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Green Point
A mecca for geologists Morning, June 23 Bright blue skies without a cloud in sight and warm sun greeted us as we walked the short distance to the resort dining room for breakfast around 8. (By the way, NL has its own time zone which is 2 ½ hours later than central time - that’s right. When it’s 8 a.m. in NL, it is 5:30 a.m. in Green Bay. Actually, there are a couple of other time zones in the world with this 30-minute feature.)
We met our three traveling companions: Peter A., Sr., Maine, a retired history professor; his son, Peter A., Jr., Connecticut, a sales exec with a large paper company, and Marilyn S, North Vancouver, BC, a retired librarian. By the time we loaded the van and headed out, clouds rolled in and we never saw completely clear skies again throughout the trip. The old saying applied to Wisconsin, Minnesota and other places holds true here - If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes and it will change.
Gros Morne National Park is our destination today and tomorrow. Containing 697 square miles along NL’s western coast, the park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it’s
Green Point
Layers of Shale and Limestone one of the best places in the world to see the effects of plate tectonics. The oldest continental rocks in Newfoundland and Labrador are 3,800 million years old, and glaciers shaped much of the landscape.
The park takes its name from NL's second-highest mountain peak at 2,644 feet located within the park. Its French meaning is "large mountain standing alone, Gros Morne is a member of the Long Range Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountains, stretching the length of the island's west coast. These aren’t high mountains but the eroded remnants of a very old mountain range.
What’s a tuckamore? Up and down the coast, we saw these forests of stunted and twisted spruce and balsam fir trees. Battered by storms and winds blowing from the sea, a tuckamore is impenetrable - impossible to walk through.
Wildlife in the park includes lynx, black bear, caribou, arctic hare, marten and a booming population of introduced moose. In 2000, Gros Morne was home to approximately 7800 moose. Current predictions have the estimate at approximately 6 moose per square kilometer. Uffda!
Green Point - Our first stop, and our first geology lesson. Actually NL is one big geology
Broom Point
Some lobster men prefer these old wooden traps, but many have switched to modern ones made of metal. lesson. Located within a bed of shale and limestone, Green Point is recognized as the boundary between two geological eras, the Cambrian and the Ordovician.
The layers are very visible as layers have been tilted up at 115 degrees. The fossils found here,
graptolites, are a key to calibrating geological time.
Broom Point Our second stop as we traveled south on highway 430 was Broom Point, a historic site, which juts into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Three Mudge brothers and their families fished for cod, lobster and salmon here from 1941 until 1975, when they sold the property to the national park. With the family’s generosity, the buildings have been restored. Boats built by the Mudges are exhibited in the fish store alongside nets, traps, and other home-made gear.
The very small cabin of about 700 square feet, was home to three families, and we saw these small houses up and down the coast. Since everyone worked very long hours, the small house somehow met their needs. The three bedrooms and kitchen-eating area are filled with many original artifacts including handiwork and furniture the family donated for the restoration.
Each spring, the Mudge families
Mudge Family Kitchen
Note the handy drying area above the warm wood stove. The bedroom behind the kitchen must have been warm and comfortable. left their permanent homes in Norris Point and moved, by boat, to this fishing camp where they caught and processed lobster, cod and salmon , in that order. The season usually ran from late May until July or August.
The Mudge fishery was a small-boat, labor-intensive fishery that used traditional fixed gear and needed the help of every family member. The cod net was placed in the water and periodically harvested during the fishing season - not dragged along the ocean bottom, or seined around giant schools of fish, like the industrial, factory-boat fisheries that began to proliferate in the 1970s.
When the men returned from fishing, the entire family helped cure the
cod. Mothers, wives, daughters and sons helped remove the fish’s head, spine and guts before salting it and laying it out on wooden racks (flakes) to dry in the sun. The drying process could take weeks, and the family had to bring the product inside whenever it rained. People traded their salt cod to merchants to pay for gear and supplies they had previously obtained on credit.
Before the road along the coast was built around 1959, all
lobster caught was transported south by
Mudge Home
Cozy bedroom boat. The lobsters went to market alive, making the trip in a container of sea water and might be transported as far as Massachusetts. The fishermen received payment only for the lobsters that reached their destination alive.
With the advent of the road, brokers visited the fishermen, buying fish and paying cash on the spot - a huge improvement over the old system. In the winter, most of the men worked at logging.
Canning
salmon was also a long, tedious process with the cans soldered at the fishery. After filling, they were boiled for 3 ½ hours. In a pain-staking process, each can was punctured, excess liquid expelled, resealed, cleaned and polished and finally stamped with the license number of the owners.
How convenient it is to waltz into a supermarket and purchase fresh and frozen fish!
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Tom
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Time zones
India and Nepal have "off hour" time zones too. We just had a global chat with new students and when it was 8:00 am here in MN - in Chennai, India it was 6:30 PM . Even stranger was Kathmandu Nepal, where it was 6:45 PM so they have a tiime zone on the 1/4 hour. After numerous attempts by students to explain it to me, I still haven't quite figured out how it happened? Glad to hear about your trip.