Newfoundland & Labrador - Aug 19 - 23

We've been having issues finding a wifi spot, even some campgrounds that advertise it have very poor signals.

Aug 19 - from the campground we headed to Lewisporte for a brief look around, in the rain, and then continued on to Gander. Denis, being an aviation buff, has been looking to visiting there. He toured the aviation museum, which was smaller than expected but good all the same. We went to the airport but it was a quiet day. Then we headed out on the T.C.H. (Trans Canada Highway) for a long drive to Deer Lake, having decided that we would have to miss the Baie Verte Peninsula. The periods of heavy rain made driving less than ideal but Denis persevered and we arrived safe in Deer Lake for the night. 

One more place off Denis' bucket list

Aug 20 - Our plan was to head to St. Anthony's, at the extreme northern end of the peninsula, as quickly as possible and then take our time coming back, but the sun was shining and we just had to stop and enjoy the beautiful sights a bit. We camped for the night near St. Anthony's.

And here we are on the Viking Trail

Arches Park

Aug 21 - We made our way about 30 km to L'Anse aux Meadows, a National Historic Site and UNESCO Heritage site, where the Norse, wrongly called Vikings, arrived in North America 500 years before Columbus' discovery. Very interesting site with replicas of some of the buildings that were there and very good re-enactors. The archaeologists discovered the site in the 1960's, previously it was thought to be a native village site. The weather was not cooperative - cold, wind and a bit of rain or we could have spent all day there. Denis comment - L'Anse aux Meadows is the apogee of our trip!

Denis about to enter the Viking lair

In the bay at St. Luniare there was a smallish ice berg so we walked down for a closer look. Denis retrieved a piece of ice from the floaties near shore. As we were watching a large chunk broke off (calved) and then as we were leaving a kayaker paddled between the two upright pieces which were still joined under the water.

This one floated into the bay from ice berg alley

We went to St. Anthony's and Denis toured the Grenfell museum and I toured the Grenfell house, remarkable man who did wonderful work in this part of the world.

Aug 22 – we drove to St. Barbe, weather still foggy and rainy, we got on the ferry to Blanc Sablon, Quebec. We had a quick look around the town, got some essentials (wine & lobster) and then headed to Labrador. The weather improved and we actually saw the sun. At L’anse au Clair we stopped at the information centre, they had a quilt embroidered with scenes from the past. There was one of a woman carrying two pails of water, the caption was ‘lugging water’ and I thought how apt the term lugging was in that situation. Another interesting piece of information, prior to joining Canada Newfoundland tried to sell Labrador three times. Denis visited the lighthouse at Point Amour, it’s the tallest one in the province. We continued on to Pinware River campground and had a nice site with a view of the river flowing into the bay right outside our door. And three mosquito coils kept the black flies at bay.


Never thought I'd be in Labrador!

Aug 23 – we headed down the road again through some beautiful scenery on our way to Red Bay National Historic site, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site last year. In the 1970’s, as a result of investigating archives in Spain, archaeologists started excavations and discovered 500 year old evidence of Basque whaling operations here. In the bay they found the wreck of a ship and several smaller boats. These wrecks were very well preserved because of the cold water and being under layers of sand.  The afternoon was very pleasant, sunny and quite warm, we drove back to Blanc Sablon and camped beside the beach. We replenished our stock of lobster and wine and also bought shrimp and scallops. We’ll be taking the ferry back to Newfoundland in the morning.