Western Brook Pond boat tour; Gros Morne Theater ; Backcountry west of Badger ; Prime Berth ; Twillingate ; Gander ; Barbour Living Heritage Museum

(posted from Clarenville Library, Clarenville, NL)
(This post covers 29 August to 2 September, 2010)

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Thursday, 2 September-

We had several periods of light rain last night but it was just pleasant for sleeping... still in the mid-Fifties for a low.
After breakfast we had our showers and then headed south a bit to connect with the cross-road to take us east to Route 330. We drove for an hour or so to Musgrave Harbor, where we drove through the fishing harbor looking at boats. There was only one pleasure boat and a dozen or so shrimpers and crabbers.
By mid-morning we had reached Newtown where we took a tour of the Barbour Living Heritage Village. This had been the home and business place of the Barbour family, who owned fishing and sealing schooners and were the local merchants for the area in the late 1800's through the Nineteen Eighties. Our guide, Maura, is a local woman married to a fisherman who was out fishing for cod today. She was costumed in a turn-of-the-century dress as she gave us a tour of a fishing shanty, two elegant homes, and a museum. The homes were great in that they contained the actual belongings of the Barbour family, ranging over time, of course. The floors, for instance, were red-painted sailcloth, for instance. It looked much like linoleum and reminds me of having seen boat-decks covered in painted canvas as a waterproofing when I was young. I remember seeing how-to magazines like Popular Mechanics providing boat-building instructions which used it. And it was very common in canoe-building articles or books I read.
Though we had had a good introduction to the cod-fishing life at Prime Berth yesterday, we still picked up a few things. Maura told us, for instance, how the cod flake was processed by the end-user. The salted and dried cod would first be soaked in water overnight. The housewife would then change the water and cooks a small piece of the cod to determine if it was still too salty. If so (and probably so), she may change the water yet again and test a piece. When it's deemed acceptable, the cod is then boiled with potatoes and spices. At serving time, however, the cod and potatoes are served separately.
We also learned the story of the 'Neptune 2'. This sailing vessel had taken a load of fish to St. John's and loaded supplies to return home to Newtown. It was towed out from St. John's and two hours later snow began coming down heavily and hurricane-strength winds began to blow. The snowstorm added tons of ice to the ship and the heavy seas took their toll, tearing most of the sails and washing the steering cabin overboard. The ship had worked its way north from St. John's and was within 25 miles of Newtown when the captain decided the ship and it's 60 tons or more of ice were likely to founder if he didn't go east to warmer weather to melt the ice and snow. The ship did this for days upon days and was eventually blown, with wave-cleared decks and only one piece of sail left and after 48 days at sea, to Tobermory, Scotland. All hands survived the horrible ordeal in which the heavily-laden ship often rolled so badly the crew was convinced it would sink on the next roll and all they could do was hang on. Imagine the shrieks of joy in Newtown when they received the telegraph from the captain, telling them all hands had survived the storm and they were in Europe and re-fitting to come home.
After our tour we had lunch at the Olde Towne Restaurant where we had fisherman's brewis (pronounced 'bruise') and a fish chowder for lunch. The brewis is a Newfie specialty consisting of hard-tack biscuits (after they've been soaked overnight in water to re-constitute them), covered with small pieces of cod. Served on the side is a container of dark molasses and one of 'scruncions', which are deep-fried bits of pork swimming in fat-oil. We found the taste of the hard-tack and cod very nice on its own and we sampled the molasses and the scruncions. The molasses, of course, was sweet and smoky. The scruncions were very salty and an unexpected zesty taste. We tourists were content to sample the tastes separately but Newfies simply pour the molasses and the scruncions over the cod and hard-tack and dig in. To my taste, the sharp taste of the scruncions overwhelms the delicate tastes of the cod and biscuits so I'd prefer not to mix them.
Labashi ordered the Fishermans' brewis and I ordered a fish chowder and we shared them both. The chowder was milky and good but I thought it didn't have much fish for all the talk of cod prices being too low for anyone to make a living at fishing cod. (Note: the family quota for cod is 3000 pounds. But with the price hovering around the 50 cents per pound mark, we heard that that price doesn't pay for the fuel to catch them).
We then continued around the peninsula. Our next stop was a lucky break. I saw a sign advertising an interpretive centre, the 'Janes House', which told stories of resettlement and boat-building. The term 'resettlement' interested me. It refers to the government offering incentives for residents to move from their homes and re-settle in another community.
We learned that in this case, the government had determined, in the Forties and Fifties, that their cost of providing services to the thousands of cod-fishing families on the offshore islands was very high. They wanted families to move to population centers so they offered $6000 to each family toward resettlement. In some cases, this led the 'resettlers' to move their houses! They'd skid the house down greased logs to a waiting raft and then tow the house to its new location and skid it into it's new lot. We saw a National Film Board of Canada film documenting just such a move. Absolutely incredible!
Our tour of the Janes house was wonderful. I saw, for the first time, a gasoline-powered iron, for example. The iron has a presurrizing valve and pump, much like a Coleman gasoline stove. I wonder what it sounds like in operation?
After the Janes House, we left Gloverville and drove into nearby Terra Nova National Park. We visited the visitor's center and watched a nice little intro film and then found our way to nearby Malady Head Campground for the night. Heavy rain accompanied us from the visitor's center to the campground but it then stopped and I later took a longish walk around the campground after supper.
We spent the evening blogging and reading and anticipating the hurricane reported to be coming this way.

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Wednesday, 1 September-

After a very quiet night at the Gander Wal-mart, we drove to Giovanni's Cafe for breakfast and, hopefully, a cappucino. Unfortunately, the espresso machine was broken so a cappucino was impossible. We did, however, have good breakfast sandwiches and a chai tea.
We finally found the Newfoundland map book this morning. The Crown Lands office (the one we had just missed yesterday) had them. Unfortunately the book doesn't have Labrador but does have the 'woods roads' in all of Newfoundland. I was on the fence about buying it, though, since it cost $45. But there's nowhere else to get maps for these roads so I figured it would pay for itself if it allowed us to get to some areas we otherwise wouldn't attempt. These roads are not in the GPS database so you can't just say 'take me home' once you're back in there.
We then took a driving tour of the Gander Airport, hoping to see some interesting aircraft but saw nothing of note.
We headed north up 330 for Twillingate area. The countryside is beautiful here.... many lakes and inlets and pines and blue sky everywhere. We visited the Beothuk Interpretation Centre in Boyd Bay. The Beothuks were the aboriginal people living in this area until the 1820s. They are very interesting in that they tried to avoid contact with Europeans. Fishermen had been coming over from Europe since the 1500's and they'd fish through Summer, then return home in the Fall. The Beothuk's avoided attempts by whites to contact them but after the fishermen would leave, the Beothuks would scavange the nails and any other metal left behind. Then they'd fashion the nails into tools, generally points for their arrows.
The inevitable conflicts between the two groups arose and the Beothuks were pushed back from the coast, leaving them more vulnerable to starvation. The last known Beothuk was a woman who lived in St. John's for a year before her death from tuberculosis in 1829.
We also walked the nature trail which took us to the excavations which had been done here in the early 80's. I loved seeing the protected location of the houses and its proximity to a fresh-water stream, and a good canoe-landing site.
We then continued up toward Twillingate. Along the way we stopped at 'Prime Berth', a Heritage Fishing Centre. Our guide, Bill, gave us a wonderful introduction to the cod-fishing years prior to refrigeration, i.e., the salt-cod days up to the early Sixties. We learned how each family had a dory, a stage, a net-shed, a fish-store, the flake racks, and their home. The fisherman and his family members were responsible for all the stages of turning a cod into a sellable salt-cod flake. They caught, cleaned, split, salted, stored, and dried the salt-cod flakes for sale to the local buyer, generally only managing to come out even after a season.
With the advent of refrigeration, and later, trawlers, the game changed. And before long it destroyed the fishery and the way of life of thousands of fishermen and their families.
'Prime Berth', by the way, refers to the best place for setting a cod net. A group of families living in a specific area would, over time, determine the most productive places for setting up cod-trap nets. Each year, the fishermen would draw from a hat his assigned fishing net location. If he drew the 'prime berth', he was assured a banner year.
While at the fishing center we spoke with some tourists from Ontario who had dined in Twillingate. We learned that the Cosy Tea Shop was serving cod-au-gratin and it was very good. After our fishing center visit we made a bee-line for the tea shop and had that same meal-- our first traditional Newfie meal. It was very, very good. The cod was baked and lightly breaded and had ajust the right cheddar cheese. Accompanying the fish were truly excellent carrots, mashed potatoes, and mustard-pickles. The latter were light gherkins in a bright-yellow mustard sauce. It sounds overwhelming but was excellent. I even used some of the mustard-sauce on my mashed potatoes. We then had partridge-berry pie with ice cream for dessert.
After our meal we drove through Twillingate and on to Crow Head to see the Long Point lighthouse. We spent a few minutes watching fishing boats, then, as evening deepened, headed for our campground for the night, Dildo Run Provincial Park. I have no idea why it has such an odd name.

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Tuesday, 31 August-


We woke early – 0600 – so we could cruise the old railroad bed (the Newfoundland T'Railway) looking for animals. The sunrise this morning was absolutely spectacular, a red-sky-at-morning sunrise which lit up the whole sky with pinks, reds, and purples.
We got rolling just as the light was coming up and we could see across the open areas. This area is unique in that the miles and miles of pulpwood trees has given way to large open meadows, generally with a bog, pond, or lake somewhere, all framed by arctic-looking black spruce trees.
We drove the railway bed for about 10 kilometers but then the growth on both sides began closing in. Up to this point there were occasional hunter's cabins and traffic to them probably keeps the growth back. But when it closed in enough to touch both sides of the van and there were was only an ATV path continuing on, we turned back. On our return trip we explored several side roads and those turned out to lead to logging clear-cuts. One had a view for miles and I wish we had found this one yesterday evening so we could have watched for caribou. We did see what appeared to be fresh caribou tracks here but no animals.
As we drove today we saw more small birds than normal, perhaps because of the early hour. But we only saw one rabbit (probably a snowshoe hare), which surprised us. On Alaska's Steese Highway--- an area with a similar 'feel'--- we had seen rabbit after rabbit; so many, in fact, that we couldn't help but think once could live very well in that area if he or she just loved rabbit stew, rabbit steaks, etc, all the time.
After driving back to the main dirt road we decided we'd try returning to Badger via the T'Railway rather than the hard road. We had conflicting information on whether or not this was possible. Glenn Butt, the Forestry Service guy at Springdale, had said it was possible. But the two locals we met yesterday said the railbed was only suitable for ATVs and we'd likely get an old rail spike in a tire. I thought they were just stretching the truth a bit to discourage us but then I did find a spike on our walk last evening. In fact I hadn't walked 100 yards before finding it.
But we plunged in anyway. For some reason the going eastward from here was covered with a thick layer of limestone. I imagine this may have been intended as an improvement but it was actually the opposite. Whoop-de-doos or oversized washboard had developed from the ATV traffic and we joked about needing sea-sickness pills. All I had to do was slow down, though, to stop the rocking and rolling. We were only able to travel about 15 miles per hour through the limestone-covered sections and could comfortably do about 25 in the non-'improved' areas.
I figured our downfall would be a washout or a too-small or rotten bridge. In places the growth encroached to the point it was sweeping both sides of the van (it would have been interesting to meet an oncoming ATV, yes?) but when we came to a bridge it was plenty wide and looked virtually new.
Our trip back to Badge via the railbed was about 12 miles long. I did see a juvenile moose for a few seconds but otherwise we saw only a few ravens in this beautiful countryside.
After Badger we continued east to Grand Falls-Windsor. There we visited the Salmonid Interpretation Centre and learned about the Atlantic Salmon. A 35-pool fishladder climbs up the Exploits River and it's this fish 'ladder' that allows the returning salmon to pass the hydro dam and get back to their home waters. The film at the visitor's center made the point several times that the Abitibi -owned paper plant had contributed some seven million dollars to the complex systems which prevent the small down-swimming fish from entering the hydro turbines and makes it possible for the up-swimming adults to get to their spawning streams.
After a life in salt water, the adults change dramatically for their spawning run. They absorb their silver scales, using them as nutrients. And they stop eating. They may have a 150-mile swim up to their specific spawning stream but they don't feed along the way. Incredible.
Also at Grand Falls, we had gone to the Government Services office at the Provincial Building to purchase a map book. We were told they are only available at the Crown Lands office in Gander, an hour away.
We made Gander by 1600 but that was 15 minutes after the Crown Lands office closed. We decided to hang around Gander this afternoon and catch the office in the morning. We found a small local park --- Cobb's Pond--- on the Gander map and drove over there. This turned out to be a great idea. Labashi worked on the laptop a bit and I took a nap, then we walked the 2-mile boardwalk around the lake.
As dark approached we decided we needed some Irish Cream and found the local Liquor Store. We then returned to the Wal-mart for the night and our nightcap.

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Monday, 30 August -

This morning ended our Gros Morne National Park visit. We woke early and were on the road by 0730. We stopped at the campground office to again connect to wi-fi because Labashi wanted to know if there's an iceberg tracker on the web. It turns out there is indeed an iceberg tracker for Newfoundland and Labrador but there are currently no 'active icebergs' on the map. We then picked up an email from our neighbor who watches our house and responded. Looks like it's a good time to be up north-- temps back home are in the Nineties.
Today was a driving day. We headed back south to Deer Lake to turn East across Newfoundland. By mid-afternoon we had reached Springdale where we passed a Forest Services office. We turned back and stopped in to see whether they had any backcountry maps. We spoke with Glenn Butt, who helped us with our questions and suggested we might see some backcountry by taking some back roads west of the little town of Badger.
We missed our turnoff to Route 371 the first time-- because there's no sign! Ten miles after we saw two gents talking in the front yard and stopped to get some local expertise. They were a bit suspicious of our story that we just wanted to look at the countryside and perhaps see some moose or caribou but then did provide key information for finding the turnoff. Go back past the double overhead powerline a mile and look for two dirt roads turning off together.
A few miles in we came to an odd machine. We had seen one of these near Pynn's Brook and couldn't figure it out. It's two massive cylinders, each empty save for a steel framework inside and each about eight feet in diameter and mounted on a steel framework which allows them to lift and separate. There were obvious truck tracks between the cylinders.
Shortly after leaving the odd machine, we got lucky. We saw a government truck pulled off and the ranger (or whatever they're called) just getting out. We pulled up and asked about the strange machine. He chuckled and then explained it's for the pulpwood trucks. We had seen many of these trucks, each loaded with the eight-foot lengths of pulpwood lying across or perpendicular to the length of the truck. The strange machine, he explained, is used to make the rows of pulpwood uniform. The loaded truck drives between the spring-loaded cylinders and they force the pulpwood lengths to the middle and break off anything extending out too far, thus ensuring the public's safety. The point, I'd guess, is less about having a neatly loaded truck and more about making sure there's nothing overhanging the sides.
Our ranger worked in the same office as Glenn and his name was Brad. He had asked where we were going on our trip and when we said we were going to try the Trans-Labrador Highway, his face lit up. He said we were wasting our time driving the backcountry around here. He had grown up in Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Labrador is clearly his first love.
After we said our goodbyes and continued on our way a mile or so, I looked in the mirror and saw Brad's truck coming up fast. I pulled over and he walked over and said he had remembered something.... we could get a book-map of Newfoundland and Labrador in the government offices in the next city we hit, Grand Falls. What a nice guy...
We had come in about 20 kilometers from the paved road and Brad had told us our road would soon connect with an old railway bed. It's actually part of a linear Provincial Park. This railbed is over 500 kilometers long, running from Port-Aux-Basques the whole way to St. John's. It was the railway bed of the Canadian National Railway until the late Eighties and now it's called the “T'Railway Provincial Park”.
We drove another mile or so on the railway bed (which is only as wide as the van) and came to an intersecting road. That led us to a clear-cut area where we parked for the night.
As Labashi was making supper I began looking around at the brush. There were blueberries everywhere! Labashi gave me a cooking pot and I half-filled it in ten minutes. We had one of Labashi's fabulous chien-chaud stir-fries and then for dessert we had fresh blueberries over lemon-cake and cream cheese.
After supper we walked along the old railroad bed for a mile or so. We saw a jet-black fox with a white-tipped tail. As we walked back to the van a four-wheeler came trundling down the path. A couple from Badger had been out for a picnic supper. They reported seeing a stag-- a caribou--- further down the path.

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Sunday, 29 August-

Our night at Green Point campground was a very quiet one. I did forget to mention one thing in yesterday's post, though. As usual, I was staying out of the way while Labashi prepares supper in the back of the van. I've learned that things go so much better if I just retreat to passenger seat in the front of the van while she works her dinner magic. But last night she handed me my plate and just a minute or so later exclaimed 'Look out front!'. And there stood a red fox.
That red fox is the first wildlife sighting of the trip. We later mentioned it to other campers when we took a short walk on the coastal trail around sunset. There a woman said there are actually two foxes at this campground, a red one and a grey one.
Our goal this morning was to get ready for our boat trip on the Western Brook Pond fjord. Our travel guide says this is a must-see trip. We had reservations for 1000 but there's a catch--- there's a mile-and-a-half walk to the boat dock.
With our early start and having camped within about a 20-minute drive of the parking lot, we had plenty of time. We arrived in time for our walk to be a nice, slow amble rather than a forced march to make time.
We had met a young couple in the parking lot and they had rushed out to the boat to secure seats because they had no reservations. By the time we arrived, they had their seats assured and we chatted with them. The young man was from Lunenberg (Nova Scotia) and the girl had been born in Germany but her parents brought her to Cape Breton when she was 11. Time flew as we talked with them and before we knew it the crowd was starting to board the boat.
The Western Brook Pond is a spectacular inland fjord. We had walked in over a boardwalk over a bog and it's that bog that separates the fjord from the sea. The boat we took had been brought in by sledge over the frozen bog.
We were on the boat tour for a little over two hours. We've been seeing enough spectacular scenery that the fjord looked more familiar than new but it was very, very pleasant to just relax and 'go with the flow'. After the trip, we split a hot-dog for lunch, then started our return walk.
We took the long way back. This consisted of an extra half-hour trail walk which took us to the Western Brook spilling out from the Pond. While hiking we kept looking for Labrador Tea plants like those we had seen on our Tablelands hike yesterday. We finally realized that the Labrador Tea plants are in the open areas, not the sheltered areas of the trail. Also, we found many sundews in the open areas.
We finally returned to the van by 1400. We continued north to Cow Head where we picked up our theater tickets for tonight, then on to Shallow Bay campground.
We had a few hours to relax before the theater so we took our showers and I took a brief nap to catch up after our hike.
After our showers we moved to a parking spot by the check-in booth for the campground in order to pick up a good wi-fi signal. With that good connection we made a Skype video call to Labashi's parents and audio calls to my brothers.
That evening we drove into Cow Head for theater. We saw the play 'The Oracle' by Berni Stapleton. It's the story of a family living the good life of a cod-fisherman before the sudden drop in cod-fishing stocks and the family's struggle to adapt to a new way of making a living. This story is part of the Gros Morne Theater's summer theatre program and we enjoyed it very much.
After the theatre we drove back to the campground and I continued my testing program on Screech portions while blogging. I think I may be a Newfoundlander at heart.


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