Travels in Canada (Newfoundland)

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We drove aboard the MV Caribou for the six hour trip from North Sydney to Port aux Basques. The ferry had ample seating for those taking the trip. There was a restaurant, gift shop, and game room on board. The place also had a bar and lounge with live music. A movie was also shown. Supposedly, there was wifi on board but we were unable to pick up anything with our laptop. Nevertheless, the crew all worked to make the crossing as smooth as possible.

The ferry is named after her predecessor, SS Caribou, which was sunk off Port aux Basques in October of 1942 by a German submarine. The incident took the lives of 137 passengers and crew. There is a memorial to the SS Caribou in a small park in Port sux Basques.

From Port aux Basques, we drove north on the Trans Canadian Highway to Deer Lake. This part of the TCH is sandwiched between two mountain ranges, the Anguille Mountains along the coast and the inland Long Range Mountains which extend up into Newfoundland's Northern Penninsula. From there we took Route 430 over to the small town of Rocky Harbour which sits at the mouth of Bonne Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. After a night there, we headed north along the coast on Route 430 to L'Anse aux Meadows. This is the site of the first Viking settlement in North America and was established in the year 1000ad, which is almost 500 years before Columbus landed in the western hemisphere. On the way up, we passed such colorful sounding places as Cow Head, Deadmans Cove, Plum Point, and Green Island Brook. At Eddies Cove, we headed inland to the northernmost tip of Newfoundland.

L'Anse aux Meadows was discovered in 1960 by a Norwegian explorer and his wife who was an archaeologist. The site was later excavated by his wife and an archaeological team. Parks Canada established the place as a tourist attraction and a highway was built to accomodate traffic. According to the woman with Parks Canada who was giving a group of us a tour, the locals knew, before the Norwegian discovered it, that the site existed. However, they thought that it was Indian burial grounds and left it alone out of respect for the dead. The mounds where the excavation took place still exist but have been covered over. Artifacts taken from the site are on exhibit. Next to the site, replicas of what archaeologists think the dwellings actually looked like have been erected. Inside are employees dressed in the clothing of that era who talk with the tourists and relate some of the Viking history. Others sing and play instruments. It was a cold, wet day when we toured the site and listened to the history of the ruins but it was all worth it. One would have to visit Greenland or Iceland in order to see similar ruins.

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