Blogs from Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada, North America - page 12

Today we left Woody Point and headed to Western Brook Pond for our boat tour through the fjords. We had been looking forward to this for months, so when we awoke to heavy rain and fog, we were concerned that the tour would be cancelled. We had to drive extra carefully and slowly as the rain was coming down in sheets on the winding mountain roads and we encountered numerous construction sites along the way, so on top of everything else, we were now running late. An hour and a half later, we screeched into the parking lot, about 20 minutes behind schedule, and we still had a 45 minute hike on a boardwalk through a bog to to get to the boat. At least it had stopped raining. We've never hiked so fast in our ... read more

Today we said goodbye to Eastport and made our way to Gander to drop Tim's daughter Shayna off at home before we continued on the rest of our trip. We took a little side trip to an old outport town called Greenspond which is linked to mainland Newfoundland by a causeway. The landscape there is rugged and barren, strewn with rocks. This area was settled by people from England and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited outports in Newfoundland, having been settled in the 1690s. Its livelihood was cod fishing and an annual seal hunt in which they used guns and nets to kill the seals. The population at one time was over 2,000 but now there are less than 400 people there. Our next stop was Lumsden which has miles of white sand beach. ... read more

Breakfast this morning in St. John's was toast with bakeapple and partridge berry jams. Yum. As it was a bit rainy, we, along with Tim's daughter Shayna, decided to visit "The Rooms" which houses the Provincial Archives, Art Gallery and Museum. The building itself is beautiful with a breathtaking view of St. John's harbour, the Narrows and Signal Hill. Its architecture and name come from the tiny gable-roofed sheds, called "fishing rooms", that were once so common on the shores of Newfoundland fishing villages. The two hours we spent viewing the exhibits of the history, people and culture of Newfoundland and Labrador wasn't nearly enough time to see all that this outstanding venue has to offer, and we were sad that we didn't have time to see the art gallery, but we all felt fortunate to ... read more

Ouin ben. Ça passe vite, une semaine. Surtout une semaine de vacances. C’est ça, la vie! Nous sommes donc de retour sur le bateau et cette fois notre cabine est plus au milieu, donc pas de fenêtre, pas de vue… mais il me semble que ça tangue moins. Le bateau n’est pas encore parti, mais la dernière fois je le sentais bouger avant même le départ… bref, c’est bon signe! Hier, après notre après-midi tranquille à boire au chalet, on est allés souper au Parson’s. Le resto est coté #1 sur TripAdvisor. C’est de la bouffe typique de Terre-Neuve, essentiellement du poisson. C’était vraiment pas cher, surtout comparativement aux autres restos qu’on a essayés! La soupe, le pain maison, le dessert et le thé/café était inclus avec tous les repas. On a tous les deux pris ... read more

We arrived in Dawson Creek on Sunday afternoon ... one of the last to arrive, but we made it. Our travel caravan will consist of 22 Winnebago motorhomes (counting the 2 host units). We have a total of 42 people. Two days were spent in Dawson Creek as we started to get to know some of our group members, representing the United States and Canada. We have what they call travel meetings everyday, which will go over any instructions for the following day for our travels and suggested sites to see along the way. The Dawson Creek Visitor Center presented a very informative session on the start of the Alaskan Highway. It is hard to imagine the amount of work that was done in less than a 9 month span to get this highway completed during ... read more