastal village of Trinity which is a provincial historic site with most of the buildings are brightly painted, restored and protected, and there are rules in the town as to what they can and cannot do to their buildings. Everything must be kept the way it was in the early 19th century when this was a busy industrial center rivaling St. John’s. The population is now about 200 and the fishing industry has given way to tourism.

There was a beautiful Anglican church there, built in 1880, that had seating for 500. Somehow, I don’t think they fill it any more! There was also a small Catholic church reported to be the oldest all-wooden church in the province, built in 1833. We noticed here, and in all of the other towns that we visited, that the cemeteries belong to the churches. Since most of the churches don’t have room beside them for a cemetery, the graveyards are located some distance away. Since each church has its own graveyard, and since some towns have 3 or 4 churches, you will see an equal number of cemeteries, often right next to each other, separated by a short, white fence.

The highlight of our day was again at a lighthouse point. This time it was Cape Bonavista lighthouse at the tip of Bonavista Peninsula. The lighthouse itself was nothing special to look at, but at the bottom of the tall, rocky cliffs we saw at least a dozen humpback whales performing their stunts for the crowd. Twice we saw two whales breach at the same time. Boy, was that ever a splash! There was also a colony of puffins located on a rocky crag behind the lighthouse. As we watched them fly on and off their island, the quickness of their short wings beating against the sky reminded me of a child’s wind-up toy rotating as fast as it could!

We camped for the night on a narrow promontory of land jutting into the dark, cold ocean. We literally were surrounded by water on three sides, and could almost look straight down onto the sharp rocks about 100 feet below. I do not like to be very near the edge of any cliff, so that was a bit of a challenge for me to allow us to camp there. I didn’t allow Bob to park in the spot with only about two feet on each side of the RV before the cliff’s edge, however!

It was misty, foggy weather with a temperature of about 50 degrees, made much colder by the constant winds coming off the North Atlantic. The winds were so strong in the middle of the night, buffeting the RV like it was a piece of paper, that I feared we’d be blown right off the cliff! I certainly know what the pounding surf sounds like after a night there, too! I’m glad there are people like Jesse, mentioned above, who want to be sea captains, but that would not appeal to me at all. One night of just being that close to the raging ocean was enough for me!

Friday, Aug. 5

We drove to St. John, the capital and largest city in Newfoundland. First we went to Cape Spear, the most easterly part of North America. It was very foggy there, as in the whole area here, but we could see 60 to 100 feet ahead of us. The ocean was roiling at the cape. Angry waves attacked the large rusty colored rocks along the cliffs, the almost black sea water splashing up the most beautiful turquoise blue edge with frothy white foam on top.

We have been told that it’s always foggy in St. John because this is where the cold Labrador current meets the warm Gulf Stream current. It would be great to see some of this area on a sunny day. The row houses and apartment houses in the city are like an artist’s palette, each one a different color from its neighbor.

St. John’s is a city of about 100,000, and with the other towns on the Avalon Peninsula where it is located, the area population is about 500,000. That’s half the population of the whole province!

We walked around George Street, which seems to be pub central, then we ate at a local hangout called The Ship Pub. It is a great place where the locals hang out. I guess it is also used in the tv show Doyle which is popular here. While there we met an oilman from Houston and shared supper and conversation with him.

Saturday, Aug. 6

We had a wonderful day despite the rain and fog. Ingrid Clarke, Mary Haag’s niece, gave us a tour of St. John’s which was great to hear from someone who has lived here all her life. We went to the the museum called “The Rooms” which is supposed to remind people of the little sheds fishermen around here use for their fishing supplies and where they would gut and salt their cod, etc. It was great to have everything we’ve been seeing in the province explained in detail. All of the museums here in Newfoundland have been outstanding. One can tell that a lot of effort has been put into them.

St. John’s is said to be the oldest city in North America. That’s entirely possible since so much fishing was going on here. There seemed to be constant wars between the French and the British for control of the harbor. The harbor is a natural place with a narrow channel to enter, and it is deep enough for large ships. That way, the boats are protected from the harsh North Atlantic. Even today it is a busy harbor with cruise ships, container ships, and others using it. The fishing boats seem to keep to another part of the harbor, and smaller boats use the harbor at Quidi Vidi.

We also went out to Quidi Vidi village, a small fishing village right near the city. While there we toured the brewery and had some delicious Quidi Vidi Iceberg beer made from the waters of icebergs. Some companies harvest the ice from the bergs, melt it, and sell it to companies to use. It is very pure water, so it made the beer have a very light taste.

In the evening we went to the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival where we heard lots of great music from bluegrass to Celtic. There was a huge crowd there, and they really got into the music, dancing and singing along with the performers. One group from Cape Breton Island, called Barra McNeil, was made up of six siblings ranging from their late 20s to about 40. They have been doing this since they were young, and what a phenomenal show they put on. They had bagpipes, flutes, mandolin, guitar, banjo, and keyboard, and played them all. At one time four of them step-danced while the others played. Another group was called the Dardenells. They played accordian, mandolin, banjo, guitar and a hand-held drum. One of their members is going around to all of the outports (small outlying fishing villages) and learning the old songs from the older residents there before they are gone for good.

Sunday, Aug. 7

We took advantage of the rainy day to finally do some laundry so we didn’t do too much sight-seeing today. We did go up to Signal Hill which rises high over the harbor of St John’s. It is no longer used as lookout against intruders, but if it isn’t foggy, you can see a long way from there in all directions. I’m glad I never had to stand as a sentinel there! If it’s this cold and windy in August, I can’t imagine what it must be like in February!

It’s very windy and cold here right now. The winds shook the RV all night, and were probably 40 -50 mph. Winds at St. John’s airport can reach 90 mph and at Signal Hill they can reach 125 mph!

The harbor at St. John’s is 1.25 miles long and 1/2 mile wide with a depth from 30 - 90 feet. In order to get into the harbor, a ship has to travel through the Narrows which are between 600 and 1,036 feet wide with a depth of only 35 feet. One has to be a good ship captain to pilot some of the larger ships into the harbor. Approximately 1,000 ships of significant size dock there during the course of a year.

We also walked along Water Street, George St., and Duckworth St. in the very old part of town next to the harbor.

In the evening we went back to another night of folk music. We really enjoyed the first group, called Celtic Fiddlers, which was made up of teenagers. One 16 year old boy in the group can play 22 different instruments! The last act was a tribute to Ryan’s Fancy, a group that did a lot for Newfoundland folk music over the last 40 years. One member of the group is still around and he played and sang with lots of other talented musicians from the area. They played several traditional songs, including a sea shanty. At the very end of the show about forty people were on stage as they played the “Ode to Newfoundland” which sounded like a national anthem. Actually Newfoundland was not part of Canada until 1949, so the song could predate that, and therefore would qualify as a national anthem, I guess. One of the teenagers also sang a song about Newfoundland that stated “I know she’s a rock with lots of wind and bad weather, but she’s home sweet home to me.” You can tell that Newfoundlanders are proud of their province!

Monday, Aug. 8

It was finally clear and almost sunny in St. John’s so we headed up to Signal Hill to get a view of the city in clear skies instead of foggy. I am still impressed that anyone could live up there. The signalman’s family lived here, and during the 1800s military families also lived here until a baby died from smoke inhalation in the cold, drafty quarters.

We’ve really enjoyed St. John’s. It’s such a small city that it is super easy to navigate, and everyone is friendly. It is so colorful, it makes you feel good just to look at it, despite the fog!

We first stopped at Bidgoods, a grocery store. It was the biggest store we have been in since we’ve been here, and Bob remarked that it’s Newfoundland Wegman’s! We went there to get native fish and meat, so we stocked up on caribou steak, seal flipper, seal sausage, caribou and moose sausage, cod cheeks, fresh and frozen cod. We still have some salmon, smoked salmon, and smoked herring. We are really enjoying fresh seafood every night! We’ve had and loved cod tongue, fish and brewis, and fishcakes while here, also!

From there we headed south in the Avalon Peninsula, taking the “Irish Loop” which goes around the coast of the peninsula. It is so named because so many Irish people settled here.

It sure was desolate country. I am reading a book called Latitudes of Melt which is set at the bottom of the peninsula in Cape Race and surroundings. In the book they talk about the barrens. They sure are barren - nothing but moss and low grass appears to be growing on the flat ground all over the lower part of the Avalon Peninsula. The villages were not even nice looking as on the west coast. The houses were not grouped together, but spread out along the road and other spur roads. There was no where around where the people might have worked unless they fished. It had to be at over an hour to St. John’s, possibly two hours, so I’m not sure if they would work there.

Bob was delighted to see a small herd of caribou; one male and five females.

We went back up to Brigus, a tiny village on one of the many peninsulas near St. John’s. Brigus is a very old village, settled in about 1620 as a fishing village. Now it seems to be a bedroom community for rich people. Most of the houses are surrounded by white picket fences, or in some cases, stone fences. There is a large harbor, and two smaller harbors for smaller boats. We camped in a town park by the larger harbor. I really love the town, and could see living here, in its quiet calm, yet being close to civilization if I wanted it!

Tuesday, Aug. 9

We left our peaceful spot in Brigus and started our trek west and then south to catch the ferry tomorrow at Port aux Basques. We stopped near Great Falls to visit a Logger’s Life Museum. I know similar logging camps were also used in the US. Boy, was that hard work. They lived in cabins in the woods where they worked, felling trees from sunup to dark, and if any part of the tree was wasted with their cutting, they were fined. They had spruce boughs for mattresses and slept two to a narrow bed. I’m sure the spruce smell helped to deaden some of the other smells in there!

After our RV cooked codfish supper on the beach in St. Georges, we headed to the ferry dock. We don’t have to be there until 3 AM, but think we’d like to get some sleep, so we’re hoping they’ll let us get in the line and go to sleep until they need us at about 4 AM (you have to be there 2 hours early, but they don’t do much until about 30 minutes to 1 hour before.

Click here for some great pictures.

Labrador and Quebec

Saturday, July 30

We took the ferry from St. Barbe, Newfoundland to Labrador today. Actually, the ferry goes to Quebec, a few miles away from Labrador. The trip was about 1 1/2 hours. During the winter when pack ice fills in part of the Strait of Belle Isle, the ferry leaves from Corner Brook, Newfoundland, and ports at the same place in Quebec, a journey that must take 6 or more hours.

On the ferry we met up with several people we have become friendly with in Newfoundland, and even before in Nova Scotia. Since there is only one road going North and South, we keep seeing the same people wherever we go. One group is a family from the Netherlands whose daughter is going to be going to graduate school in Boston. They are traveling around this area and need to end up in Ottawa for her to get her visa through the Embassy there. Another is a couple from Quebec that we have seen several times.

While on the ferry, our Netherlands friends were talking with a gentleman who lives in Goose Bay, Labrador. He is a judge, and it sounds like he has a unique job going from one small Labrador town to another to hold court. He sometimes goes by car, float plane, snowmobile, or whatever way he can reach the town. He was telling us about the “road” in Labrador. He thinks it is quite good, but he lives here and is used to it! Only portions of the road are paved, the rest are gravel. We found out that even the paved road is not good! The only paved portion once you get off the ferry in Blanc Sabon is about 50 miles north into Labrador and 50 miles south into Quebec. Many of the villages can only be reached by boat or plane. The road goes all the way from the ferry north through Goose Bay, Churchill Falls, and Labrador City into Quebec, but it is about 500 miles long and extremely bumpy. We decided not to go on it with the RV, especially since flat tires and other damage are a real possibility.

We went up to Red Bay, passing several fishing villages along the way. Once in Red Bay we found a nice spot overlooking the harbor, and settled in for the night.

Sunday, July 31

We tried to go to the local church in Red Bay along with a few other tourists, but found out that they have no minister, so services are not held there any more.

Red Bay is a charming little fishing community on a natural harbor that right now has an iceberg in it! In the late 1500s, Basque whalers would come here for about 8 months of the year to kill whales. They would render the blubber into oil which was then placed in barrels that they had brought with them (disassembled until needed). They also harvested the baleen which was used for the stays in women’s corsets, among other things. More than 1,000 men would usually come, and they had quite an operation going here.

In the 1970s and 80s, archeologists uncovered the remains of much of the operation, including a galleon that had wrecked in the harbor and several of the whale boats. From documentation in Spain and France, they feel that it must be the wreck of the ship, San Juan, which got loose from its moorings one night during a bad storm, was slammed into the rocks, and sunk with 1,000 barrels of whale oil lost. The mud and cold water had actually preserved most of the objects, and they were able to resurrect one of the fishing boats and some whale jaw bones from the right whale. They found most of the pieces of the galleon also, but the cost of restoring it was prohibitive, so after carefully measuring and documenting each piece, it was all put back where they found it in the mud and covered with a large piece of rubber weighted down with concrete filled tires. That way, if later they found some money to do something with it, it would still be preserved.

The archeologists also found a grave yard containing the remains of 12 men who probably died from disease, not the wreck. Along with the men, they found some articles of clothing still partially intact! It was all a very fascinating exhibit.

Not wanting to risk our RV to the gravel road, we headed back south and went along the coastal road past several fishing villages in Quebec. The countryside here is beautiful, but very stark. The land is vast, and filled with rocky hills on which only different kinds of lichen grow. There are a few stunted trees here and there, but none growing on the rocks. There are also many, many gorgeous lakes and rivers adding to the scene. It has been a very enjoyable two days!

Click here to view more pictures.

Newfoundland - Western and Northern Coasts

Sunday, July 24
We got up early because we had to be at the ferry terminal by 8 o’clock. Once we got there, however, we had to wait in line with everyone else to be loaded, so we didn’t actually get onboard until about 9:30. THe ship left the dock promptly at 10, and we set off on the six hour trip to Newfoundland. It was pretty windy, and at times a wave would hit the ferry so hard there would be a huge noise and we thought we’d hit something! The boat was pretty new, and had cabins for passengers to sleep in if so desired, a movie theater with seats that reclined, that was also a pretty good place to nap, a large lounge with fairly comfortable seats, a card room, a kid’s playroom, dining room, cafeteria, etc. Bob said the only way you knew you weren’t on a cruise ship was that no one came up to you to try to get you to buy a drink! Overall, the trip was quite pleasant.

The time in Newfoundland is a half hour later than Atlantic time. Newfies say that their time is a half hour off from the other Atlantic Province timezones because God took an extra half hour creating Newfoundland to make sure that it was more beautiful than anywhere else.

Newfoundland’s nickname is “The Rock” and you can tell why as soon as you see it - it’s mostly rock with a lot of short trees and lots of water. We headed up to Corner Brook, the 2nd biggest city in Newfoundland with 24,000 people! It started as a papermill town, and it continues to be a mill town, although there are other industries there now as well.

Running into Corner Brook from the sea is a huge bay that is 30 miles long and very wide, called Humber Arm. Actually, there is more than one arm to it, but the main “Arm” is about a mile or so wide and filled with several islands. It is a glacially carved bay and is actually considered to be a fjord. The water is a brilliant blue, and reminded me a lot of Cayuga Lake. We camped right on the beach at a park near the open end of the water which is so clear you can see the bottom. We didn’t see much sealife, although I know it is there.

As we drove up the arm past several small fishing villages, we kept seeing small Newfoundland orange dories pulled up all along the beach. Many of them had small shed next to them. We asked what they were and found out that, at least in this bay, they are the lobster boats! We could hardly believe that, but the ranger told us that the men have a small winch on board to haul up the traps, and each man can run about 450 traps during the season. Since they do most of their lobstering in the bay, they don’t need bigger boats. The water out in the Gulf is generally too deep for the lobster, because the deeper the water, the colder it is. Because even the bay water is very cold, it takes a 8 or 9 years for the lobster here to reach even a pound, so they are a lot smaller than the Nova Scotia lobsters. I didn’t find out why the boats were all the same color, but I suspect that orange is a lot easier to spot in whe water than gray or blue or green.

Once lobster season is over, the men fish for cod or snowcrabs. Right now it is in between seasons, so we only saw a few of the boats out on the water. Although the season is over for large-scale fishing, residents are able to fish for their own consumption right now.

When we asked the ranger what people did for a livelihood in this small area of Lark Harbour and York Harbour if they didn’t fish, he said they called it the “Town of the Newlywed and the Nearly Dead!” However, in recent years more of the 30 and 40 year olds have been coming back to make a home there and maybe travel the 45 minutes to an hour into Corner Brook to work.

Monday July 25
We stopped at a local fish market and bought salted cod, scallops, smoked capeling, smoked herring, and cod bites which are pieces of fried cod. Then we stopped at a u-pick strawberry place and got some fresh fruit, although the berries were not very sweet.

We were told that Newfoundlanders are “terribly friendly,” and we’ve discovered that it is true! The ranger at the park last night was very helpful , as was the woman at the fish market. Then at the u-pick we met a woman from St. John’s who was on vacation with her children and grandchildren. After talking with us for only a few minutes and telling us places we should be sure to see, she gave us her phone number and told us to call her and her husband when we get to St. John’s for a personal guided tour!

We drove to the next huge glacial bay (fjord) which is called Bonne Bay. It was just as beautiful as the last bay : beautiful blue water, rocky mountains with short spruce trees on them, and small fishing villages. It is actually a pair of fjords which were carved out by different glaciers, with the South Arm being deeper and colder than the East Arm.

After a while we entered Gros Morne National Park which includes many small villages along the western shore of Newfoundland. There is a unique area there called Tablelands where we took a hike. It’s unique because it is made from the earth’s mantle which is usually only found in the center of the earth, but millions of years ago, this area was pushed up out of the earth. The rock is orangey brown, and seems to be kind of soft. As we walked on the trail it was a little like walking on the surface of the rocky moon. The barren brown hills reminded me a lot of what we had seen in the western part of the United States, but there was a lot more water flowing here!

Bob got bored with the trail, and took off after a moose that was way in the distance. He actually got close enough to get a picture of it, though, so that made his day!

We then went to Trout River campground where we ate homemade fish chowder with salted cod and snowcrab and fresh-picked sugared strawberries for dessert! A great end to a great day!

Tuesday, July 26
Another wonderful day! The weather has been cooperative, too. Today it was about 80 degrees and sunny!

As soon as we came up the hill from Trout River and gazed out on the Bay, the first thing we saw was a cruise ship! We thought at first that we were seeing things that weren’t really there, but realized that Bonne Bay and the beginning of South Arm are large enough for a small cruise ship, and that the ship was anchored there. Later in the morning we would see the passengers being taken off in tenders to the two little towns along the bay.

We drove down East Arm and around to South Arm where we stopped at Norris Point. There we went into a working research facility for marine life. They had a lot of tanks in there with explanations of the marine animals we were seeing. The water up here is cold, so there are different types of sea stars here than you might find in Florida, for instance.

We then kept going up the coast, seeing Rocky Harbour, and then the lighthouse at Lobster Cove. There we walked down to the beach to search through the tidal pools. There was sea life in there, but most of it must have been hiding as we really only saw snails and limpets.

We continued up the coast to Broom Point where we had a very informative chat with the ranger there who was talking about the family that fished in that area for 30 years. He had grown up in a fishing family and had been a fisherman himself for many years, so he really knew what he was talking about.

When the Mudge brothers first started fishing here in the 40s, they had to come up from Rocky Harbour by boat. Sometime in May they would load their dories with their fishing supplies and food and come up the coastline. Rocky Harbour is now about a 45 minute car ride, but it would take them 3 1/2 hours with their motorized boats. When school was done for the year, their wives and children would join them because it took a lot of hands to take care of their catch. All ten of them slept in the same small three bedroom cottage on the shore with an outhouse for a toilet and a stream for fresh water.

The men fished for salmon, lobster, and cod. Their children went in the boats with them at times, but most of the wives and children had to process the catch. Three people would gut and clean the cod, and then they would be flattened out on a bed of salt that was spread on the clean floor of the boathouse. After each layer of cod was spread out, more salt was poured on top. They would stack the cod as high as three feet, and as wide as they could. After a week or two of being salted, the cod was laid on clean rocks on the beach to dry. If it was going to rain, the cod had to be picked up and taken back to the boat house until it was dry enough to lay them outdoors again. They did this for a week or so until the cod were completely dry, then they could be bagged or boxed for shipment to the fish market in Rocky Harbour. The salmon was canned, and the lobster were put on ice and taken by boat to Rocky Harbour because they needed to be fresh.

Every so often a boat would come bringing supplies from Rocky Harbour and they could send their catch back with him. The fish was usually just traded for supplies that they needed for sustenance.

The men fished from about May to October when they returned home and became lumberjacks for the winter. In the late 50s, a road was built connecting Rocky Harbour and Broom Point, so the Mudges could get back and fourth a lot easier, and they actually began to make money, not just subsist.

Our guide went on to tell us that when his ancestors had arrived in Newfoundland, the waters were churning with cod. That was what everyone fished for, and it wasn’t called cod, it was just called fish. All other varieties of fish had names, but not cod, because “fish” was their mainstay. Cod were caught in big gill nets, so they usually caught a lot at one time.

He showed us the tackle they used for fishing for halibut. It was a wooden square with a rod in the middle on which their was several hundred feet of line. On the end of the line was a huge three pronged hook. They polished the hook by rubbing their knife on it so it would become very shiny. That shine was what attracted the halibut. When a halibut got ahold of the hook, the fisherman couldn’t just reel him in because the halibut could weigh several hundred pounds. They just let the wooden “spool” fall into the water, and the line would unreel as the fish swam. after awhile the fish would tire and they could get close enough to club it in the head and stun it enough to haul it into their boat if they could lift it, or to drag it into shore if they could keep it stunned long enough!

One thing I noticed about the fishing villages were saw today was that their dories are ot all the same color as they were on the west side of the Humber Arm. They still have small boats for lobstering, but they are not orange. Also, the area around Rocky Harbour is closer to the gulf, so the fisherman may go out a little further with their fishing and use larger boats.

We have also noticed that the water around here has been calm every day we’ve been in the Maritime provinces, nearly 2 1/2 weeks! I don’t know if it is because we have only been in the Gulf of St. Lawrence waters for the most part, or whether it has something to do with the air stream or currents, or whatever.

We finished our day with a 2 1/2 mile walk through a bog and forest to an inland fjord called Western Brook Pond. (In Newfoundland the word “pond” is used for “lake.”) It is not technically a fjord today because it doesn’t contain salt water, but it has the high straight cliffs of a fjord. It was glacially carved as glaciers moved through this area about 40 times, and the sea rushed in. However, the bog began growing, and became higher than sea level, so the fjord became cut off from the ocean and is now a fresh water lake. It is very clear, pure water with hardly any marine life in it.

Once we got to the lake, we boarded a boat for a trip through the fjord where we saw lots of beautiful waterfalls, but very little wildlife - only one moose. The lake doesn’t have enough nutrients in it to support marine life so animals do not hang around here. We were shown the area where massive herds of caribou come down a steep trail, swim across the water, and go up the other side through a valley of sorts to their spring habitat on top of the cliffs. There are about 500 caribou and 50,000 moose living in Gros Morne Park.

Along the hike to and from the lake we saw beautiful wildflowers - blue flag iris in full bloom (mine at home bloomed in May), dark fuschia sheep laurel, and lots of others including cotton grass. This grass has a tuft almost like cotton literally flying from its tip like a sail. In the windy areas, very little of the cotton was left, but in sheltered areas there was more on each plant. Early settlers used to use the “cotton” for lamp wicks.

Wednesday, July 27
Another bright, sunny day! This is what the Newfoundlanders say their summer is usually like - high 70s or even 80s with lots of sun, but cool evenings. They have had a pour spring and beginning of summer like we had in New York, but they’re happy now!

We stopped at Port au Choix where there are archeological digs going on since they have found evidence of the natives that lived here 5500 years ago. This point was a great area for hunting seals and other animals, and different tribes through the years as well as Europeans made settlements here.

Judging by the homes in Port au Choix, it is a little more prosperous than other towns we’ve seen. There are more new and bigger houses there. There are some new houses in most of the towns, but this has the most. The older houses in all of the towns tend to be very small rectangular houses, probably with two bedrooms. If they have three bedrooms, each room must be just big enough for a double bed! The newer houses are bigger, and often split level or two story. There are a few mobile homes and double wides, but not many. The yards are very small as the houses are so close together, not spread out the way we do at home. This could be because they are so dependent on the ocean they need to live near it and usually there is only one good place for a harbour in the area and they would need to live near it. Also, the winters are hard here, and its probably comforting to know that there is someone nearby in case of an emergency.

The road (there is really only one road going north!) is lined with beautiful wildflowers of every color - blue, purple, pink, white, yellow in all shades. They are complimented by the several turquoise shades of the calm water today that is also right next to the road.

As we got farther and farther north, we passed several towns where the fishermen must not have had enough space near their homes or shore to store their lobster traps. They were stored on both sides of the highway among the trees! Actually there were also stacks and stacks and stacks! of firewood stored near the road. We later found out that the people get a permit to cut the wood in the winter. They use sleds to get it out, and store it near the road. At first they lean it up together like a teepee to dry it. Then during the spring or summer when they are not fishing, they cut it up and stack it. Before winter, they truck it to their homes and stack it outside. They don’t really have to split it because the trees they get the wood from are so small. It’s not very good wood for burning, either, being mostly spruce and a little birch.

We could also see some garden plots in the areas next to the road. This is because the soil near the road is richer than the soil by their houses which are located by the coast. The land on both sides of the road is owned by the province, and the people are allowed to keep things there or make their gardens there. Their houses are not along the road, but off the road in their fishing villages.

Also as we kept going north we noticed that the trees were getting shorter and shorter! The wind and temperature must keep the trees from growing very much.

As soon as we got near the Strait of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland, we began to spot icebergs off in the distance. At first they were almost to small to see even with the binoculars, but eventually they became more visible.

The best thing of all, though, is our free campsite for tonight! We are at Cape Norman, the northernmost point in Newfoundland, next to a lighthouse on a cliff. It is isolated, but since it is high above the town, and can be seen from a mile away, we have had several townsfolk come up to see who the foreigners are. Our view is spectacular! We are surrounded by water on three sides, and as I look at the water from any direction, I can see humpback whales with icebergs floating in the background! None of them are close enough to get good pictures of with our basic cameras, but, boy, they are a joy to watch.! I just got into the RV after watching them for 3 1/2 hours because it’s getting cold outside. However, I can look out the RV windows and see them just fine! It doesn’t get dark here until about 10 PM, so I’ve still got quite a while to watch the show!

Thursday, July 28
We woke up to see brilliant sunshine and whales playing in the water below us. Hoping to get up closer to whales and icebergs, we headed to St. Anthony to get on a boat. When we got there, it was quite foggy, but it soon cleared up around the village. However, it did not clear up out on the ocean where we went to see the whales and icebergs, so we did not spot any whales. We did, however, see icebergs!

We were taken to four large icebergs that are around the St. Anthony area. These icebergs broke off of glaciers in Greenland, and it normally takes about 2 years for them to make their way from Greenland to St. Anthony. The iceberg is made up of packed now that fell anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 years ago! Normally by July the icebergs are no longer seen around here, but there have been several here for the last two weeks. At times the iceberg or chunks of it will get stuck in a bay and remain there until it completely melts.

The largest iceberg we saw was 600 feet long, 300 feet wide, and 40 feet high. It is called a table iceberg because it is so flat. The tallest iceberg we saw was 100 feet tall, 500 feet long, and varied from a few feet to 100 feet wide. The part of the iceberg we could see is only about 1/8 of the actual iceberg. The rest of it is beneath the ocean.

If an iceberg is the size of a small car to a small house, it is called a growler. Pieces smaller than that are called Bergie Bits. We saw several of these in the areas that we were in.

From our campsite last night we saw several huge icebergs. They looked small to us, but they were a long way away. They are all around the Strait of Belle Isle and down toward St. Anthony in what is called “Iceberg Alley.” We were told that there is an iceberg the size of Manhattan now off the coast of Labrador which they expect to see here in a couple of weeks. We probably won’t see it while we’re in Labrador because it is 60 miles off the coast.

After the boat trip we went to the local fish plant where they process the shrimp the fishermen are catching and bought 5 pounds of shrimp. I know what we’ll be eating for the next few days!

We had several hours to kill before our Viking Feast, so we drove around to 4 small fishing towns within about 8 miles. There were icebergs in the harbors and next to the coast line of all of the towns, and they, too, were fogged in. The cutest town was Goose Cove where all the houses are in a horseshoe around the harbor with the rocky hills behind them. The hills seem like they would protect them some from the awful winds they get in this area. We were told that in St. Anthony they get from 16 to 18 feet of snow every winter and pack ice clogs the harbor. Often they see seals and even polar bears on the ice.

All of the little towns have hiking trails and boardwalks along the cliffs overlooking the sea. We’d like to be here when it was sunny with no fog because I imagine they would be beautiful. There is very little vegetation on the rocky outcroppings. It reminds me of the places we’ve been in much higher elevations above the treeline. Here we are not that high up, but the weather is just too cold to support much life. There is peat moss and lichen on the rocks with some tiny wildflowers, much like on the tundra.

Then we went to the Viking Feast where we were greeted by several tough characters. The meal was great: cod tongue, capeling, moose stew, Jigg’s dinner (corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots), roast beef, a type of bread stuffing with fish in it, salmon, rice with shrimp, salad, and for dessert, a pancake with partridge berries covered with bakeapple sauce and whipped cream. It was all delicious, and we sat with a rowdy crew from all over Canada, so we had a great time.

We camped by the ocean at a local park with a “growler” in sight and had the whole place to ourselves!

Friday, July 29
We headed north of St. Anthony to L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site. This is the only known Viking site in North American and the earliest evidence of Europeans in the western hemisphere. It is thought that Leif Eriksson might have come here with the first group of people.

The site was first dicovered in 1960 at which time archeologists dug up the site and found clear evidence of Norse people having been there. You can still see the mounds in the ground where their homes and workshops were located. The site was never bothered by anyone in recent years because the locals thought the bumps in the ground meant it was a native burying ground.

After completing the dig, the National Park had houses reconstructed nearby which were made just the way the Norsemen would have made theirs. The walls were made of peat cut in brick shapes. They were about six feet wide - 2 feet of peat, 2 feet of sand and rocks for ventilation, and 2 more feet of peat. In the workshops, the walls were not quite as thick. At the time the Norsemen would have been here 1000 years ago, there was wood located here, and they would have used the wood for the rafters and roof, which was then covered with peat.

After viewing the real site, we went down to road to Norstead, a recreated Viking village. The main attraction there is the replica of the Viking ship that was sailed from Greenland to L”Anse au Meadows in 1998. We also saw women weaving on a loom like they would have used, using a drop spindle to spin the wool into yarn, and doing one needle knitting. Some women were also cooking over an open fire. They had some dried, salted capeling, and had Bob toast one over the fire before eating it. They also had bread they had made in their oven. A young man was using a forge like they might have used 1000 years ago. It was all very interesting.

We were also able to see a large iceberg floating by that is shaped a littled like a ship. I think it is the same one we saw in the distance from Cape Norman two days ago, but Bob doesn’t think it could have traveled that fast. I guess we’ll see when we get back to Cape Norman later today!

Tomorrow we’re headed by ferry to Labrador!

Click here for more pictures!