Wow - we have been on the road for 100 days and travelled over 19,000km. We take turns driving alternate days.
Charging has been a little less that 5cents/km and charging the EV Kona has been quite easy
Day 95 - We drove from Gander to Deer Lake on one very long trip (for us). Only 305km but we like to have time to stop and charge the car, and visit some of the towns along the way! It poured rain most of the way so it was somewhat less than relaxing. There’s a budworm infestation here that’s killing some of the trees in the forests; it occurs about every 40 years and a key part of the natural forest cycle in Gros Morne. Problem is, there is also an infestation of moose feeding off all the new growth! Moose were introduced to Newfoundland about 100 years ago as food stock to supplement the depleting stock of caribou, 1st x 2, then 4 more, and, well, it’s like “who brought the 1st two rabbits to Australia?” Without predators their numbers have grown out of control, and they can eat 18kg of trees and shrubs per day! They outnumber the caribou 4:1 and by the way people talk here, they’re a pain in the butt!
This is our moose sighting!
Day 96 - we were listening to CBC this morning and they were broadcasting province wide, live from Rocky Harbour, to celebrate the 50th year of Gros Morne National Park. Well if that wasn’t on our agenda for today! So we walked right up to Cherie Wheeler and her crew in Rocky Harbour and she interviewed us about our MeAnd’Er Across Canada trip in an Electric Car! This was very cool, and she was so nice.
While we were charging the car in Rocky Harbour we met a guy from Drive Electric NL who was driving an electric Ford F150 Lightning truck that his boss has driven from B.C.
From there we drove along the Gulf of St. Lawrence, The Viking Trail Route 430N, to The Arches Provincial Park, and The Arches are unbelievable; they have been sculpted over millions of years of glacial action, wind and water erosion, and eventually will weather and be reduced to rock pillars or sea stacks, like Flower Pot Island or Elephant Rook on PEI.
We’re staying at Sea Cove Motel in Port aux Choix (Port of Choice), population 742, All these pictures we’ve been sending of sleepy coves filled with fishing boats and lobster traps are actually places we are staying - this IS Newfoundland.
Port aux Choix was a very active fishing village and still is even with the decline of cod. Ocean Choice has a processing facility here and tourists are the towns 2nd industry. Port aux Choix is considered one of the richest archeological finds in North America, dating back 5,000 years, from the Maritime Archaic Indians to the Groswater, Dorset Palaeo-Eskimos to the recent ancestors of the Beothuks. It is absolutely amazing standing on the rocks at the site of where their settlements were - where they hunted seals, fished and gathered berries. There is also a migratory herd of caribou that is here out by the lighthouse in the summer, they swim across the harbour in the spring. The topography is really diverse here - part of the Northern Limestone Barrens of Newfoundland and Labrador, one area is like a gravel pit, then beautiful limestone rocks that look like they have been carved and set up like arenas, flat sheets of rock reaching out into the ocean, and rich lush areas like Philip’s Garden where it is lush from past years of sealing settlements. Davey Jones at the Parks Canada place was such a wealth of knowledge and really passionate about the history.
** Credit to the Parks Canada H.R. department, they sure hire some great people!!
Day 97 - we drove through Gros Morne and onto L’Anse aux Meadows (thank you Cairn) historic site of the 1st Viking settlement in North America in 1000 AD. Archaeologists have had a field day (excuse the pun) here discovering 55 dwellings at the only authenticated site of Norse settlement in North America, and the first contact between aboriginal North Americans and Europeans. It is believed that distance from homeland and conflict with the native people may have let the Norse to abandon the site. Parks Canada and UNESCO protect this site and have established a small reenactment of some of the dwellings there.
We had a very interesting conversation with some locals who work at the park about global warming and the perils of polar bears, and let me tell you, they have a very different story about the starving polar bears than what I’ve heard. One of the guys showed us a picture of the frozen harbour outside his home covered with literally hundreds of seals, plenty of food for the polar bears. And the concern about melting ice and polar bears drowning from fatigue and/or starvation don’t hold up with them either. 🤔 We didn’t even dip our toe in the conversation they tried to start about protecting the seals and seal hunting!
Stopped in at St. Anthony’s for an EV charge . St, Anthony’s (pop. 2,258) is in the Northern reaches of the Great Northern Peninsula, the main service centre for Northern Newfoundland and Southern Labrador. It’s pride is found in Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, who arrived in 1892 from England and commenced building a medical system that has grown to serve the entire region of Newfoundland and Labrador. Dr. Grenfell travelled by boat and dog sled into remote communities throughout the area providing health care, the first hospital and social services. It reminds me of the Childrens’ Hospital at 250 West 59th in Vancouver and Flying Hospital of doctors like Dr. Michael Bell and Dr. David Gillanders and nurses among other specialists and health practitioners who flew into remote villages throughout B.C. and then the children would come for treatment and surgery for things such as cleft palate repair, scoliosis, congenital hip displacement etc. at Children’s Hospital.
There is a ferry along here from St. Barbe to Labrador which we considered taking and return home through there to Quebec, but there aren’t enough E.V. charging stations to give us comfort if one were to go down.
The young man at Parks Canada sold us a Family Discovery Pass and told us we could get a refund for all the passes we’ve bought up to this point - saved us $86. and we’ll probably use the rest on our way back to B.C.
Did I mention that it is raining?
A little history about the French in Newfoundland and Labrador. Back in the 1700’s French fishermen were allowed here to catch and dry their fish, but had to return to Europe each fall. In 1904 and the French Shore Treaty, the French. relinquished it’s exclusive rights to fish the area and were allowed permanent settlement. Joey Smallwood’s government later set up resettlement programs relocating 28,000 people to centralize the Province’s population to be able to provide public services such as roads and health care. There are a number of photos of houses being dragged behind boats from some of these settlements!
Day 99 - On our way from Port aux Choix to West Brooke Pond we stopped at Sunrise Bakery in Parsons Cove for a coffee and chatted with Paige, a young farmer. I complimented her on her very short hair and she went on to tell us the story of long pink hair, hay in the back of her car, feeding her animals when the trunk hit her in the head - pink hair and hay everywhere, including her mouth, so she went home and cut off all her hair! Phew, quite a story, but that’s the way things go here, and it leads me to another Paige in my life.
There are ATV’s all over the place, and not just off road. We think some families use them as their 2nd car
From there we joined Bon Tours for a boat tour of Western Brook Pond (‘pond’ is a word argued by some to actually mean ‘lake’), in Gros Morne National Park, and this is a fjord, which is another argument. It’s another UNESCO protected site and covers an area of mountains raising 600 meters high and 16km long, a landlocked and rain fed majestic area. It was breathtaking, we hope the photos will do it justice. Reminded us a bit of Princess Louisa Inlet in BC. Our guides Jamie and K.D. treated us to a bit of Newfoundland music along the way back.
Day 100 !!!!! We’re on our way back to Channel-Port aux Basques to take the ferry to Nova Scotia - this is the home stretch of our visit to Newfoundland.
On the way from Pasadena to there we popped on to Route 460 to Stephenville to charge the car and poke around a bit. Nice little town with a lovely tribute to Mosey Burns, a local chap who some believed to be a somewhat dubious character, but none the less he is remembered as part of the make-up of the community and remembered with respect. We were quite touched by it.
The couple at Stephenville Office Pro were wonderful to talk to and spend quite a bit of time sharing stories and local history with us. We asked why so many of the streets in Stephenville had American names - Mississippi St., Arizona, Missouri etc. and turns out there was an American Air Force Base here - Ernest Harmon Air Force Base to be exact. I tried to get more information at the Town of Stephenville office on the same grounds as a real Delta Dagger Fighter Aircraft, but the office was closed for the Holiday, which nowhere else in town seemed to be honouring, including the banks! Anyway - Ernest Harmon Air Force Base was built by the US Air Force in 1941, when Newfoundland was still the Federation of Newfoundland, under the Destroyers For Bases Agreement with the United Kingdom, and remained in use until 1966 when it was transferred by the U.S. to the Government of Canada to become Stephenville International Airport.
Who knew? We certainly didn’t!
Further down Route 461 at St. George’s we stopped at Qalipu First Nation Mi’Kmaq Museum, housed in the old court house, jail cells and all (which they were more than happy to show me).
A group of grade 11 & 12 very friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable students were there to help us through all the information and exhibits of the customs, culture and history of the Mi’Kmaq People. This was summer work for them. One of the boys made me a red tobacco tie as a gift, and I feel very honoured. Interesting point - the kids measure in Imperial. When they took me to see the jail one of the boys said “it’s about 6 x 8” and when I asked him about feet rather than metres he said that is what he was taught in school. Maybe there’s still a bit of the Federation of Newfoundland in the education system?
And that, our friends, Is A Wrap! Newfoundland is an amazing Province, but we must say that the people are its biggest assets, hands down.
P.S. After being on the road for this long, we have a word for you about Coffee Shops and Bakeries:
The best coffee and breakfast treats have been at our B & B’s. Coffee shops and bakeries are a dying breed across Canada, and like our independent bookstores, we have to support them.
Many of you can remember Heather Stewart fighting long and hard against drive-thru restaurants in Mission and with just cause. Some towns have been swallowed up by these things - not a Grab-A-Java, English Tart or Amazi to be had, Tim Hortons and Robins rule. We first noticed this in Fort Frances, ON and it’s been a struggle almost everywhere we have travelled to find a cup of coffee in a real cup or mug and a muffin or croissant. The more touristy towns have some coffee shops, but if it’s just for the locals in a small town, except for a few like Parsons Cove, Tim Hortons and Robins drive thrus have won. Sure, some towns are small and the conversations between townsfolk over coffee probably happen at the Community Centre or Seniors Club, or “Hey, let’s go to Ray & Lori’s, the coffee is always on there.” But for people passing through, there’s nothing but the chains. We expect it at rest stops, except Freddy’s on Rte 380 in South Brook, NL. (They even had a level 2 charging station there and the Newfoundland Pea Soup is great!)
Anyway, please go to your indie bookstores, go to your indie coffee shops and bakeries - hug them, say Thank You for being there, and support them! They need us as much as we need them.
