Month: September 2014

Newfoundland

Dawn brought us to Newfoundland. Prior to a treaty of union with Canada in 1948, Newfoundland and Labrador was a British Dominion. It is a different world, including a quirky 1/2 hour offset for their time zone (1 1/2 hours ahead of US Eastern Time).

As an island, of course, everything must arrive on Newfoundland by sea or air. Our ferry boat had two enormous decks for trucks and other vehicles. As we drove up the Trans Canada Highway after disembarking, we noticed quite a line at Tim Horton’s (Canada’s far superior version of Dunkin’ Donuts or breakfast at McDonald’s).

Our objective was to dash north (and east, of course) to within a day’s striking distance of a National Historic Site (a Viking basecamp) at the opposite tip of this very large island. So, we made breakfast at a Tim Horton’s our reward for persevering for another two hours on the road. We found our way to Stephenville, site of an abandoned Air Force base, where we enjoyed our reward. After asking a number of people for directions in the parking lot, we got plausible directions for the most direct way back to the highway to head north again.

Finding your way isn’t too bad on Newfoundland roads. We met a native of Cape Breton who explained that the difference in driving on Newfoundland is that you don’t plot a course in a circuit from point to point because there just aren’t very many roads. It’s more of a hub and spoke. You simply go out the road to your destination and back again. In fact, there is no direct route to go from our entry point of Port aux Basques to the capital of St. John’s. You must go all the way around the north of the island. It takes a long time to get places on Newfoundland, unless you have an airplane.

Even though it was a little rainy, we looked forward to a stopover at Gros Morne National Park. The terrain was extremely varied with a lot of highland freshwater bogs and different forested environments. This little toad was quite stubborn and wouldn’t move aside to let us pass. Instead, he scrunched down his little head each time one of us passed him, almost as if he were anticipating having to bear our weight on his shoulders. Odd little fellow.

Further along, Amanda sensed someone watching her, turned around and spotted this moose at the edge of the forest. Introduced at the end of the 19th century as food on the hoof, moose have become a nuisance. It’s an ideal environment for them, except in winter when they do a lot of damage to trees.
The destination for our 3 hour (roundtrip) hike was a very scenic waterfall.
This wasn’t it. The destination falls were still a kilometer, each way.
Thinking better of it, we headed back to the car and made our way to our motel in Cow Head where our room was feet away from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the receptionist spoke in the characteristic Newfoundland accent. Scholars come from Ireland to study it because it is said to be as close to 18th century Irish as you can get. There was a wedding at the hotel of two people “from away” – Labrador City and a town south of Gros Morne National Park. We guessed they were looking for someplace in between.

O, Canada!

We launched ourselves towards Canada, pulling out of the parking lot of our hotel in Bangor, Maine, at the ungodly hour of 5:15 AM on September 4th. We had planned a more leisurely start, but revised the timetable to make a noon ferry out of Saint John, New Brunswick, when Jim noticed that we were consistently driving east, not north, on our way to our jumping off point of Bangor, Maine. Checking time zones, we found that crossing the border meant losing an hour and – oops – we had forgotten to budget time for dealing with border formalities. So, 5:15 it was. We didn’t want to miss our ferry to Nova Scotia.

We made the ferry with time to spare and after a three hour ferry ride, arrived at the port of Digby, Nova Scotia, having enjoyed a lunch of fried bacon-wrapped Digby scallops enroute. They were delicious.
 
From Digby, we zig zagged our way across Nova Scotia to the eastern coast and the town of Lunenburg to take a peak and grab dinner before heading to Halifax for the night. Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of only two towns in North America designated as such. On the way, we began to notice that maritime Canada is very big, has lots and lots of water of all types, and not so many people.
We arrived after nightfall in Halifax and had trouble finding our hotel due to a lack of good street signage and our inability to find the Halifax Citadel, a huge fort smack in the middle of the old part of the city, that was supposed to be right by our hotel. How could we have missed such a thing?
Imagine our surprise when we opened our curtains the next morning. The British built the Citadel into a large hill overlooking Halifax harbor in the first half of the 19th century to protect the Halifax naval base from a land attack by American troops. The harbor is the largest natural harbor in the world, next to Sydney, and the naval base was of exceptional strategic importance to the British Empire. It’s a very impressive fort, complete with sniper posts built into the earthenworks.
The Empire knew how to build things. At the foot of the fort, the town clock has been ticking away for over 200 years.
We also enjoyed the weeping elm trees and the lush fussiness of the Victorian Public Gardens and an ice cream cone in the harborfront area before heading out of town on our way to the overnight ferry that would take us to Newfoundland.
The hiking paths in Victoria Park in Truro are kind of insane, but lead to a nice waterfall in a glen. We had stopped to stretch our legs on the way to the tip of Cape Breton Island to catch the ferry.