25th
May 2016
Reflections,
Beothuks, and Icebergs
My weather
forecast had told me rain was possible this morning, so I was us early and
almost showered and packed up when it started.
I had to wait till 9 am anyway for the camp gates to be opened, so I
parked next to the office in the rain and blogged. It was raining quite hard as I got on the
road, but surprisingly stopped pretty quickly.
The first thing I noticed this morning was how the local deciduous trees
have suddenly started to turn green, instead of the kind of dead looking brown
they have been previously. Must have
been that burst of 25 degree sunshine yesterday !
The road to Grand
Falls – Windsor (2 separate towns that amalgamated) was not desperately
exciting, and nor was GF-W – In fact, I never even noticed the town !! Then it was cross country still on Highway 1
for about 45 minutes before I turned north through Lewisporte, heading to
Twillingate which is supposed to be very scenic, and located near the top of
the string of islands at the NE corner of Newfoundland.
This B kind of
road was in pretty poor condition, and they don’t seem to repair potholes, but
just put up a sign saying “Pothole” ! So
you are weaving your way in and out of quite deep potholes as much as
possible. However, scenically the road
more than makes up for its poor condition.
You are basically driving up a string of islands with lakes and inlets
on every side, and houses and jetties alongside the water with boats tied up
everywhere. After the rain earlier there
was very little wind, and the surface of the water was so still and smooth that
there were reflections everywhere. If it
had been sunny, it would have been stunning.
At Boyd’s Cove I
turned off to the Beothuk Interpretation Centre which Kristen had recommended
to me, and found it at the end of a winding road. The Beothuk inhabited Newfoundland prior to
the arrival of Europeans, and had a village here at Boyd’s Cove from about 1650
– 1720. However, eventual conflict with the new settlers over marine resources
led to their dislocation and eventual extinction in the 1820’s. There was an excellent display of the
remains and lifestyle of the Beothuk here, with many
artifacts discovered
during archeological studies here in the 1980’s, and then I took myself on a 3
km hike through the woods to the actual site of their camp. The walk itself was fascinating through the
woods, with evidence of beaver activity in places, as we as red squirrels and
small rodents (field mice ?) running around.
The site of the Beothuk camp is now just a grassy area beside the sea,
and with a fresh water stream running past it.
The grassy area still shows the indentations referred to in the
signboards of the archeological dig, but the rangers there were telling us that
most of the artifacts recovered suffer so quickly when exposed to air that they
have decided for the moment to leave things the way they are. But it really was a prime position for the
Beothuk, with the sea for their fishing and hunting, fresh water, and lots of
caribou in the surrounding area. A very interesting couple of hours.
From Boyd’s Cove
it was on north to Twillingate, and a fog was blowing in rapidly across the
water. At first it was just very scenic,
but as I headed north it got worse and worse.
We passed Dildo Provincial Park (they do have some classic place names
round here !), and then crossed the causeway out to Twillingate Island. Through
Twillingate I went out to the very end of the island at Long Point, and by now
the fog had got quite bad so I could see very little. But as I drove through the little township I
looked down to my left and couldn’t believe my eyes – There was a great big
iceberg right in front of the town !!
Now I knew that
this coastline is known is Iceberg Alley, and every summer many icebergs from
Greenland follow the coast down. But it
is very early in the season, and I had understood that there might not be many
around yet. But here was one sizeable
one, pus a couple of smaller “growlers”, right in front of me ! Amazing.
I then drove up
the hill at the end of the island and into a thick fog – In fact the lighthouse
at the top had its (very loud) fog horn sounding every 60 seconds or so. It was
a shame it was so foggy as the view from the top must be spectacular. As it was I just had to peer into the gloom
over the cliffs and imagine what it would be like on a clear day. A couple of other icebergs were just visible
through the gloom, while the temperature had dropped to 5.6 deg C, some 20
degrees cooler than it had been just 12 hours ago !
Due to the
weather it wasn’t really worth exploring elsewhere in Twillingate, so I headed
back down through the islands, surprised by how the scenery had changed no the
fog was in, and rain started to fall.
Hopefully the sun will come out in the next day or so to enable me to
see some of this scenery at its best.
But in the meantime, to swing round to the east to Fogo, an island that
many people have told me to visit.
Unfortunately the weather doesn’t look too promising, but I don’t intend
to come back up here on my way back across Newfoundland, so it is now or never.
There is a small
ferry ride out to Fogo, and when I got there a bit of a queue had formed. I arrived in the rain at 5 pm, and eventually
found out that I couldn’t expect to depart much before 9 pm, which would mean a
dark 10 pm arrival in Fogo. Hmm, not my
favourite, but hopefully I will find somewhere to camp as soon as I arrive and
all will be well. As the ferry crossing
is only $11.60 for me (as a senior) and the car , I can’t really complain. Once
we were all lined up, I decided a little supper was in order, and was pleased I
had made that Spag Bol up last night – All I had to do was wrap it tin foil and
steam it while the spaghetti cooked below.
Perfect !
Update – The ferry
terminal man has just come by and said that the ferry is going to make a run to
the Change Islands first, and then come back and run us to Fogo, so we now
won’t leave here till about 10.30 pm.
Boy, Fogo had better be good !!!
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