Newfoundland & Labrador - part four

A final few odds ’n’ ends.

Yes, it was windy …

… and foggy …

… and occasionally chilly …

… but it wasn't as daunting as the weather for which the ancient Bombardier I found in Labrador was built.

Flowers were starting to bloom …

… and I can attest that Newfoundland does get brilliant sun, as I discovered in July 2017.

Newfoundland’s one of those happy places where it’s difficult not to get decent shots. 

And I was able to satisfy my love of out-of-the-way Chinese restaurants. I’ve long admired the brave Chinese who - when coming here was’t easy - opened eateries in the smallest of remote settlements. Usually the only non-white people, they suffered prejudice, but became integral, much trusted and valued, community members. I’ve recently been reading a history of Canada’s small-town Chinese restaurants, Chop Suey Nation.

One such place is St. Anthony’s Far East in Newfoundland’s far north.

I had the combo 604 - egg roll, sweet and sour chicken balls, fried rice and chicken chow mein - for $11.45. Definitely not what you’d dare order in a posh Toronto Chinese restaurant. Yum! Yum!

Unfortunately these restaurants in other Newfoundland towns have succumbed and I wasn’t able to indulge in ‘fantastic cuisine’. 

As well as combo 604 I had cod aplenty. Cod chowder, pan fried cod, cod au gratin, cod and chips. I could have had poached cod, cod tongues, cod cakes, cod poutine, a ‘codwich’,  cod tacos, cod simmered in milk or beer battered cod. I did have crab, mussels and lobster. Also plenty of Iceberg Beer. And ‘3 Sheets to the Wind’ blueberry and crowberry wine, but wouldn’t recommend it.

Last pictures. I will never know who left this charming ‘rock person’ on a completely deserted Newfoundland beach.

No matter. I will remember early morning, coffee in hand, walking alone beside the recently fully paved, 714 mile Trans Labrador Highway with little but trees, glimpses of water and an ATV in distant sight. 

And later people wave as they pass in a car or pickup. Or stop to chat. “You’re not from around here, me boy.” Or “me darlin’”, depending on speaker’s gender. 

Heartwarming welcomes and friendliness. I’d experienced that on previous visits, but comforting to know it still exists. Canadians have great affection for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. And for their island, the ‘Rock'. 

Newfoundland & Labrador - part three

This - and it’s not my photo - is the classic Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism view of the Western Brook Pond, a freshwater body on the island’s west coast.

And this is my shot of, in the far distance, the entrance to the pond (local term for lake), a 16 kilometre (nearly 10 miles) fiord long cut off from the sea.

It’s a half hour walk in from the highway and well worth visiting.

Also in Gros Morne National Park are the Tablelands, one of the few places where earth’s mantle has risen to the surface.

Dungeon Provincial Park. Note the person in an orange jacket at the top left who gives a sense of the arches size.

Aside from Gander Airport’s mid-century lounge, another place I’d long wanted to visit is L’Anse aux Meadows in the very far north of Newfoundland. It’s where Vikings, around the year 1000, became the first Europeans to settle in North America.

This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Putting it mildly, conditions weren’t propitious, but, in an odd way, add to the experience. I half expect a Nordic god to appear out of the mist. 

Fires in the replica Viking huts are welcome on a bitterly cold day. It’s only after a few minutes of thawing that I realize they’re gas. Real fires would be smokey and dangerous. Stupid me. 

On Labrador's coast, vast beaches with just me, gulls and icebergs. Long since I’ve had so much space all to myself. I could shout with glee, but would feel silly, so limit myself to skipping stones. 

Beachcombing is a pleasure that doesn’t end after childhood.

 All sorts of things to be found.

In Red Bay, Labrador, are bits and pieces of 16th Century terracotta used by Basque whalers. Orange-ish terracotta roof tiles came across as ballast and whale oil went back to, in a well-worn phrase, light the lamps of Europe. 

And, after another Labrador beach scramble on my own, I hold a chunk of compressed ice from a berg. Surprisingly heavy. How many thousands of years since it began passing down a now vanishing Greenland glacier?

Final Newfoundland post is next.

Newfoundland & Labrador - part two

September 11, 2001, the little Newfoundland town of Gander, which could hardly be more different from New York, became inextricably linked with history. North American airspace closed and thousands of transatlantic air passengers more than doubled the town’s population. 

Aside from 9/11 Gander has other claims to fame. During the war it was a stopover for military aircraft being ferried to Britain. Gander played a vital role in Allied victory. 

From the late 1940s to early 60s, Gander could justifiably say it was the ‘Crossroads of the World’. Transatlantic passenger propeller aircraft refuelled here. 

Many were the famous and glamorous who stopped in Gander. Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra. Even the Queen of Iran, Albert Einstein and Fidel Castro.

In 1959 an extraordinary, ultra modern for the day, departure lounge appeared in the wilds of central Newfoundland. It featured the best of Canadian mid-century design.

And it opened shortly before it was no longer needed. Planes that could fly the Atlantic without refuelling took to the sky.

I had long wanted to see Gander’s recently restored, time capsule lounge. Moscow dates from when Moscow-Havana flights regularly stopped for refuelling (and subsequent defections). 

The clocks remind that Newfoundland and Labrador are a half hour different from adjacent time zones.

Just look at this sleek escalator …

… and displays of Canadian furniture especially designed for the terminal. 

The geometric terrazzo floors might initially escape notice, but are well worth a look.

A 72 foot mural - ‘Flight & Its Allegories’ - by noted Canadian artist Kenneth Lochhead overlooks the lounge.

Lochhead was well ahead of Concord with his hints of supersonic aircraft to come.

Just down the road part of a World Trade Center beam sits outside the town hall. 

It commemorates Gander welcoming and caring for frightened, bewildered strangers from 95 countries who arrived one horrifying, unforgettable day. 

And now, the airport tarmac where there were so many planes they were nearly wingtip to wingtip, is often empty.

In the next post I'm back on the Newfoundland roads.

Newfoundland & Labrador - part one

I’ve been in Newfoundland four times. The first trip was for a 1969 university journalism conference largely spent carousing. I was also there in 1983 with Charles & Diana, in Canada for their first major overseas tour, and again with Pope John Paul the following year. In 2017 I returned for a few days holiday in St. John’s. 

But I had never been off the Avalon Peninsula where St. John’s is. Time to explore further. So, much of June was passed on the island and crossing to Labrador. 

Early in the season, but I wanted to go before school was out. The area’s northernly and coastal and, inevitably, has weather issues, but I knew that. ‘Atmospheric’ fog, some bearable drizzle and snow patches still on hills. I often wore a scarf and, a few times, mittens.

Much of Canada was burning (and still is as I write) and my phone regularly getting Toronto poor air quality alerts. However, fire wasn’t a concern on the island ... and a reminder the pictures are clickable.

Cool, even cold, damp weather also meant no black flies, which can be murderous and, for that, I am grateful. This is Cape Spear, North America’s most easterly point. There was also fog the day I went with Charles & Diana.

At Cape Bonavista, where Giovanni Caboto (or John Cabot as he’s better known) is said to have landed in the New World in 1497, weather was much the same. 

A kind lady agreed to ‘pose’ next to Cape Bonavista’s lighthouse.

More than my fair share of icebergs. This is at King's Point.

The next three shots, including a moulting seal, were taken crossing the Strait of Belle Isle between the island and mainland Labrador, part of the province of Newfoundland. The ship is Canadian Coast Guard. 

L’Anse-Au-Clair, a village on Labrador’s coast.

Witless Bay, just outside St. John’s, has North America’s largest puffin colony. Something like half a million, a little more than four times the population of St. John's. Fog and rough seas mean I count myself fortunate to at least get one.

The next two pictures are from St. John’s harbour (from where the ill-fated Titanic submersible departed) and Quidi Vidi.

Petty Harbour.

Trinity, a small formerly bustling fishing port. As lovely as it is there’s a wistful air in a village once important for its size.

Colour ‘mid Twillingate’s photogenic gloom.

On the island’s west coast Highway 430 North.

The next two shots require brief explanation. The ferry from the island of Newfoundland docks where Quebec borders Labrador. This is Salmon Bay, Quebec.

Three photos from the Labrador coast.

Oh, and I did see one whale, this in Red Bay, Labrador. Don’t know if it’s a minke, blue or humpback whale! 

Second post upcoming.