Canadian Maritimes with Lindblad NatGeo 9/8/2014-
9/18/2014
9/8 Ric to Newark to St. John's Newfoundland- uneventful
flights, all on time.
After being squeezed between the babies (8 surrounding seats and 2 babies, 1 toddler and 1 regular kid) on the August
trip to Reno, I thought we might catch a break on this trip. No such luck- in
addition to the plane's microphone being set super loud, and incessant messages from
that source, the guys behind us, having never met, started a conversation that
went on from Richmond to Newark. The joys of travel.
When we got to St. John's we went to the Sheraton which
is right on the harbor for some sleep and then departure in the morning to Fogo
Island, Newfoundland.
I knew and still know practically nothing about this part
of the world, but I learned a few things from our drivers. St. John's has about
200,000 out of Newfoundland and Labrador's combined 500,000 people. The province was the last
to join Canada, in 1949. The town has a lot of old money from cod fishing
families but now relies mostly on 3 off shore oil rigs about 350 km away. The royalties support a
lot of what the province wants to do. Unemployment in St John's is about 13 %.
A lot of the young people from here now go to Alberta to work in the energy
business.
The average temp is 32 and our guide said that in winter
it snows during the week and melts just in time for when people want to go
skiing on the weekend. The usual weather is RDF- rain, drizzle, fog.
Gander is probably the most famous place in the province
because it was the stopover for transoceanic flights in an earlier era and
because many of the planes diverted from NY during 9/11/2001 came there. See the book- The Day the World Came to Town and the play Come from Away.
I think the Maritime Provinces are Newfoundland (which is officially Newfoundland and Labrador), Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island. Cape Breton Island which we visit is part of Nova Scotia. If you add Quebec you have the Atlantic Provinces. For only 9 Provinces, 2 territories and one "first nations" area, Canada is pretty confusing.
9/9 Fogo Island Inn
The day started off with a fluster in that we were told
we needed to trim our suitcase down because of the small plane to Fogo (much discussion about whether we had advance notice of this among the 8 of us, 6 guests and 2 Nat Geo staff, going to Fogo (we were known as the Fogo 8)). We did
that in a big rush and so I ended up wearing the same clothes for a couple
of days. (And by the way there was plenty of room on the plane for all our
luggage but cutting it down made choices a lot easier.)
Then when we got to the
airport the fixed base operator did not know about our flight. While all that
was working itself out, we got to talk to a couple of oil platform workers who were
coming in by helicopter from their 21 day, 12 hours on 12 hours off rotation.
Needless to say the wives and children were waiting and very glad to see them. On the way up from Newark about half our plane was young men carrying only gym bags and I was wondering why a weight lifting team would be going to St. John's, but, aha, it was the next batch of oil platform workers coming up for their 21 days.
Our flight was on a prop jet and the pilot stayed low so
we could see a lot of the coast. St John's is on a big island and Fogo is north
and east of that across three big bays with names like Discovery, Trinity, and
Bonavista. It sounds like Captain Cook was here. Also John Cabot landed two
bays below Fogo in 1497. This map of the island is from the elevator wallpaper at the inn-
The Inn defies description and I would suggest the reader
just go to the Fogo Island Inn website or see the 2 youtube links
http://youtu.be/3jwJ1ByjIQ0
Zita Cobb talking about Fogo Island and the Shorefast Foundation (hang in
there- it starts off in German?) (20 minutes)
Our room sits over some of the support
poles on the left here and has a wonderful very close up view of the
rocky shore and Atlantic. The room is on two
levels with a living area and bathroom downstairs and the sleeping area
upstairs. The inn has 29 rooms, all with a view and sound of the Atlantic Ocean
(windows that actually open!!!) and 400 mm year old rocks. The weather right now is clear and the sea breeze is
fresh.
Our day's activities included some orientation, 2 great
meals (a hearty Lamburger lunch and halibut dinner for me), blueberry picking near the town of Tilting, past the town of Joe Batt's
Arm (Joe was thrown off or left Cook's ship), and a side trip to our helper
Norm's personal garden.
We brought our berry harvest back to the Inn for "infusing" and
then drinking tomorrow night. Lastly we had a lecture by the founder of the
Inn, Zita Cobb, who, as a native who had business success (JDS Uniphase and Nortel), has come home to try
to revive her community after the collapse of the cod fishery. (Fogo has about
2500 people now; one of the girls in the restaurant told us she graduated high school in a
class of 14 here.)
When the cod fishery died from over fishing in the 80s/90s, Canada paid many of
the people dependent on it to resettle on the interior. The Fogo Islanders
refused, with many now earning a living from crabbing, shrimping, and making
crafts and working at the Inn. The Inn targets a 15% margin and gives all that
to the Shorefast Foundation started by Zita and her brothers. The Foundation
supports the Fogo communities with things like a micro finance program (very
proud of the financing for a greenhouse which produced the first ever Fogo
melon this year). Another example of what the Inn and Foundation do to help the
community is that if you stay at the Inn but want to go to the local restaurant
you tell them you are at the Inn and your meal is covered- sort of the "we're
all in this together" concept.
9/10 Fogo Island Inn-
Each morning the Inn provides a "tackle box" outside the room which is
coffee, tea, and a small treat to get you to breakfast. After that we went with
our group of 8 on a small boat ride to Little Fogo. The captain (Aneas) and two of the
other locals who meet us there (coming over by open outboard) have deep roots in the little community of people who used to live
there. Now it is mostly birds (with
lots of stories about the changing bird species roosting there over time) and a
few hardy souls rebuilding cabins for summer stays. We got lucky- another clear
day with a marvelous fresh breeze. On the little island we had a "boil
up" which is like a picnic lunch on the shore with boiled snow crabs. We
did see some Atlantic Puffins but most have moved out to sea until next
breeding season.
A side note- the locals, who are just a wonderful people
with terrific senses of humor and great and very different accents, say their
old relatives came here to get away from England and Ireland and from trouble
with the law there. They came first to St John's and the bigger places but they
could still be impressed into service or shipped to Australia for past sins if nabbed so
they came up here where no Navy ships would come because of the ice and difficult
navigation.
The locals say the water is about 40 degrees now and that
a person could not survive swimming only 50 yards to shore. They also say the
last iceberg each year floats thru in mid August. Other local tidbits include-
great brook trout fishing in July but the black flies peak then too and will
carry you away, and a small resident caribou herd.
Birds- cormorants, Atlantic puffins, herring gulls, great
black backed gulls, glaucous gulls, and a curlew. No whales or eider ducks this
time of year. The last great auk colony was just off Little Fogo, and Joe Batt's
Arm has a Great Auk statue to commemorate it.
Tonight's dinner started with mint juleps using our
infused blueberries from yesterday, put together by a very knowledgeable and
enthusiastic bar tender. Nice to know we helped put food on the table. Salt cod
for dinner.
The inn seemed about half to 2/3 full. We met a woman who
was a 9/11 widow and came up here with a friend to avoid the attention the
anniversary brings.
9/11- Fogo to meet up with the Explorer in St. Pierre, France via St. John's
All I can say is I am glad we signed up for this
pre-extension of our trip. Looking down on the Atlantic and the rocky shore from our room and smelling the ocean
air and burning wood at night has been invigorating.
While waiting to go to the airport for the charter flight
back to St John's, I met Make and Break, the two Newfoundland dogs kept at the
inn. Huge, Saint Bernard like, big slobberers, they would never make it with
the heat in Virginia. Later I learned there are 3 characteristics that make the
NF dog what it is- webbed feet, an under coat that is water repellant, and a thick tail to
paddle with. We also learned that the Lab breed started off as a blend of the
NF dog and English and Irish setters. This photo is from St. John's, but from when we were there later in this trip:
In St John's we had a lunch and then went back to the
airport for a flight to St. Pierre, the last little bit of France in the New World. Lindblad had 4 flights lined up to get
everyone to St. Pierre and they were running pretty late.
My suggestion for next trip, if there is a side trip to
Fogo and if the start is in St Pierre, would be to have the return Fogo charter
go straight to St. Pierre.
Once all were on board we left port for Louisbourg, which is Nova Scotia.
Our room was 218, on the port side and for the first time
we had an outside sitting area with 2 chairs. We probably liked this room the
best of any we have had on Lindblad. Next time though we might try for 219 or 230 which are at the corners on the stern.
9/12 Louisbourg and Baddeck, Alexander Graham Bell's
summer home on the inner salt water lake at Cape Breton Island
Although we left France at St. Pierre we stayed in a French influenced area at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island. Louisbourg swapped hands several times back in the 1700s when England and France were fighting over control of their part of the New World. France lost out by only anticipating invasion from the sea. Louisbourg now is a Parks Canada living history museum much like Williamsburg Va with reenactors who stay in character almost all the time. We got an interesting look into life in New France in 1744. The gardener and the house maid were the most instructive, but in the church, inside the fort itself, we also saw a statue of St. Roc showing off the leprosy on his bare thigh, which was kind of odd.
It was a tight day timing wise because the ship had to go to Baddeck while we went by bus. Baddeck is home to the Alexander Graham Bell summer home and museum. On this part of the trip Gil Grosvenor, AGB's great grandson and former Ethyl board member, was with us, and he gave a lot of background about Bell's accomplishments beyond the telephone. Among many, some of AGB's interests were in teaching the deaf, flight, hydrofoils, kites and tetrahedrons. Gil told us the family is now restoring the Bell home called Beinn Bhreagh (beautiful mountain in Gaelic) and the cost may bankrupt them.
Gil gave the group a couple of lectures including one about where the National Geographic Society (NGS) has been and where it is going. Founded by an all star cast of Bell, John Wesley Powell (Grand Canyon explorer), Horace Greeley (go west), the first Grosvenor (GHG) who was chasing Bell's daughter at the time and became editor of the magazine, NGS has also had an all star group of scientists it has supported over time, including Hiram Bingham (Machu Piccu), Jacques Cousteau, the Leakeys, and Jane Goodall. NGS is struggling to adapt to the digital age- subscriptions to the magazine are way, way down.
A little aside about Gil on this trip- he had to leave early because his wife was having a medical issue, but on the first day I was the second person to talk to him after his lecture. The first person to talk to him was his old college girl friend whom he hadn't seen in more than 30 years and whom he thought had died from a stroke. So when he was talking to me and then for the next couple of days he was very flustered by the surprise of meeting her on the ship. It pays to look at the passenger list ahead of time.
After Louisbourg and the museum we still had time for a short walk around Baddeck (pop. 750). Connie immediately went to the yarn shop. I met her there a little later and ended up in conversation with the man who worked there as #2. Time for a second long lost love story- The man lived in Edmonton after retiring from a long career in the Canadian army. One day about 6 years ago he got an email from a "Mary" saying she liked the jokes he had been sending to some other guy. It took him a while to put it together but he figured out Mary was his high school sweetie that he had parted from on not such good terms. Now 40 + years later she emails him. She lived in Baddeck and was divorced. They agreed to meet in Toronto. After 4 days they both went their ways home but as soon as he got back he called her and said he would move to Baddeck if she would have him. She would, he moved, they got married, and he has learned to knit and helps her in the store!
9/13 Iles de la Madeleine
These skinny little islands, 90 miles in total length, are technically part of Quebec and sit in the St. Lawrence Bay. At places it seemed they were no wider than my office building.
These islands have pretty much the same story as Fogo- dependence on the cod and then that vanished. Young folks are leaving and nature is slowly eroding the islands. If a big hurricane hit, like Cape Hatteras, these islands would be gone.
Our guide on the bus here was named Gilles and when he isn't guiding he is a musician in a band that sounds almost exactly like the Cajun music one hears in New Orleans. Gilles plays the "bones" which are two beef ribs while he sings. We heard his group play over lunch.
This is a good time to bring up Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the Acadians. They came from the La Rochelle area of France and settled on the Gaspe Peninsula among other places. They were ok with swearing loyalty to the British when they were established as top dogs in the mid 1700s but said they preferred not to have to fight other Frenchmen if there was another war. That kept things steady for a while but eventually the Brits threw them out, and there were two migrations down the Atlantic seaboard and possibly via the Great Lakes. A large group ended up in the bayous of Louisiana becoming what we now call Cajuns. Evangeline tells this story in what we would now call very stilted language- Evangeline is about to marry Gabriel when he is forced to leave. After a while she goes looking for him. She gets a trace of him in Louisiana but only finds him on his death bed years and years later in the American Southwest.
Back to our trip- The main event for us was a walk along the eroding cliffs of red sand.
During the evening Lisa, the Expedition Leader, pointed out that the Northern Lights were visible. Connie and I saw them but only as a glow on the horizon, about like the glow of Regency Square from our house. I saw a photo from one of the other passengers and it was the eerie green one usually sees.
9/14 Gros Morne National Park
Overnight we headed north in the ship and awoke at a little town called Woody Point on the edge of Gros Morne which is a very remote and beautiful national park and a UNESCO Heritage Site, back in Newfoundland. The morning activity was a "strenuous" hike up a mountain for some beautiful views.
That's our ship in the far background. Connie took the afternoon off which was a good move since it started raining. I went on a level hike for another 3 or so miles. The best part was seeing a moose up very close. A handful of moose were introduced here in 1904 and now there are 105,000 of them.
9/15 L'Anse aux Meadows/ St. Anthony
That night the ship moved further north up the western peninsula of Newfoundland to come to L'Anse. This is an archeological site where in the 1960s a husband and wife team uncovered a true Viking outpost from about 1000 CE. The area is divided in two with one part being the Viking structures and then the second a Viking outpost recreated from Norway so one can see the parallels and learn from reenactors.
We went over to the site from the ship in school buses, the same ones that had taken us to the trail heads on the previous day. Hmm, this is early morning on a school day and yet we had school buses for transport. That confirms to me there aren't many kids in school. On the way from Gros Morne to L'Anse one of the school buses we rode in hit a moose. Look carefully at the photo and you can see moose hair:
In the mock Viking village there was a model Viking ship which some reenactors sailed over from Greenland in 3 weeks. The guides told us the Vikings would have made it in 9 days. So much for modern seamanship.
Next we had a Viking feast complete with a mock "thingg" meeting (what the Icelanders called their councils), then some free time in which Connie and I struck off on our own for an unsupervised hike up a 476 step mountain. Then we went back to the town of St. Anthony to the Grenfell museum. Grenfell was an amazing man who brought medicine to the fishing families of NL and Labrador. He was well connected and raised a lot of funds, wrote a bunch of books including one about his survival after being thrown out of his boat into the icy water and using his sled dogs for protection, founded a hospital that is still going, and ended up on a stamp and memorialized in a stained glass window at the National Cathedral in DC along with Jesus and Louis Pasteur. Who knew?
9/16 Twillingate
This was another beautiful day with a very fresh breeze and clear skies, a little cooler than the earlier ones. Twillingate is a small town somewhat similar to Joe Batt's Arm on Fogo. The first activity was a trip to Prime Berth where a former cod fisherman David Boyd has collected everything he could find to recreate an old cod fishing staging area. He also put on a demonstration of filleting and salting cod and then recited one of his poems- "I am a Fisherman". We bought his book. Look up prime berth.@xplornet.com. The bucket on the left of the photo is where he puts the livers which dissolve into cod liver oil.
Then a small group went for a hike along the rocky cliffs of the island. We weren't in pain but it was a good hike.
Here's Connie at our rest spot at the highest point on the trail:
After lunch it was to sea again to go to St. John's. Along the way we had one very close look at a fin whale and several more distant sightings. It always amazes me how long it takes the whole length to rise and then fall when they come up for air.
9/17 St John's
As we were coming into St. John's I managed to put my foot in my mouth with the Captain and the Canadian pilot, but why repeat idiocy and lack of tact here?
We had the last of our 5 major hikes to Signal Point, which is where Marconi broadcast the first transoceanic radio signal and which is marked by a castle like structure in honor of Queen Victoria.
We saw this woman gazing at sea- after yoga or waiting for a sailor?
For the rest of the afternoon we wandered downtown St. John's, including a visit to a Tim Horton's, which is now famous as the company Burger King is buying to move its headquarters out of the US to save taxes.
9/18 Travel home
Uneventful except for the Newark TSA's interpretation of liquids, gel and jellies (on the positive side, I saw Connie lose her composure for one of the very few times in 30 + years) and on time. I'd like to go back for this whole itinerary all over again.
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