Advertisement
Published: September 6th 2015
This morning we left St. John's. What an amazing city it is. BC is so young compared to Newfoundland. We were constantly awed by the history here. It is thought that John Cabot first visited in 1497. That's 518 years ago. Mind boggling.
We were on our way to Eastport, a popular vacation destination on the Eastport Peninsula famed for its sandy beaches, beautiful scenery and traditional Newfoundland outport heritage. The landscape on the way to Eastport, however, was hilly with many ponds, scrubby trees and rocks. There were thousands and thousands of orange coloured rocks in the fields and rivers as far as the eye could see. Now I know why they call this province "The Rock".
Shayna's aunt and uncle, Val and Ron, have a cabin in Eastport and graciously invited us all, having never met Tim and me. Shayna's mom, Pam, arranged a clean, comfortable travel trailer for us to sleep in. She was there too as she is building a cabin on the adjoining property with her husband.
We arrived around 5:00 and did our "How do you do's". We immediately liked Val and Ron who were welcoming, fun and warm. They are true
Newfies in the best sense. After getting acquainted, we barbecued supper and Ron got a nice bonfire going. We told tales and roasted marshmallows till our eyes drooped.
In the morning, Tim, Shayna and I were sent to pick wild blueberries for the pancakes that Val was making for breakfast. Blueberries were growing everywhere, all purpley-blue and sweet, and it was fast work. I was happily picking away when I felt a bite, and then another. I was standing in the middle of an ant pile. I ran yelling and swatting, jumping through the undergrowth like I was on fire. Breakfast was well earned, I must say.
Eastern Newfoundland has many historic, charming communities, hemmed by big blue seas and sheltered coves. It was time for us to explore them. Shayna directed us to Eastport Beach, where we walked and hunted for sea glass, or what Shayna refers to as "mermaid's tears". The water was freezing so we didn't venture in, but we did find many pieces of sea glass. We did visit another part of Eastport Beach later where the sand was fine and soft and people were sunning themselves and swimming. It was still too cold
for us, though, other than letting the water lap at our feet as we walked the shore.
Next we went to an old outport town called Salvage, pronounced "Salve Age". It was charming, with wooden heritage salt box houses and fishing sheds sitting on the rocky shores of the tiny village, standing in homage to a time past when things were good for the fishermen there.
According to Wikipedia, outports are some of the oldest European settlements in Canada, many of them having been established by Portuguese, Spanish, Basque, French, and English fishermen and whalers in the 16th-19th centuries.
Following Confederation in 1949, the government of premier Joey Smallwood encouraged or forced residents to move from outports to central inland communities where provision of schools, health care and other government services could be achieved more cheaply. Outports became a thing of the past.
Only a small number of people still live in outports and the young are moving to larger centres or to work in Alberta in the oil patch. Almost every young person we talked to said that they were planning on working in Alberta. So sad. The outport is an endangered species.
That
is why I was so thrilled when, in Salvage, an older fellow mending his net in his fishing shed noticed us and waved his hand, hollering, "Come on in". We did and he introduced himself as Brian and proudly showed us his shed and everything in it... nets, buoys, lobster traps - everything a fisherman needs for his trade. He spoke quickly in a thick Newfie accent. He turned to me and asked, "Did you go to the schurts?" I looked at him blankly. He elaborated, "He's 150 years old and still standin' straight". "What?", I queried. I was confused. "The schurts!", he repeated several more times. Neither Shayna nor I could understand him. Finally he cocked his head towards the old church down the street. "The schurts! He's 150 and still doin' good. The door is open and you can go inside and look at him". "Oh! the CHURCH!", I said. It all made sense now. We trundled over and had a look. It was simple and homey, not as straight as he had said, but still in use after 150 years and lovingly adorned with items made by the congregation. That's a good church, I thought. No wonder
he's proud of it.
The three of us hiked a very steep hill to a lookout. Spread below us was the entire outport, looking like a postcard. I imagined the busy fishing village it once was, the fisherman getting ready to go out to sea, hoping to come back with their catch of cod or sometimes just hoping to come back at all if the seas were stormy. It is largely a time past now, relegated to the history books. It reminded me of my father and the small family farm he operated, which is now almost a thing of the past as well.
We carried on to another nearby beach called Sandy Cove. It is a long white sand beach in a horseshoe shape, and there was a smattering of people playing and tanning there. We walked the length of it and back again. It had the largest assortment of different coloured rocks I've ever seen and my pockets were full of them by the time we got back to the car, much to Tim's chagrin. We're short on space but he good naturedly tucked them away for me. Tim and I then went for a 500
metre hike straight up a rock-lined trail lined with blueberry bushes and Pitcher plants, Newfoundland's provincial flower. The view from the top was gorgeous with distant large grey-blue islands glimmering in the sun and the water of Sandy Cove beach shimmering far below us. The effort was definitely worth it.
As the day was getting late, we drove quickly to Crooked Tree Park which, not surprisingly, has crooked trees, mostly birch. There were a couple of kids there, a brother and sister around 8 and 10, who were joyously jumping off the dock into the water. "Isn't that cold?", I asked the boy. "If it was, I wouldn't be doing this!", he grinned and did a running cannonball into the water. "Or this!, added his sister, doing the same. Guess they told me!
When we got back to the camp, we could smell the delectable aroma of food cooking. Val was outside, standing over a huge pot bubbling away on the barbeque burner. I was so excited as Val is known for her great cooking and she had gone to the trouble of preparing Jigg's Dinner, a traditional Newfoundland meal, just for us. The ingredients - salt beef,
salt riblets, potatoes, turnips and greens, pease pudding, cabbage and carrots - are cooked in pudding bags in one pot and create a rich, delicious broth. They are served with a variety of pickled items like mustard pickles and beet pickles. As we sat down to eat, Val's brother-in-law Larry nudged me and said, "You are getting the best Jigg's Dinner around. We all come running when Val cooks". It was all it was cracked up to be - delicious in every way, both helpings. I felt so lucky.
After another fun night at the bonfire with Ron's old time country music belting out of the stereo and more than one racy joke told in that great Newfie accent, we all headed for bed, still rubbing our tummies as a result of too much good food and a lot of belly laughs.
We awoke to rain, lots of it. Tim had already gone into town with Ron where they joined about 15 other good ol' Newfies for morning coffee in the back of a garage in town. Tim said that he understood some of them 100%, about 4 of them 50%, and some of them not at all.
He had a great time nevertheless and was still laughing when he got back. Pam drove to town to get coffees for Shayna and I, still snuggled up in our beds in the trailer. We were so happy to see her walk in with the two hot steaming cups.
In the meantime, Val was performing more of her magic - fried cod tongues and Fisherman's Brewis. The tongues are battered and fried until golden and they were interestingly tasty. The Fisherman's Brewis (pronounced “brews”) is a traditional Newfoundland meal consisting of codfish and hard tack. The salt cod has to be soaked in water overnight to reduce the salt content of the fish. The hard bread is broken into bite-size pieces and it too is soaked in water overnight. Next day, the fish and bread are chopped while hot, mixed together, and served with scrunchions, salted pork fat which has been cut into small pieces and fried. Both the rendered fat and the liquid fat are then drizzled over the fish and bread. Need I tell you that I was in heaven? It may have been killing my arteries, but it was worth every bite.
After cleaning up
the dishes and ourselves, we had to say goodbye. We thanked Val, Ron and Pam for giving us a real Newfie experience and told them they were welcome at our place anytime. We are invited back, and you can bet we will return one day.
(Scroll to bottom of page for more photos.)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.053s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0239s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Roger
non-member comment
Now I'm hungry
I think they go to shurts on Sunday, not for redemption, but to give their digestive system and arteries a break. The food sounds soooo tasty although I hope there was lots of fruit to eat so you didn't get scurvy from all the salted cod, beef and pork.......although not a bad way to get scurvy......you can always eat an orange in Nova Scotia..