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!

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The Cabot Trail, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

Wednesday, July 20

Okay, so last night we had the perfect campground, our own lighthouse with no one else, human or animal in sight. But tonight, we are literally in heaven on earth. Tonight I’m sitting here on the edge of a cliff with the ocean waves lapping lazily at the shore below me while I watch sea birds glide gracefully through the air and then suddenly arrow straight down to skewer a fish. In the background are a few fishing boats, and about two coves down I can see a white waterfall pour down onto the rocky beach. There are a few people around me, their colorful tents clinging to the edge of the cliff, but no more than four or five, and they are far enough away that I wouldn’t know they were there if it wasn’t for their colorful igloo shapes. I’m hoping to see some whales, as we were told that they sometimes come into the cove. And, yes, I am watching the water while I type, because Helen Risley taught me to type without looking at the keys!

Where are we, you ask. We are in Meat Cove, the “town” of 100 or so souls at the most northern part of Cape Breton Island, looking out on the quiet Bay of St. Lawrence. It is so peaceful here that I’ve already requested another night’s stay. Maybe I”ll never leave!

Last night Bob was cooking lobster, and tonight he’s cooking snow crab legs! Yum! They were swimming in the ocean this morning, so they are very fresh. We found out where to buy them because Bob went into the local Legion and asked! The bartender said, “ Go over to the end of the wharf and ask for Junior.” So we did, but the wharf was huge and extremely busy, so we didn’t find Junior at first. The crab boats had come in and were unloading their catch, men were taking bins full of the crabs and putting them on waiting trucks, and further down the wharf others were loading labeled boxes of crabs on trucks. When we did find Junior, we told him we needed enough crabs for two people. He went to a bin, pulled out five squirming red, ugly crabs, and charged us four dollars apiece for them. Of course, Junior weighed over 300 pounds, so his meals must be a lot bigger than ours. I ate one crab and Bob ate two, and we cooked the last two and took the meat out to refrigerate it until tomorrow.

Yesterday I was wondering what the lobstermen did after working for just two months of the year. Today I found out that the typical lobsterman will earn about $50,000 in those two months, so it seems he wouldn’t have to do much more the other ten months if he didn’t want to. Once lobster season is over, if he isn’t fishing for snowcrabs, he will probably fish for mackeral and herring to use as bait for his next year’s lobster season. The fish are frozen until next year. Then, he is able to draw unemployment from October through May.

The typical crab fisherman can gross over $200,000 in the short crab season. They are actually given a limit to the number of crabs they can catch, and most of the fishermen reach their limit in two WEEKS! Each crab fishermen’s license allows them to have 24 nets, and they can get up to 44,000 crabs per season with the license. Some of them have more than one license, even though the licenses are extremely expensive and difficult to get. For both lobstering and crabbing, an expensive license is needed, and there are only a few crab licenses available in each community. When a fisherman wants to retire, he either gives his license to a relative, or sells it, and that becomes his old-age pension. The only way to get a crab license is to inherit or buy it from an established fisherman. Some of the licenses have been sold for $1 million dollars!

The crabs weighed 1 1/2 to 2 pounds each and were selling for $3.25 a pound. That’s a lot of money for such a short season, but of course, the license holder also has to pay his helpers, probably 4-6 other men. This is the inland crab season, which means that the fisherman have to fish within 20 miles of the shore. Later on, there will be an offshore season where they have to be over 20 miles to get the crabs. Many of the crab fishermen have licenses for both seasons.

Prior to all this, we had a wonderful time visiting “friends of a friend” for several hours. Bob and Jan Garatt Wheeler are Americans who have lived in Nova Scotia since about 1969. Jan actually graduated from Candor High School in 1954! They moved to Nova Scotia because they wanted land along the shore, and that was the cheapest land they could get - $300 for 25 acres! Bob worked as a high school math and science teacher, and during the summers he built a house on their acreage. When he finally got it built, his daughters were grown, so they decided to run it as a B&B to help with college expenses. Since them, he has built 3 rental cottages on the property. He has done all the work on the beautiful buildings himself! He is now in his mid 70s and building his “last one.” They all hug the cliff and have beautiful views of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and are far enough away from each other so that each guest has privacy. They were almost as beautiful as our campsite :)

Thursday, July 21

It’s been another awesome day! When we woke up, it was as if the sea goddess had flung billions of diamonds onto the sea because it was glittering so much!

We went on a whale watch to see pilot whales and seals along the coast. As is everyone around here, the crew was super friendly and knowledgable. We got to see 40-50 whales and about 100 seals. The captain had some kind of device underwater that allowed us to hear the whales as they fed on squid under water.

Then we went back to Cheticamp and I toured the Rug Hooking Museum. This old craft is practiced here by many of the women who make a lot of money from selling their rugs. Most of the rugs in the museum looked like beautiful paintings, they were so well done. The “hookers” actually employ 3 women to dye the yarn in hundreds of colors so that they can get all the shades they will need to make things look realistic. There were two rugs in there, each about 4 feet by 12 feet, one made for the US bicentennial, and one for some similar Canadian celebration. It took 7 miles of yarn for each one and 6 months to complete each!

Then we went back to the dock to get our supper and we had to wait for the boat to come in. That was wonderful because we then saw the process of off-loading thousands of crabs! The boat had 6 storage compartments, about 2 1/2 feet wide, 3 feet long, and 3 feet deep. The workers would open a compartment which was packed as tightly as could be with the crabs and some ice. The men would reach in and crab a handful of the crabs, each weighing about 2 pounds, and drop them in a plastic bin. As the bin got emptier, they crawled in to scoop up the crabs. The bins were passed to another guy would would stack them four high, but some clamps on them, and then help guide them as they were lifted out of the boat by a small crane. Then another man disconnected the clamps and put them on a scale, then onto a pallet. Yet another worker came with a small fork lift and moved them to the back of a waiting truck where they were again packed in ice before being hauled to the processing plant which was located very nearby. It took about 30 minutes to get 25,000 pounds of crabs off the truck and hauled away. Then the workers hosed out the compartments and filled some of them with the mackeral they would use for bait the next day. We bought four crabs right off the boat before they went onto the truck and had them for dinner! Bob has decided that that is his new favorite food!

Then it was back to meat Cove for another night of viewing the scenic ocean and talking with all of the friendly people at the campground!

Friday, July 22

We again woke to a glorious morning by the sea, and took our time getting ready to leave as we just love this place so much. Finally we got back on the road and wandered past several small seaside communities, stopping to eat the most delicious seafood chowder in one of them.

Then it was on to the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s which for some reason had closed early today, so we drove around Bras d’Or Lake for awhile, and are now camped here for the night. We both miss the tiny fishing villages and open sea of the Highland area, but will soon see similar sights in Newfoundland, I’m sure. Tomorrow we’re going on a boat tour to see puffins, and then to a miner’s museum. Early Sunday morning we are taking the ferry to Newfoundland where we’ll stay for a couple of weeks.

Saturday, July 23

Our boat tour to Bird Island was great. We saw about 50 bald eagles, puffins and their cousins, the black guillmots, blue herons, several types of gulls, and many, many seals. The puffins and their cousins were mostly hanging out in the water because they were scared of the bald eagles. This way if a bald eagle comes after them, they can dive down in the water and swim, because nothing can keep up with them when they are in the water.

Then we went to Glace Bay, NS, where we were treated to a great tour of an old coal mine by a retired miner. His stories brought the hard life of the miners to life! He actually worked in the mines when there were better conditions, but he was telling us stories about mining in the early 1900s when boys as young as 9 or 10 started working in the mines. Their job was to lead the horses who were pulling the loads of coal out of the mines, or to open some doors that controlled airflow when the miners needed to pass by that place. Of course their only light was a small candle or oil lamp for many years until they got battery operated lamps. The horses were specially trained to work in the mines and lived in the mines, getting about 1 week a year off. Since they lived underground, they became blind, but they were better cared for than the miners. We put on hard hats and capes over our clothes because it was pretty dirty under there, and most of the mine was 5 feet or less in height, so even I had to bend over. Poor Bob was bent practically in two as he went through the tunnels! It was a good tour, though, and we certainly felt sorry for anyone who had had to work there! There is no mining done on Cape Breton Island anymore, however, as it became to expensive. They could buy coal from Pennsylvania cheaper!

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Ceilidh Trail, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

On Saturday night we drove across Nova Scotia near the Northumberland Strait where we camped by the ocean on the way to Cape Breton Island. Nova Scotia means New Scotland, so what better way to begin our time there than to learn about the Scottish influence on the island. About 25% of the current residents are of Scottish ancestry

Sunday morning we drove into Pictou on the Strait to visit the Hector Museum and learn about the early history of Nova Scotia. Our guide was a very knowledgable teenager who gave us a personal tour. The history was almost a parallel to the Mayflower story. In 1773 approximately 200 people including 30 children under the age of 2, fleeing English persecution in Scotland, set sail on the Hector for Nova Scotia where they would be free and start the first Scottish settlement in Canada. The ship was about the same size as the Mayflower on which 100 people sailed.

The passengers on the Hector took enough food for the six week voyage, but a hurricane near Prince Edward Island pushed them back halfway to the British Isles, and the voyage took 12 weeks. By rationing food, all but eighteen passengers survived the voyage. However, it was too late in the season to grow anything, and they would have starved to death in the winter if the local Indian tribe hadn’t helped them. (Very like the Indians helping our Pilgrims!)

Then we drove on to Cape Breton Island where we attended our first ceilidh (pronounced kaylee) which is a Scottish music party with lots of fiddling and dancing. The first fiddler we heard was a girl no more than 20 years old who was a joy to watch and hear because she seemed to become the music. She was sitting in a chair fiddling as fast as she could with both feet dancing up a storm as she played. Sometimes she’d move her chin off the chin rest and lay her face on the fiddle, as if to absorb the music into her whole soul. It was a “sight to behold!” As the fiddlers played, several dancers took to the floor doing something akin to our square dancing. They actually call it square dancing, although they didn’t actually make a square, more like a circle with 4 to 7 couples. It was fun to watch, and got my toes tapping! We are actually in part of the island called the Ceilidh Trail because of the number of Scottish families here and the fact that ceilidhs are held all of the time in the villages around here.

On Monday we visited The Highland Village, a museum somewhat like Genesee Country Village that depicts what life was like for the Scottish immigrants from their arrival until the 1930s. It was very well done with original buildings brought in from their previous locations and placed on a high bluff overlooking the huge Bras d”Or Lake. The guides were wonderfully knowledgable and tried to stay in character for the time period they were depicting. We got to try a “lunch” of white pudding which was oatmeal, lard, and spices cooked in a cow’s stomach (with the stomach contents removed!) The lining of the stomach is just used as a casing for the ‘pudding” although it certainly was not like any pudding I had ever tasted!. It actually tasted a lot like Thanksgiving stuffing.

The Bras d’Or lake is gigantic. We live in the Finger Lakes of New York which are said to look like impressions of God’s fingers. This is not like the imprint of God’s fingers on land, it’s more like his whole hand including a very large palm. The lake is a salt-water lake that is 425 square miles right in the middle of Cape Breton Island. It is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by St. Peter’s Canal in the southern part of the island. It’s French name means “Arms of Gold.”

We also visited the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck. Bell was born in Scotland, but immigrated here with his parents when he was a boy, and then later lived in a beautiful house in Baddeck that is still owned and used by his descendants. The museum was very well done, and I learned that Bell was responsible for many useful inventions.

Right now I am sitting at the base of a lighthouse in the otherwise deserted Mabou Harbor waiting for Bob to cook my lobster dinner. We happened upon this spot earlier today and met the “keeper” of the lighthouse museum, an artistically talented teenager, who told us it would be fine for us to camp here for the night. Since we are going to a ceilidh in Mabou tonight, this spot is perfect.

There are lobster boats here, but they are not currently in use as lobster season in this part of Nova Scotia lasts only from May through June. We went to the local lobster pound to buy lobster, which they have in special tanks with salt water continuously sprayed into them. That way they are able to keep them through the summer tourist season.

I asked what the lobstermen did the rest of the year since the season is so short. I was told that some of them fish for tuna when that season starts in August, some work locally at other jobs, but most fly out to Alberta where they work in the oil fields.

9:30 PM - Just got back to the lighthouse after attending the toe-tapping Ceilidh in Mabou. It featured two talented college boys, one who played Cape Breton fiddle, the piano, and also step-danced, and the other who played Cape Breton music on the guitar. There were also many young people in the audience. I think it is great that the long tradition of the Scottish music is still going on here with so many young people doing what they can to keep up the tradition.

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Fundy National Park, Cape Enrage, Hopewell Rocks - New Brunswick

We camped at Fundy National Park for two days, hiking and biking along the Bay of Fundy. The park is full of red pines and birch trees so thick in many areas that you can’t see more than a foot or two through the forest. These are the same trees we’ve seen all along the coast and into the interior as far we’ve gone. Away from the coast a little we’ve seen some farms. The soil doesn’t seem to have any stones in it, unlike our soil.

Our camp neighbors now live in Nova Scotia, but were originally from Newfoundland. They say to pronounce it say “understand Newfoundland,” because the accent will be in the same place. They helpfully told us several places to go while in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. We have found everyone we have met in New Brunswick to be extremely friendly and helpful.

Up the coast a few miles is Cape Enrage where we explored the oldest working lighthouse on the Bay of Fundy. Its green light is visible all the way down to St. Andrews. It sits high on the end of the cape taking all of the blustery wind. It is now computer operated, but originally it was powered by coal which the keepers had to haul up the hill to the lighthouse! The fog horn is interesting. There are two beams of light sent out from a spot on the lighthouse. If they bounce back, that indicates fog, and the fog horn will sound.

Further up the coast, almost to the end of the bay, is Hopewell Rocks. These are interesting rock formations that have been carved by the great tides going in and out. Most of them have trees growing from the top of them, so they are called “Flowerpot Rocks.” We arrived at low tides and walked all around the flowerpots. We stayed around for six hours so that we could watch the tide come in, and see the rocks at full tide. What was most impressive to me was how fast the tide rose. It would be easy for a careless person to get trapped by the rising tide!

Unlike farther down the coast like St. Andrews and St. Martins, this area is rocks and mud, not rocks and sand. This end of the bay is very rich in nutrients which wash out into the bay with the tides and help support the amazing amount of living things found in the bay. As many as 30,000 shrimp live in a 20 square inch slice of mud along with snails, worms, soft-shelled clams, and diatoms. Besides the rich nutrients in the mud, the many salt marshes here also provide lots of nutrients that are washed into the bay. There are many whales and all kinds of fish living in the bay.

Because the Bay of Fundy is funnel shaped - wide and deep at one end and shallow at the other, tides are pushed increasingly higher as they move up the bay. At this end of the bay, the tides are also about twice as high as at St. Andrews. At Hopewell Rocks they reach up to 46 feet, and up to 56 feet in the upper reaches of the bay. At St. Andrews they were about 23 feet.

One hundred billion tons of water pour in and out of the Bay of Fundy twice a day. That’s an amount comparable to the average 24-hour flow of all of the rivers in the world! Here in the bay, it’s enough water to raise and lower the water level vertically at a rate of up to nearly 6 feet per hour! That’s why people are warned to get off the ocean floor 2 1/2 hours before high tide!

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St. Martins, New Brunswick

Today we really experienced the Bay of Fundy here in St. Martins, a tiny town right on the Bay. First we found a campground on the Bay, and then we went to the "harbor" here. There were five boats tied up to the docks, so it's not much of a harbor. We first saw them at high tide, and then again at low tide six hours later. What a difference those six hours made. By low tide the boats were resting on the ground, and not even the best sea captain would have been able to move them! The tide changes over 55 feet between low and high tide! Be sure to check out the pictures!

We drove up to the Fundy Trail which runs on the ridge beside the bay, and is something like a short version of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The trail is about 10 miles long with a road for cars and a trail for hikers and bikes. We got on our bikes and started down the trail, stopping along the way at all the lookouts to see the Bay. It was really difficult to tell where the water ended and the sky began because they blended together. After a couple of miles the path got too steep for old bikers like us, so we rode back to get the RV and continued on the trail in a little more comfort.

Later, at low tide, we went to a place in St. Martins called The Caves which are only visible when the tide goes out. It is truly amazing how much bigger the beach gets when the tide is out! As we walked on rocks that had a few hours earlier been underwater, we saw lots of seaweed which reminded me of the awful dulce we tried to eat yesterday! We looked in the tide pools, but saw nothing other than snails, barnacles, and seaweed.

Tomorrow we're headed to Fundy National Park to do more of the same!

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St. Andrews and Saint John, New Brunswick

We arrived in New Brunswick yesterday afternoon and headed to St. Andrews-by-the-Sea, a small, quiet, quaint resort area of about 2,000 inhabitants. We were able to find a campground right on the foggy Bay of Passamaquoddy. I could hear ship's horns and know they were out there somewhere, but I couldn't see them! This morning Bob took a run through the little village, and I accompanied him on my bike. The town has such a relaxed atmosphere, that even at 10:30 in the morning it was super quiet. I think only about three cars passed me in the hour that we were out.

This town was originally settled by Loyalists who were fleeing America. They had originally built houses in Castine, Maine, but found out that it was in the US, so had to move! They took apart their houses and barged them up to St. Andrews! Several of the houses have plagues on them explaining how they got there and who originally lived in them.

There are beautiful flowers everywhere, many nautical themed stores, and a lot of the stores that have murals painted on them of sea life or village life. There was even a mural painted on one of the buildings in the campground.

In the afternoon we drove to Saint John, which is the biggest city in New Brunswick with the population of the total metropolitan area being over 130,000. We wandered around downtown, but it was really too "city-like" for us - we prefer rural areas. The "uptown" part of the city, which is the oldest part, reminded us a little of Vancouver. After lunching on some seafood chowder, we headed out of the city to see the "reversing falls." These are not really falls at all, but a large white water rapid that flows in one direction or the other, depending on which way the tide is going. Since this is in the Bay of Fundy, the tide changes are pretty large. We then went to Irving Nature Preserve to get a close up view of the ocean, and also to spot some wildlife.

While in Saint John we tried the local delicacy - dulce! Dulce reminds me of a Spanish word that means sweet," so I was surprised to find out that here Dulce is dried seaweed. I do like Korean seaweed, so I thought I'd give dulce a chance. Hours later I was still spitting out half-chewed seaweed! It was a little like chewing on fish-flavored cardboard - yuck!

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Maine Ancestors

We drove through Maine today, stopping in Orono and Dexter to see "pictures from the past" of Nancy's Marsh relatives.

The Marsh family had immigrated from England in 1633 when John Marsh, the first (as there was a John Marsh in most of the generations) came to Salem, Mass. The members of each generation gradually moved farther and farther away from Salem. John, the fourth, took advantage of an offer of 100 free acres in Sidney given to anyone who would settle on what was then the frontier of Massachusetts, and what later became the state of Maine. When his son, John, the fifth, was grown, he decided to move farther into the wilderness. While there, he met Orono, the son of a French trapper and Tarratine Indian. Orono and John 5 became best friends, and Orono taught John 5 the ways of the Tarratine and the language. The Tarratines trusted John and he became an interpreter for their dealings with white men. John 5 became so much like the Tarratine, except for his blue eyes, that the US government used him as a spy during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The Tarratines later gave John 5 a 5,000 acre island between the Penobscot and Stillwater Rivers. John lived there until his death when the island was sold. Now the town of Orono, named for John's friend, is on the island, as well as the University of Maine.

John 5's son, Jeremiah Marsh, became a Methodist minister and was the pastor at several churches in the area of Dexter, Maine (30 miles from Orono). Jeremiah's son James had a farm in Dexter which was taken over by his son, John 8. Another of James's sons was my great-grandfather Samuel, the "book learner" of the family. Samuel went to college and became a principal in Spencer, NY! He married there, and my grandmother, Minerva, was his daughter. Samuel later was the principal in Candor.

Minerva, too, decided to become a teacher. She attended Syracuse University for a while, and then became a one-room schoolteacher. She became engaged to Ken Ward, my grandfather, but since Ken was dragging his feet about getting married, Minerva moved to Dexter to live with her Uncle John 8 and taught school there. Ken soon saw the light and went to Dexter to marry Minerva. They were married on her Uncle John's farm.

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History - Family and Country

We are on our way to New Brunswick, but decided to take some time in Massachusetts to visit two communities founded by Nancy's ancestors. William Ward, the first Ward ancestor in America, arrived in Boston in 1638. He thought it was too crowded because at the time 1,000 people lived there! He and John Howe, another ancestor, decided to found a town several miles from Boston, and thus founded the Sudbury Plantation. William became a prominent citizen, amassing 300 acres. He and Elizabeth had 13 children. in 1660, William felt that Sudbury was getting too crowded, and that he did not have enough land to share with all of his sons, so he founded Marlborough Plantation, a village about 10 miles away from Sudbury. When he started the town, there were about 100 inhabitants. Now, both Sudbury and Marlborough are large suburbs of Boston.

The village of Marlborough bought some of William's original land and turned it into a park. I was thus able to walk on land that had at one time belonged to my 9th great-grandfather! The park is called Ward Park and is named for William's grandson, Artemas Ward, the first commander-in-chief of Massachusetts Bay Colony during the American Revolution.

We also drove by Mount Ward, a hill named for William's son Eleazer, who was killed on that hill during King Philip's War.

I thought celebrating Candor's 200th year was a milestone, but Marlborough is 351 years old, and Sudbury is 373 years old! Sudbury is a beautiful village of about 20,000 people. There are many colonial homes throughout the wooded, twisting lanes. Marlborough is now home to about 36,000 people, but seems more industrialized than Sudbury.

Later, we drove through the charming village of Concord and saw Thoreau's Walden Pond. This is Sunday, and many people were enjoying the day at the pond, sunning themselves, hiking, boating, or swimming. We also saw Minuteman National Historic Park in Concord, with some of the houses still standing that were there during the Revolutionary War.

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