St. John's, capitol of Newfoundland

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Hi, Friends --

I took these photos in St. Johns, the capitol of Newfoundland, which is on the far eastern side of Newfoundland. The first photos are of Cabot Tower on the top of Signal Hill.

Some history from my friend, Wikipedia: "In 1901, Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless message at a position near the tower, the letter "S" in Morse Code sent from Poldhu, Cornwall, United Kingdom. . . .In 1933, a Marconi station was opened on the second floor of Cabot Tower, which operated until 1960. In 1920, one of the first wireless transatlantic transmissions of the human voice was made there. Men at the wireless station were able to talk with the steamship Victoria which was steaming out of England. Today, the Society of Newfoundland Radio Amateurs operates a ham radio there." Newfoundland, by the way, is the easternmost country in North America if you don't include Greenland.

Thank goodness St. John's has maintained the colorful houses such as we've grown used to in Nova Scotia. Sadly, (although happily for the Newfies, I would guess) most home owners throughout Newfoundland have had their houses covered in siding -- with exciting colors such as white, cream, light grey, light yellow, etc., etc. We were happy to see that the very new siding now comes in vivid colors.

I've included some photos of the building that houses the North American efforts to establish a successful transatlantic cable with Europe, specifically, a town in western Ireland . The inside operations have been kept so well over the years that it now looks as though the workers just went out to lunch.

To navigate from photo to photo, I would suggest this: Double click on the first photo, which will enlarge it. Then look above the photo on the far right side for the word "NEXT." Click on NEXT to get to the next photo. And so on.

You might have noticed a month-long lag since my last blog. Well, stuff happened: a family reunion in Connecticut, my son and his daughter visited for a week, I got Lyme disease, and I planted my vegetable garden. I'm just fine now, thanks to catching the disease early and a good doctor who treated it. And our three little baby Swallows flew successfully out of their nest today. Thank goodness. Their parents fussed at us constantly when we chose to sit on the front porch where they had their nest.

I have two more blogs coming with Newfoundland photos . . . plus some from Nova Scotia.

Take care, Paula

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Photos

Newfoundland dog
The owner takes his gorgeous dog to the Tower every day to enjoy people making a fuss over him (the dog). In the background is the city of St. John's.

Cabot Tower plaque -- at 400 year anniversary
The Tower was opened in 1900, so that was 516 years ago.

remaining cable
This is what's left of the first successful transatlantic cable.