On August 23, 2012 T and I rode the ferry MV Highlanders over Cabot Strait from North Sidney, Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. The 178km passage requires 5 to 7 hours depending on the weather.
Our Ride
The Rules of Travel for Newfoundland include the following:
- Newfoundland is known, throughout Canada, as The Rock.
- The locals are known as "Newfies" throughout Canada and the term is a source of pride to Newfoundlanders.
- Newfoundland is not pronounced "Newfunlun" by Newfies. They will correct you - "New Found Land".
- Newfies seem to have more of the Irish in their way of speaking, than do the folks in Nova Scotia, with the possible exception of Halifax.
- They are apt to have piercing blue eyes, and might greet you as "Skipper" or "My love".
- If you come upon 2 or more Newfies conversing, you are not likely to understand more than an occasional word.
The ferry "let out" at dark and we ducked into the first campground that we found north of Port aux Basques. It was in the bush just off of Trans Canada Highway 1. We dashed north on TC 1 the next morning bypassing Corner Brook and then took 430 past Rocky Brook through Gros Morne National Park up to Port au Choix on the northern peninsula. This is a beautiful 500 km run along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and we reached the campground on the beach before dark and picked out a site and set up. This campground doesn't take reservations, in fact they don't answer the phone - you just show up and pick a site and a representative of the Lions Club comes by at supper time and collects $20 cash.
Our beach at Port au Choix
We chose Port au Choix as our base camp for our reach to L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, site of the first Viking Settlement in North America (Vinland) 1000AD. Next morning we headed northeast 230 km along the Gulf of St Lawrence and the Strait of Belle Isle to L'Anse aux Meadows". We had a nice lunch with a beautiful view at The Norseman Restaurant.
L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site is believed to be the site of the first Viking Settlement in North America (Vinland) 1000AD, known to many as "Leif's Camp".
This archaeological site at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland contains the excavated remains of an 11th century Viking settlement consisting of timber-framed turf buildings (houses, workshops, etc.) that are identical with those found in Norse Greenland and Iceland at the same period. The site is thus unique evidence of the earliest known European presence on the American continent. - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
When humans came "out of Africa" to the North, some circled the Earth to the West and some circled to the East. Scholars think that the circle was completed in Vinland around 1000AD. The sense of history at the site is powerful, as was deja vu when looking out over the water from the site in the photo below.
One of the excavated buildings at Leif's Camp
Back at T's Camp on the beach at Port au Choix
When we sit on our porch at home in Western North Carolina and the weather is right we see contrails heading southwest and they are planes entering the northern approach pattern for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport at Atlanta from Northern Europe on Great Circle courses. That same route passes over Washington, New York, Boston and the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. The clouds in the sunset in the photo above are remnants of contrails of flights from Northern Europe to Boston, New York, Washington and/or Atlanta. Small world?
Point Riche Light next morning
The storm is lifting
When the rain stopped we headed back south 165 km to Rocky Harbor for 3 nights, where we explored Gros Morne National Park and surrounding towns. One of the spectacular features of Gros Morne NP is Western Brook Pond, a land locked fjord. It is in the Long Range Mountains, the most northern of the Appalachians. After the glacier receded, the uplift of the earth left it cut off from the sea. It is accessed by a 3 km hike through bogs and limestone ridges to the docks where the tour boats (reservations required) await.
Approaching the western end of Western Brook Pond
Pissing Mare Falls at the head of Western Brook Pond - only in Newfoundland - don't you love it?
That evening at the Oceanview Hotel, we took in the Anchors Aweigh show, and it is a must if you are in town. The band presents Newfoundland traditional music and Newfie humor with high energy and the show is presented as dinner theatre - you buy reserved seat tickets and the meal is included. Don't miss it!
We left Rocky Harbor on August 29th and camped at Grand Codroy Campground at Doyles, NL and we recommend it as one of the nicest, quietest and most reasonable parks that we have ever used. Next morning we caught the early ferry and had a not so smooth passage back to North Sidney, and camped at Baddeck before leaving Cape Breton and arriving back in Maine on August 31. We left Grand Island, Maine Sept 2 and were back in North Carolina on the 4th.
We stayed on The Rock only a week and just scratched the surface of the west coast of the island - which left 3 more coasts and the interior to explore. The Island deserves a month of your time at least, and you deserve it as well. If you can schedule it be there early in the summer for the iceberg watching season on the north coast.
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If you would like to see my collection of Carolina Lowcountry memories—"Magnolia Elegy: Place In the Edisto Fork," you can view the book trailer here, and see the book page here on the publisher's website. The book is also available from Amazon, B&N, and your independent local bookseller.