On Friday, May 15, we drove 213 miles north to the larger
regional center town of St. Anthony, a big fishing port with a large fish
processing plant. We stopped at many of the coves and fish villages to look for
subjects for our cameras. On the way, we
saw an iceberg north of Eddie's Cove West, the first of many to come. We liked the very picturesque tiny fishing
and lobstering villages.We were still seeing frozen ponds as we drove
north.
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| Ready to go lobster fishing! |
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| Our first iceberg!! |
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| Lots of ice and snow still everywhere |
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| Pictures on the road |
We especially enjoyed walking down to the beach at Arches
Provincial Park and seeing the huge limestone rock formation just at the edge
of the beach and the sea with 3 large natural arches. The arches were made, after the glaciers
melted 8000 years ago, by eons of surf pounding against the massive rock and
eventually wearing through softer rock.
The beach was also fascinating with beautiful large and small sea
polished rocks. The tide was coming in
so you couldn't walk completely under the arches but we did get some exciting
photographs!
Our campground in St. Anthony was Triple Falls RV Park which
was still full of 4-5' snow in some areas.
For the first 2 nights in our campsite, we had snow under the rear 4' of
our RV, until most of it finally melted as it warmed up. The last day the snow was gone and the rig
was warmer at night!
On Sat. 5/15, we were disappointed that two important Caravan
stops here were still closed for the season, L'Anse aux Meadows National
Historic Site, where we were supposed to have a guided tour, the site of the
first and only known Viking settlement in North America in 1000 AD and Norstead
Village, a private Viking Living History attraction with costumed re-enactors,
Viking boats, Chieftain's Hall and where we were supposed to have a tour and
Viking lunch.
We did all drive to L'Anse
aux Meadows and take a group photograph and read the storyboards but the snow
was too deep to walk around much.
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| Beautiful rocks and interesting Viking sculptures |
Nearby
we discovered the new 10' tall bronze statue of Leif Erickson overlooking his
discovery of North America!
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| Viking Signs on the bathrooms----of course closed! |
Norstead was still completely snowed in so no performance and no lunch!
We decided to keep exploring more coves in our RV and
especially liked the tiny harbor and village of Quirpon. The mountains come
right down to the harbor and we even found some pretty chicken and eggs plants
on the side of the cliff. Lots of ice here too—check the photographs for more Quirpon sights!
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| Quirpon Harbour with iceberg on the background |
Afterwards, we visited Ship Cove and then historic Raleigh,
another fishing outport called Ha Ha Bay
by the English who settled here in the mid-1850s.
It was renamed Raleigh in 1914 by several
North Carolina immigrants who came here to fish.
The Museum and Interpretation Centre were
closed but outside there were storyboard panels telling the history. None of
the historic buildings were open but they are very photogenic. This was a major
cod fishing port until the government's Cod Moratorium in 1992,
that virtually killed the fishing profession
in Newfoundland.
In case you think
mid-May should be spring, once again there is still an iced-in harbor here!
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| Raleigh Historical District ICE! United Church Sled pulled by snowmobile |
Back in St. Anthony, one of the sights to see in is a PBY
amphibious aircraft display that's kept in very good condition. This particular
aircraft was used in aerial forest firefighting and is a memorial to 2
firefighting aviators who died in the line of duty.
Nearby was the United
Church with a prominent World Wars I, II and Korea War Memorial statue in front
with this poignant inscription:
“In Memory Of Our Fallen Comrades
That The Rights and Priviledges
Of Free Peoples Shall Not Perish
From This Land Of Ours.”
We also juggled sightseeing with laundry, using the hour
dryer time to see Fox Point Light Station at Fishing Point, built in 1906 and
very scenic, even when foggy. In clear weather, Fox Pt. is a good place to see
whales in midsummer and icebergs!
The
temperature overnight was freezing and we saw solid ice on many trailside
plants and trees.
St. Anthony's
Municipal Building combines local government offices and Archives with the
Library, which thankfully provided very good wifi.
The lobby has a glass encased large polar
bear that came into town some years back. Note also the bear trap parked by the
Municpal Building!
St. Anthony Harbour is thought to have been named by French
explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534. It provided a sheltered base for vessels
fishing the Belle Isle Straits. English
settlement began in the 1850s. St.
Anthony has several large boatyards with many boats on the hard awaiting the
start of the season.
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| St.Anthony skyline |
Then we drove out another road to 3 small towns—St. Anthony
Bight, St. Carol and Great Brehat.
Iced in harbors are common still in the St. Anthony
area.
St. Carol had St. Paul's Anglican
Church as a main feature and boats stuck in ice and definitely not going out to
sea yet!
Grand Behat (wonder how it was
named?) was iced as well but the snowmobile fleet was also laid up!
Here are more photographs of the church on
the hill, fish stages, boats and crab traps.
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| St.Anthony Bight |
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| Grand Brehat |
We checked out the busy fish boat
docks on the east side of St. Anthony, then returned to camp after stopping to
see the Triple Falls river energetic flow across from the campground.
On Monday May 17, we all met downtown at the Grenfell
Interpretation Centre in St. Anthony where we learned about this famous English
medical doctor, Dr.Wilfred Grenfell who worked in both Labrador and Northern
Newfoundland using St. Anthony as his headquarters.
We started with a 15 minute video of his
life and work then the excellent museum with many informative displays showing
his hospital ships, the many clinics, nursing stations and hospitals he built
throughout this area, where previously there had been no medical availability
at all.
He ran this large medical
network from 1892-1937.
He was knighted
for his work in 1927 and died in 1940.
Grenfell's house is also a museum but was also closed by large drifts of
snow on the property.
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| Two of Grenfell's hospital ships--sailing and later power |
That afternoon we drove out to Cape Norman, the most
northerly point in Newfoundland that's on the left (Labrador-facing) side of
the Great Northern Peninsula.
First we
passed through Cook's Harbour where it was apparently Laundry Day.
Also a photograph of a very old, probably
abandoned unnamed church.
The road out from the village of Wild Bight is gravel but
passable for our rig.
You pass through a
large area of very rough limestone barrens with the 1865 Cape Norman lighthouse
on a high point.
The weather was
amazingly mild, nice and warm (high 60s F) and no wind, a real change! The
light was flashing and it was easy to see its big Fresnel lens.
We had lunch here and talked with a local
couple with a 7 year old daughter.
He is
a Mountie here in St. Anthony and told us a lot about the area.
We were just about across Belle Isle Strait
from Red Bay, Labrador and visibility was great so we could easily see the
Labrador coast as well as several large icebergs!
Very scenic spot!
We saw several caribou that wanted to become
famous when we posted their photo on the blog!
What do you think??
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| Iceberg with the coast of Labrador on the background |
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| Cape Norman lighthouse |
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| Limestone barrens and typical Newfoundland orange lichen on rocks |
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| Polar Bear in the library |
Later back in St. Anthony, we had dinner at the Far East Restaurant,
a Chinese eatery, which our friends, Nick and Emily recommended and we were not
disappointed!
We were also the Caravan
Journal Writers for Monday 5/18 and we wrote a story about Dr. Grenfell that's
posted on Facebook at Viking Trail, Section 1.
Each day a different couple writes about their day's activities on the
Caravan.
Many of the campgrounds don't
have their wifi operating yet or it's down for some reason. ”The repairman is
supposed to be here tomorrow!” We hear that a lot!
Tuesday 5/19 we spent the morning trying to catch up on our
blogs and then went to the St. Anthony Library to finish 2 blogs and post them
with their strong wifi!
Success!
That night we had a Happy Hour and a great
Potluck Dinner in the campground rec room that we all enjoyed with lots of good
food and desserts and yes, Mom, even salads!
Bob Stogdill entertained us with sea shanties, which we all enjoyed.
P.S. A week later we
heard on the news that a polar bear had come ashore off an ice flow near the
St. Anthony Airport about 15 miles south of town! Don't know its fate but usually when they
come into an urban area, if they can't easily relocate it, it is
euthanized. They are extremely dangerous
anytime, but particularly when they are so hungry that they come ashore!
We checked out the busy fish boat
docks on the east side of St. Anthony, then returned to camp after stopping to
see the Triple Falls river energetic flow across from the campground.
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