We want to take a moment here and thank all of you reading this blog, we hope you are enjoying it as much as we are. And a special thank you to everyone who has given us suggestions and ideas where to go and what to do - our friends, hosts from wonderful b&b’s where we have stayed, people we have met in laundromats, bookstores, restaurants, car service centres, charging stations, and just standing on the street or dock, everyone who is part of our story. Thank you.
Newfoundland Foods:
Fish and Brewis - brewis is hard tack, a non-perishable biscuit made by Purity. It is soaked overnight in water then steamed or cooked in pork fat. Fish is always cod
Bakeapple - aka Cloudberry - an amber coloured fruit from a low growing plant found in bogs. Popular in jams and pies. The origin of ‘bakeapple’ is an anglicized version of the French phrase “basie qu’appelle?” which translates as “what is this berry called?” 🤣
Partridge Berry - same as Lingonberries but the partridges eat them so they changed the name!
Toutons - a yeast dough, often left over from bread dough, pan fried and served with molasses or corn syrup
Jiggs Dinner - aka Cooked Dinner or Boiled Dinner - salt beef, turnip, cabbage, potatoe, carrot, pease pudding all cooked in one pot and served up separately. Served with some kind of dessert.
Figgy Duff - a pudding that doesn’t use figs but rather raisins, along with flour, molasses, brown sugar and butter mixed together and boiled in a pudding bag
Cods Tongue- just what it says, a cod’s tongue dipped in seasoned flour and fried
Scrunchons - cubes of port back fat, fried till the fat is rendered. They become piggy puffs
Caplins - a small smelt like fish that are caught in nets, hung to dry or laid out on cookie sheets and dried in the oven. Also cooked by coating with flour and lots of pepper in a pan of pork fat, the pork pieces then become Scrunchons.
Well that, and a list of phrases that fill a book, has been our introduction to Newfoundland.
In the background of this sign is the name of pretty much every bay and town on the Island!
I’m not going to get Newfoundland finished in one post, but I need to get something out in the blog because things are stacking up here!
Day 80 - We checked into the ferry terminal in Sydney, NS and were sent directly to the front of the line - we didn’t know that EV’s are considered hazardous! So, 1st on/1st off was nice and we were nestled all snug dwarfed by the biggest trucks I’ve ever seen! And these ferries are big…
The 6 hour trip across Cabot Strait to Port aux Basques was pretty nice, comfortable seats and lots to look at, including a couple of schools of dolphins. We met a couple from Seattle travelling by motorcycle who were planning to see Newfoundland in 4 days! I’m sure they had fun but it’s a lot faster than we’ve been travelling, that’s for sure, but they’ve made it this far so I’m sure they know what they’re doing.
We lost another 1/2 hour of time so we are now 4 1/2 hours ahead of home. We caught some live music downtown when we got into Channel-Port aux Basques, where most people sit in their cars to listen and honk their horns as applause. One of the houses had some stuffed Mummers in their yard - Mummering at Christmas is a tradition for the past 300 years; people disguise themselves, enter a home and play music and the hosts have to guess who they are. Once done they all have a drink - grog - and move on to the next house. We have a Mummer doll that we bring out every Christmas, a gift from Lori and Ray.
So much for trying to stay off the Trans Canada!
Day 82 - to Gros Morne National Park on Hwy 431, Trans Canada to Deer Lake turned north on Hwy 431 then out to the coast to Woody Point (pop 244) and Trout River (pop 508), an area that has a reputation of fantastic music festivals - Gord Donnie Jr. played there!
Trout River is also where, in 2014, 2 big, incredibly smelly and incredibly rare blue whales washed up on the beach, they were of 9 that died in the ice that spring. It took weeks to take apart the skelton and one is now on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Later in our travels we were in King’s Point where there is the skelton of a 15 metre female humpback retrieved from fishing gear in 2001, and in Triton a 13 metre juvenile sperm whale skeleton..
Gros Morne is a geographic phenomenon and thus one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The land and rock formations are unlike any other in Canada, and very rare in the world - it was not formed by glaciers, it was pulled up from the ocean floor. It’s like being on the moon!
We didn’t go further up the coast because we intend to do the Viking Trail and L’Anse aux Meadows on our way back to Nova Scotia. We’re also going to do the Cabot Trail on our way back through Cape Breton Island. Gee, going home isn’t sounding like the ‘point and shoot trip’ I was thinking of, but it’s all good..
Day 83 - Wow, that’s a lot of days! We hung around Corner Brook and what a beautiful town - James Cook lookout, a lovely river running through the city with a walking trail, and an outdoor swimming hole created by a dam. There is also a memorial for 2 young military men who lost their lives in Afghanistan: Sergeant Craig Paul Gilliam CD, the Royal Canadian Dragoons, and Corporal Brian Picksen, 2nd Battalion, Royal Newfoundland Regiment. RIP, and Thank You to all people who choose to serve.
And Roger got a haircut at Bob’s Barber Shop.
We charged up near the highway and a couple of guys from Quebec in a Tesla pulling a trailer with a couple of dirt bikes rolled up and needed a charge to get to the ferry. So we unlatched and let them in, then they couldn’t get their account to work, so Roger used our card and a great conversation ensued of course. In the end, they gave Roger $20. for their $4.50 charge, big hugs and off they went. I told them this is Roger’s summer job - he hangs out at charging stations and helps people for $.
Day 84 - Okay folks, drum rolls please —- on our way to King’s Point we took a side trip, stopped at the Museum/Gift Shop/Visitor Information in Baie Verte (pop 1,297) and the ladies there gave us a map of iceberg and whale sighting places and off we headed out Hwy 410 to Seal Cove (pop 232).
We were gobsmacked - right there when we turned to go into the cove were 2 icebergs, right there in the bay! There were so blue they almost didn’t look real!
The locals told us that the original ‘big one’ was there for a couple of months, nearly blocking the entrance to the cove, and that last week when it broke apart it was “like a rifle you’ve never heard” and caused a tsunami so great it sent a wave into the hills and you could see the ocean floor. Amazing. This picture is of a shed on the hill - it and the trees are white from the salt water wave.
One guy told us that it looked way different than it had in the morning and that right now the pieces are “stuck” but as more breaks off the lighter they will become and then move on. Had some fun with the locals celebrating Seal Cove Days, part of the ritual is to dive off the dock into the iceberg cove - brrrr!
On from there to King’s Point (pop 653) where the caplin are spawning. Small fish that are like smelt and after they spawn they die silver side up! The locals were there with nets scooping them up like crazy - a Newfoundland delicacy as mentioned in the food intro. of this post. The whales come in to feed when this happens, but we didn’t see any, although we were treated to another iceberg at breakfast.
By The Sea Inn at King’s Point was our base for trips to Springdale, Robert’s Arm and Triton along Hwy 380.
They have some really creative school bus stops which made the drive kinda fun!
South Brook has been our EV charging spot and it’s been great because there is a diner there too. This is where we learned about Holding your Spot on ChargePoint, after waiting for about 45 minutes for a guy to finish his charge, another car drove in and told us that he is next in line! We didn’t know you could do that, but we’re definitely going to be using it next time. Good to know.
Day 86 - on our way to Twillingate we stopped at Grand Falls - Windsor to see the Salmonid Interpretation Centre where we met Joann, and if you want to know anything about Atlantic Salmon she’s the lady to talk to. Situated at the dam on the Exploits River, a series of channels and fish ladders allow the salmon to migrate upstream through Grand Falls to reach spawning habitat. A cooperative endeavour between Dept of Fisheries, the Hydro Electric Co. ERMA (Environment Resources Mgmt. Assoc.) and in part Rotary. The lower observation level allows you to watch the salmon as they swim upstream, where Joann counts them and opens a release gate to the next level of the ladder. Unlike salmon in BC which die after spawning, the Atlantic return and spawn several times because they have an ability to retain some of the salt level in their bloodstream to allow them to go to fresh water then return to the salt water. There are those in our circle of Rotary friends who could explain this much better of course but I want to share my limited knowledge with you! I thought Joann was going to cry when she said there was a report last of week that the water temperature at Grand Bank was 21F. 😱
Back on the Rte 340 - I don’t think these guys are going to market!
After a charge at South Brook the drive up Rte 340 along the many coves of Norte Dame Bay we stopped at a “You Must eat there” place - Doyle Sansomes & Sons Lobster Pool, and now we’ll pass that on to you - “You Must eat there”! We watched the cook take the live lobster from the reserve tanks, one order at a time, tie a string around the claw and lower them into one of the 4 pots on propane burners out in the blue shed.
Doesn’t get much better than that!
But it does -
So long for now
