Newfoundland I . . .

We arrived in Newfoundland, early on August 6th. Not that we had much sleep, the ship leaving at 1 a.m. and all. The first sight of Newfoundland was a little misty - the sea mist and then we started climbing into the mountains and there were more clouds there.

Found out a lot about geography this trip. I didn't know that Newfoundland and Labrador were even Canadian provinces. (Laugh it up, Tamatha and Vala!) And actually, Newfoundland and Labrador are considered one province. Newfoundland is pronounced Newfin-LAND.

Newfoundland has a rugged beauty about it. But the roads, at least at this point, were good. We drove only about 120 kilometres before we shut down for the night in a little Provincial Park (which means, no electric outlets). We rested a while then went for a drive over to Stevenville and then on to the coast and did the peninsula loop tour. I noticed some birds on big wooden perch, so we stopped and took pictures. I believe they are Osprey. Saw some likely looking places to try to find some sea glass, and thought we'd stop on our way back - but as luck would have it, after the peninsula tour we were both too tired for a walk on the beach, so we went back to camp.

The next day we headed on down the road. More rugged coastline and beautiful mountain scenery. We left the Transcanadian Highway, heading north toward Labrador on 430, which is the "Viking Trail". We soon learned that there was a big Viking influence in the area and they are real proud of the 1960 archaeological find of the Leif Erickson settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows - more about that later.

So, we are driving along the coastline and Les hits the brakes (gently) and starts to slow down. I'm looking around and just as he says, "Eagles" I'm seeing them. I grab my camera and hop out (no thoughts of other cars because up here there just weren't that many people driving at the same time we were. I got some excellent shots of the two eagles that seem to be playing around on the wind. Even got a movie of him - not very good, but still captured the essence of the joy of flight. It was exhilarating just watching these magnificent birds. We must have stayed there 20 minutes before they decided they'd played long enough.

A few miles later we past a place we'd read about in the literature we'd picked up at the Info Center :-) called "The Arches". The sign post read: "The Arches were formed over millions of years by a combination of glacial action, erosion by wind and water and other geological changes. Severe storms continue to slowly change The Arches. Far in the future they will probably be reduced to rock pillars or sea stacks."

While walking the beach here at "The Arches" we found a little cairn of rocks that we thought was your normal pile of rocks, symbolizing something special to someone, but found out, as probably most Canadians know, as they have adopted this symbol as the official logo for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, instead of just a cairn it was a inukshuk, which is a design representing a traditional Inuit directional marker which steers people away from danger and symbolizes hospitality. http://www.inukshukgallery.com/inukshuk.html.

Another curiosity at "The Arches" was what I've been calling the dead forest. It was just off of the parking lot. Don't know what happened to the trees here, but the dead forest is stark and quite intriguing to look at.

We enjoyed our trek through this wild and harsh land. The people that we talked to were good, down to earth, hard working people. We appreciated their values and was impressed while going through one town to see their dedication to their hometown soldiers.

We've noticed while driving along these roads less traveled that it is a little hard on Maggie, (remember her? our GPS, that navigated us down the logging road in Nova Scotia) from time to time, to keep her navigation straight, especially on the coastline. She had a difficult time on Manitoulin Island, and sure enough she had us located a little "in the water" here on Newfoundland as well!

Hearing that there was a tall ship in port at Port au Chois, we had to stop by. It was a beautiful day and no hardship to veer off a little closer to the water and go down in the harbor. It was a beautiful site and I only wished that we could have seen her sail into port.

We drove up to the northern tip of Newfoundland to "The Viking RV Park" - was lucky enough to get Internet there - and used it as our base of operations. We stayed a few days and went to L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site of Canada. This was the site we mentioned earlier as the 1960 archaeological find of the Leif Erickson settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/index.aspx It was well worth the extra miles and was really fascinating. There was a museum that held some of the artifacts that had been excavated and then we went on a tour, with a gentleman who had grown up in the area and knew the scientists who found the settlement and lead the excavation. He mixed a fascinating story of the discovery, excavation, and life in this part of Newfoundland.

While walking the grounds we saw a "herd" of Moose. It was pretty cool as it was the first moose we'd seen this trip.

Driving up the coast to this northern tip of the island we passed many, many small fishing villages, which seemed deserted. Although some of the inhabitants were probably at jobs or fishing, it seemed pretty evident that people have moved away from the fishing villages. Our tour guide confirmed this. He said that when he was a child, his father told him that the seas around them were simply teaming with fish. Then he said that when he was a child that there was still a lot of fish, enough to support the local fisherman, but now, through the years the fishing grounds have depleted significantly and most of the young folks have to move away. It's very sad to see this way of life disappearing.

Before we left the area we drove on down to the southern tip of the northeastern most tip of Newfoundland to St. Anthony's and then the next day we headed over to St. Barbe to take the ferry to Labrador.

Wish I had more time to tell you about the Labrador visit, but I've run out of time. So this will have to do.

Take care, all!

Joy and

Les

(Readers Digest Version)

-Took a ferry from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Port aux Basque, Newfoundland.

-Drove up the western side of Newfoundland to the tip.

-Visited a Viking settlement, L'anse Aux Meadows, it predates Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. This site rewrote all of the American history books.

-Next, Labrador!