Newfoundland Adventures

After 10 months or so of anticipation, we finally made our way off to Newfoundland for a wonderful adventure. After my time at Rescan, I had accumulated quite a lot of Aeroplan points. Newfoundland seemed like a pretty good place to go-it is within Canada, so uses the same amount of points as going somewhere like Toronto, yet the face value flight is something more like twice what it costs to go to Europe (Leif is still under 2, so he was free). Newfoundland also seemed like a place where we could have some pretty big adventures, but would still be reasonable to travel around with kids. So with visions of rocky coastlines, foul weather, and icebergs, we set off for a couple weeks of exploring.

First of all, we had to get there. En route this involved 3 flights; Nanaimo to Vancouver, Vancouver to Montreal, Montreal to Deer Lake. After a mad day of packing, I managed a little over half an hour sleep (Kessa had less) before getting up at 4:30 am to head off to the airport. The flight across the country (what a way to spend Canada Day!) went surpisingly well. Our 5 hour lay-over in Montreal way delayed by 2 hours, and instead of arriving in Deer Lake at midnight, it was nearly 2 am. Of course our car rental place decided not to extend their hours to accomodate the delay, and we found ourselves stranded at the Deer Lake Airport at 2 in the morning (after 18 hours of travel and a half an hour of sleep). We briefly contemplated pitching the tent on the front lawn of the airport, but we were luckily able to salvage the situation. A friend from the Alpine Club was coincidentally on the same flight as us, and the owner of the B&B (The Bird's Nest Inn ) she was staying at was picking her up at the airport. Yes, he had spare room at the B&B. I waited at the airport and he brought my friend and Kess and the kids to the B&B and then came back to pick me and the "gear" up (we had quite a pile-2 car seats, 2 kid backpacks, tent, sleeping bags, clothes, and camping gear for 2 weeks). I arrived at 3 am, and after trying to settle the kids down, we finally crashed. Despite it sounding pretty epic, it actually didn't seem so bad. We must have been running on excitement.

Nemiah getting ready for our flight from Nanaimo to Vancouver.

Gros Morne

After a monumental sleep-in, we finally got ourselves in motion. After running around grabbing supplies and groceries, we were finally on our way. We didn't have any formal agenda's for the trip. We had a few things we wanted to do, but no schedule. The only rough plan we had was to stick around Gros Morne, and then hit the Northern Penninsula (a.k.a the "Viking Trail") of Newfoundland. We figured there would be more than enough to keep ourselves busy, and we wouldn't have to drive to far (I was suprised by how big Newfoundland is-about 4 times the size of Vancouver Island, or 1/9 the size of BC).

We spent the first few days hanging out in Gros Morne. It was evening by the time we arrived, and we pitched camp and explored the shoreline around Green Bay.

Green Point

Looking south across the mouth of Bonne Bay



Leif celebrates Canada Day


The following day we hiked in to Western Brook Pond. It is a dramatic fjiord lake coming out of the Long Range Mountains.

Western Brook Pond




After our hike, we checked out the beach at Shallow Bay. This became a favorite destination of the trip and we came back a number of times. Shallow Bay is a expansive sand beach. The sand has been blown around a lot, and formed incredible sand dunes, and is a unique ecosystem. Portions of the beach we closed for Piping Plover nesting (there are only 40 or so of the birds in Newfoundland). Great swimming.

Tern diving for food

Eolian processes at work

Looking along the sand dunes at Shallow Bay

Trouble Maker

Northern Penninsula

After a couple of days in Gros Morne, we moved our way northwards. Our first stop was at Port au Choix-named so from its several coves to choose from that offer protection from the weather. Port au Choix is home to a National Historic Site which contains several archeological sites from the Dorset (paleo-Inuit) and Maritime Archaic natives. When we arrived the wind was fully howling, and it definitely had a bit of an arctic feel to the area. As the day went on the winds died and we were able to do some exploring. The highlight for Nemiah was getting to pat the fox fur and beaver pelts in the interpretive centre.


Port au Choix Lighthouse



Limestone bluffs en route to Dorset archeological site.

We're trying to fit in with the locals by hanging our clothes to dry


During the evening the weather moved in, and stayed for a few days. Temperatures dropped from the high 20's to around 5 degrees, wet, and windy. This made it pretty hard to do much. We carried on up the Northern Peninsula and camped at Pistolet Bay. We used this as a base for a few days to explore the St. Anthony and Northern Peninsula area.

The kids getting suited up for the weather

Ship Cove


Around Cape Onion


We attempted a visit to L'Anse aux Meadows. This is a location where there was an historic Viking Settlement (possibly from Leif the Lucky). The weather was so horrible (4 degree, 50 kmh winds and freezing rain) we were barely able to make it with the kids the 150m walk from the parking lot to the visitors centre. We weren't able to see the old settlement structures.

Near the end of the day, the weather started clearing. We headed out for an evening drive out to Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve. This is an arctic landscape at the very north tip of the Island, and is home to unique flora.

Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve

Despite freezing her butt off, Nemiah wanted to join me for a photo. At the northern tip of Burnt Cape.

A unique phenomena of the Northern Peninsula is their use of road-side areas. People are able to use (I think they lease it in some manner) areas along road right-of-ways for growing gardens and storing firewood and other things. It was funny, because I was originally suprized by the lack of gardens that I saw in peoples backyards. For some reason I figured that, given the poor choice for veggies in many of the local grovery stores, that people would be growing some of their own veggies. It turns out that most of the settlements are right on the ocean, and are subject to heavy wind, so gardening can be challenging. Despite sometimes being quite far from town, people are able to make small garden plots along the road.
They also store lobster traps.

After a couple of days of bad weather, things cleared up, and we were back to exploring. We spent the day touring around St. Anthony and area.

Goose Cove


We decided to head out for a boat adventure into French Bay off St. Anthony. It was a pretty choppy ride, but it was pretty incredible. We saw a pair of humpback whales fishing in the bay, and then headed off to a fairly sizeable iceberg. July is getting pretty late for bergs, but there were still a few poking around.

Leif was very excited about the icebergs. "Berg! Berg!"





This was a pretty crazy iceberg. About 100m. Apparently it was in about 250m of water, and it was grounded out.

Our final day up north we hit North Boat Harbour. The whole area had a real arctic feel to it (despite being at about 52 degrees latitude). You could easily see across the Straight of Belle Isle to Labrabor.

Eastwood Schooner Shipwreck at North Boat Harbour


A very arctic-feeling North Boat Harbour

We started heading our way back south to Shallow Bay in Gros Morne. On the way we stopped at Flower's Cove for a hike out to see the thrombolites. Thrombolites are micro-organisms which resemble the earliest forms of life on earth. They are sprawling rock blobs made out of limestone. Apparently there are only currently found in 2 known locations-Flower's Cove and a spot in Australia.

Hike at Flower's Cove

Thrombolites

Back to Gros Morne

Back at Gros Morne we decided to base ourselves out of the campsite at Shallow Bay. We spent a couple of nights there and explored some the places we missed on our first time through.

Hiking up Berry Hill

View from Berry Hill towards the Long Range Mountains


Lighthouse at Lobster Head Cove

Nemiah's obsession with dead animals. She loved being able to pet the fox fur at Port au Choix, and kept asking us to go back there so she could do it again. She was pretty excited when there was a fur at the Lighthouse at Lobster Head Cove. There was also some neat historical stuff which helped me understand the history of Newfoundland much better.

Old fishing digs at Broom Point

We stopped in Norris Point for a visit to the Bonne Bay Marine Station. The kids enjoyed the touch pool.

Norris Point

Looking across Bonne Bay to the Tablelands

The Tablelands. This is one of the main reasons the Gros Morne received UNESCO World Heritage Site status. The Tablelands contain exposures of rock from the mantle of the Earth (pretty deep). Piecing together the geology of the area helped in the development of the general Plate Tectonic Theory.

Peridotite-"mantle" rock

Montreal

En route back home we had a 20 hour layover in Montreal. For me this was certainly a low point for the trip. It was pretty hectic, and generally involved a lot of hassle, busy traffic, whiny kids, and spending more money than was really necessary.


In our "compact" Hyundai Accent. It wasn't until I saw this car that I realized that we were probably given an unknown upgrade in Newfoundland to our Ford Focus. The Accent was tiny, and we barely crammed all our gear in. It was a 3-door, which made extracting the kids from the backseat to be tricky. Even more so when there was the urgency of a bathroom emergency (which invariably was when we were in the middle of grid-lock traffic downtown).

Walking tour of Montreal.

After another not-so-epic flight back, we finally pulled in to Nanaimo around 11pm, and then back to work the next morning. Wow! What a great trip. I can't recommend Newfoundland enough. There was so much to explore, and so much to still see.