This is not what we usually see when we pull into a campground.
But this is a ski slope in the winter.
When I checked in the woman said I might want to change my site as we were in the overflow area. “It’s just a big open area,” she said, “although you’ll be the only ones there.” “Perfect,” I replied, “our TV satellite antenna will work.” So here we are in the overflow area and it suits us fine. We actually have more privacy than the folks in the sites in the woods, as they have neighbors.
Matey and I were able to walk in the woods while Bud took the truck to the nearby town for an oil change.
The sun even peeked out from time to time.
We ended up on a very large trail at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain.
I prefer smaller paths, but it was pretty.
We came out near the entrance to the park and got a look at Sugarloaf Mountain, which is not the mountain with the ski trails. This is a nice place for our last stop in New Brunswick.
We are now at Kouchibouguac National Park in New Brunswick. The young woman at the gate wrote it out phonetically for me; Coo she boo guac (the guac as in guacamole). That’s my chair set up on my patio for today where I’m writing this.
The park is along the coast of New Brunswick across from Prince Edward Island where the Kouchibouguac River runs into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The name means river of the long tides. You can see the mouth of the river from the path that runs along the campground.
This morning Bud, Matey and I went for a couple of short walks. First we walked out on a bog. The trail started through a very damp forest.
Then it opened out to the bog where they had this viewing tower. This is a dome bog. It started some 4500 years ago in a depression. But now the sphagnum moss is about 20 feet deep in the center, where it is oldest, and that center is raised higher than the surrounding area. The water and moss are gradually moving outward, slowly increasing the size of the bog.
Next we took a stroll along a path by the river. This part was through a stand of tall pines.
At one point a pine, a larch and a spruce were over the trail, so I had to get their picture. I like the greater variety of trees we’re seeing now.
There were even a number of apple trees, probably there was once an orchard here.
We walked down to where there were a couple of viewing platforms with picnic tables.
A nice place to sit…
with a good view of the river.
With its level terrain, grass and trees, this park does not offer a lot of excitement, but it does offer a great feeling of peace.
We’re back in Nova Scotia and heading west. We’re at Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Cheticamp Campground. It’s a pretty campground.
Nova Scotia has more soil and so big trees. I like that.
Today we took a drive east along the Cabot Trail to a trail out onto White Point. On the trip out it was foggy and rainy and there were no views at the vistas. We did however have a young bear lope across the road in front of the truck. Of course I wasn’t fast enough to get his picture. It was still foggy at the point but clear enough to appreciate the cliffs.
And clear enough to watch the grey seals swimming at the base of the cliffs. They appeared to be hunting. When they surfaced they were always facing the shore and through the binoculars they seemed to be looking right back at us. We watched one group of about 10 seals. These are big animals. Adults can be over 6 feet long and weigh over 700 pounds.
Farther out on the point there was another group of seals. That is one seal sitting on a rock. It was a big one.
Besides the seals and other birds, this bald eagle was hunting fish off these cliffs, too.
On the trip back to camp it started to clear off. Now we could see the highlands.
The sea and shore were lovely.
As we were coming down along the shore I saw black humps in the water. I told Bud to pull off at the next opportunity. Several other people were there watching, too. A look through the binoculars confirmed that we were seeing whales. One of the other watchers said they were probably pilot whales. There were about eight of them. You’ll have to take my word for it, as this was the best the iPhone would do.
It would have been a beautiful trip, regardless, but seeing the animals made it a very good day!
Our last day began with a very auspicious sunrise. We are back at Grand Codroy RV Park which was our first stop in Newfoundland.
We had decided to take the morning to travel past the ferry port on the southern coast to see a lighthouse the owner of this rv park told us about. This is called the granite coast, for obvious reasons.
This was again different than the other coasts where we have been, but still beautiful.
The lighthouse was in the little village of Rose Blanche.
The name has nothing to do with flowers. It’s a corruption of the French words roche blanche, which means white rock. The rocks on that far hillside are quartz and shine bright white in the sun (absent when I took the picture).
It was another dazzling view accessed by another well made walking path.
The lighthouse, which was built in 1873, had been abandoned. The wooden roof rotted and the walls collapsed. All that was left was the tower.
After years of effort the lighthouse was restored in 1999. 80% of the stones are original, the rest were cut from the same nearby quarry as was used in its construction. This is the only granite lighthouse in Atlantic Canada.
The keeper’s quarters have been furnished with items donated by the community.
The fresnel lens is on display.
This is looking up at the granite stairway in the tower. I walked up and it gave a hollow sound with each step. It didn’t sound very sturdy, but the stairs are what kept the tower intact.
On our way to the lighthouse we noticed this falls in the distance. I wanted to stop and get a photo.
Of course there was a well constructed path and a sign telling us these were the Barachois Falls.
This path was built the entire 3,000 meters to the falls.
That’s because it led over a bog.
A bog on a hillside! I was in heaven. The pitcher plants and sphagnum moss made their own fall colors.
As is usual there was a picnic table built at a spot with a lovely view.
And then there was the falls.
I have thought about what makes Newfoundland so inviting. It is not just that the people you meet are so nice. Every community has pull-offs with trails and benches and informational signs. It’s as if the people are saying, “Come on, you’ve gotta see this.” And never have I walked a trail or taken in a view where I thought, “Eh, I could have done without seeing that”.
And so, now that we’ve seen our last sunset in Newfoundland (at least for this trip) I will pass along their unspoken invitation, “Come on, you’ve gotta see this!”
The Exploits River is the longest river on the island of Newfoundland. Its headwaters are in the southwest highlands (lower left on the map) and it flows over 150 miles to the Bay of Exploits (upper right on the map). But it had never been an important river for Atlantic salmon. We are at the blue dot, between Bishop’s Falls and Grand Falls on the Exploits River, and the salmon never made it past Grand Falls to spawn, so they only used about 10% of the river system. The number of salmon returning to spawn each year was about 1200. (Unlike Pacific salmon which spawn and die, about 30% of Atlantic salmon return to spawn again, some for several years).
Atlantic salmon are in trouble due to habitat loss and pollution. A group of concerned Newfoundlanders thought they could help. They formed the Environmental Resource Management Association, ERMA. Their goal was to not only restore salmon to the downstream portion of the Exploits River, but to open more of the river as salmon habitat.
Today we visited their Salmonid Interpretation Center, which is only a couple of miles from our campground. Just getting there was an adventure. We crossed two more one lane, wood bed bridges, this one by far the larger.
They faced quite a task, even before the hydroelectric dam salmon had not been able to get upstream of the Grand Falls.
A lot of study, a lot of fundraising and a lot of work enabled them to build a fishway (commonly called a fish ladder) to allow returning salmon to get above the falls and dam. Aerated water is added here to create turbulence that draws the salmon to this route.
Most of the fishway is in a tunnel under grates. Where Bud and Matey are standing the tunnel makes a right angle turn. When first used the fishway only went as far as the turn. From there the salmon were loaded into tanks and transported by truck to the river above the dam and falls. That’s dedication! In addition, the hydro company installed a fish diversion structure to guide the fish headed downstream to the route around their turbines. 98% of the smelt (2 or 3 year old salmon making their first trip to the sea) are successfully diverted.
Today the fishway is complete and includes viewing walls in the basement of the Interpretive Center. These are wild salmon, not in tanks but in the fishway.
ERMA started with 300 salmon taken from the river below the falls. There was a 90% hatch rate of their protected eggs. The fry were then released in suitable habitat far upstream. At last count 45,000 salmon came back to the Exploits to spawn.
The community, businesses and government agencies all worked together to make this happen. Apparently ERMA runs this campground, so it’s nice to think that some of our payment will go to continue to help the salmon.
We’re staying at Waterford River Valley Campground in Mount Pearl, which is a suburb of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Yes, St. John’s is big enough to have a suburb, just. This is a pretty nice place for a commercial, urban campground.
Right next to our site is a trail that crosses a footbridge over the Waterford River. Though I must say, the “River” is smaller than Big Brook in Terra Nova. Not sure I get the names here.
The trail from the campground links up to this section of the Newfoundland T’Railway, which is part of the Trans Canada Trail.
Today we drove out to Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America. This sign was there, point zero for the Trans Canada Trail.
And here am I, at the easternmost point. That’s it folks, it’s all water from here.
We noticed the rocks here were rounded, not fractured like at Cape Bonavista.
There are two lighthouses on Cape Spear. This is the modern one, in use today, that was built in 1955.
This is the original one, built in 1835 and the oldest lighthouse still standing in Newfoundland.
The lightkeeper’s quarters were in the square wooden structure that was built around the stone tower. It has been restored to the way it looked in 1839.
Having a tower in the middle of your house made for some unusual hallways.
The quarters were two floors…
though between the tower and the roof, the second floor rooms were a bit cramped.
Notice the sperm oil in the supplies. It was commonly used in the lights of lighthouses.
You could get a peek up to the top of the tower but that was closed off.
The residents had a nice view! (Bud and Matey are waiting for me at the green bench.)
From Cape Spear we looked across St. John’s Bay to Signal Hill. The tiny tower you see in the photo is Cabot Tower. The entrance to the harbour is just to the left of that hill.
We drove there next. The hill has a history of being used for defense and also, because it is so tall and so close to the city and harbour, for sending signals. The tower was built in 1897.
Signal Hill was also the place where the first transatlantic wireless signal was received by Marconi in 1901.
Today it offers trails for hiking, (can you see the Canadian National Park red Adirondack chairs?)
and great views of St. John’s and its harbour.
The harbour entrance looked really narrow. That boat is heading in.
I tried to capture it with this panoramic shot.
Our route back took us through the city past these colorful row houses…
and city hall. The front plaza has a stone plaque for km 0 for Trans Canada Highway 1; yep, we are all the way east!
We’ve been doing a lot of driving lately so today we stayed in the park.
We found a trail about 10 miles away that was short and moderately difficult. After a few hundred yards through the trees we came out on a rocky slope.
It was pretty steep, but not too difficult. We had come from those trees…
and we were heading to that bald knob.
Yes, those are stairs on it.
Thanks to these easy to see and informative trail markers I know this hill is granite. Another marker said the rocks were scored by glaciers. What was more remarkable to us was that in many places the rocks were polished smooth enough by the glaciers to shine in the sun. But my camera eliminated the reflection so I couldn’t capture that.
It didn’t take too long for us to reach the top.
We took a few minutes to rest…
and soak in the sun and views.
Then we went back down, which was actually more difficult.
On the way back we took a side road a mile and a half to Blue Hill. The overlook was just down a short path from the parking lot. This is the highest point in Terra Nova National Park at 653 feet.
It was a great day to see the park from there.
653 feet might not seem too high, but you are very close to the sea. Our last stop had a foot bridge over a bit of the bay and this jellyfish was just about to float under the bridge on the outgoing tide.
We needed to rotate the tires on the trailer. The man from the trailer next to us saw us working and came over. Thursday, when we started the second side, Dennis was right there helping. He noticed the wheel bearings were loose. This is everything left as Bud drove to town for more grease, because of course there was at least one thing we needed that we didn’t have. In any case, Bud got the grease, we checked all four wheels and found the leak in the tire that had been very slowly loosing air.
Friday morning while Bud took our tire in for repair I walked over to talk to Dennis as he was picking up to leave. His wife, Florence, stuck her head out. Since they are from Newfoundland I asked where they would recommend we go now that we had a sunny day. While chatting I asked them if they were born in Newfoundland. Oh yes, said Dennis, “my last name is Porter and I grew up in Porterville”. He asked me if we ever got to see an iceberg. We didn’t, we came too late in the summer. So Florence got a baggie and they gave me some of their stash of iceberg ice! And they let me take this picture.
They said it was worth it to go back to Bonavista in the sunshine, so we did. The rocks were even more beautiful.
The deep and narrow slots in this region are spectacular.
And this time we could see the light house.
We discovered a puffin colony right by the lighthouse. Their island was a bit further from shore than the one in Elliston, but it was easier to see them in the sunshine. I got to watch them with the binoculars, you could see them going in and out of the burrows they dig for nesting.
Florence and Dennis also recommended the Skerwink Trail, on the way back from Bonavista. They had hiked it and seen whales. This is another trail maintained by the people of Newfoundland.
It started as gravel and there were a lot of people there. However, on the north side it passed two capelin beaches. Capelin are a small, silvery fish that come here to spawn. Whales love them, so we decided to hike as far as the capelin beaches.
It went quite a ways along flat land, although with lovely scenery.
We passed a house with a garden with this ingenious woven fence.
The gravel ended at this sign. We took the coastal route.
Yes, there were high cliffs. And beautiful views.
But the trail was well maintained.
This is the first capelin beach.
There were a lot of peeks at the high cliffs,
and downright dramatic views.
We went as far as the next lookout where we saw the second capelin beach as well as Skerwink Head. But capelin season is over and there were no whales.
So we are planning to come back next year, arriving in mid-June. We want to be here in iceberg and whale season and we love the hospitality of the Newfoundlanders!
Monday we moved and set up camp here at Terra Nova National Park. There was a bit of sun in the clouds. I took this picture yesterday (Wednesday afternoon) and it’s the first sun we had seen since.
Tuesday was cloudy, cool and misty so we opted to take a walk on the two and a half mile trail around the campground. It started down this set of stairs. I thought the plain below was marshy, then I thought I was seeing rocks, not water.
When we got down there I found it was lichens. They’re piled up like snow around here.
This lovely mix of lichens and moss is right by our campsite.
The campground trail wound through some of the boreal forest here.
It afforded some views of the big brook next to the campground named “Big Brook”.
It eventually led us out to Newman Sound Day Use Area.
Moss and lichens were colonizing the conifer needles on this roof. They don’t require much to establish a foothold.
Steps then took us back to the campground level. A nice walk on a cloudy day.
Yesterday we decided to drive to Bonavista on the next peninsula, hoping the weather would clear by the time we got there. It didn’t. We discovered this statue of John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto, an Italian navigator who sailed west for Henry VII of England making the first European landing in North America in 1497. On the 500th anniversary (1997) of his landing, Bonavista was selected as his probable landfall and this statue was dedicated there with Elizabeth II in attendance.
What we could see of the cliffs was quite dramatic and I took this video to capture the sight and the sound of the foghorn from the nearby lighthouse, which was invisible in the mist.
From there we drove to Elliston. We were looking for puffins. But first we found this memorial to the sealing disasters of 1914. Sealers went out in early spring into the ice floes. In the early 1900’s small boats were replaced with larger, sometimes steel, steamers that could penetrate the ice further. Wireless was available but not deemed worth the expense by most sealing companies. In March of 1914 a father and son captained two ships for two different companies. Abram Kean helmed the SS Stephano, a steel steamer. His son, Westbury Kean captained the SS Newfoundland, a wooden steamer, which had the wireless removed after the last year’s season because it didn’t increase the take.
The Stephano was able to penetrate further into the ice. On March 30 they located a herd of seals and raised a derrick to flag the Newfoundland. Westbury Kean could not get his wooden ship in to where his father was. The next morning he ordered his men onto the ice. They were to walk to the Stephano to find and hunt the seals and then spend the night, if they had to, on that ship. The morning was mild at 7 AM when the men set out. It turned bad and at 10 AM 34 men turned back. The other 132 arrived at the Stephano at 11:30 and were given a lunch of tea and hardbread. Captain Kean thought they had made it to his boat in two hours and at 11:50 sent the men back out on the ice to capture 1500 seals and return to the Newfoundland. It was snowing hard then and soon turned worse. The men had to abandon hunting but no longer knew where either ship was. The SS Newfoundland never blew the ship’s whistle because they assumed the men were safely aboard the SS Stephano.
The men spent that night on the ice. Many froze, the next day those who could kept walking. They continued through that night and were finally spotted crawling towards the ship on the morning of April 2. When help finally arrived 78 had died (one after being rescued).
Among the dead are the father and son depicted in the bronze statue at the memorial. Rueben Crewe had survived a sinking in 1911, after which his wife Mary persuaded him to give up sealing. But when their son, Albert John, turned 16 he wanted to try his hand at sealing, a rite of passage for Newfoundland’s young men. He begged and his mother relented if his father would go along to protect him. They were found frozen on the ice, the father embracing his son to try to shield him from the cold.
At the same time another sealing ship, the SS Southern Cross, sank with all hands lost. It was thought she was overloaded and trying to hurry through the blizzard to be the first ship back with her bounty. 173 men were lost on the SS Southern Cross.
As a result of these disasters new rules were imposed on the sealers. The ships had to carry a barometer and a thermometer, flares and wireless. And load limits were implemented.
But the little town of Elliston has not forgotten their loss.
Oddly enough, the other thing that Elliston is known for is root cellars. Here are three of the 133 known to be in this town of 315 people living in 148 houses.
They were constructed from the easily split local sandstone…
and used to preserve the precious cold weather vegetables like potatoes and cabbage that the townsfolk could grow.
The examples we saw were at the beginning of the short path out to see the puffin colony.
And yes, there were puffins, though with just my phone’s camera and in the mist and poor light I couldn’t get a very good picture. Still it was an interesting day despite the weather.
On the Roam Again 