Maritime Provice Trip: 2013 August 1-6St. John & Bonavista

August 1-August 4, 2013

Free Day St. John, Bonavista

August 1

We spent our free day back on Signal Hill after a stop to get an RV part. This day was beautiful and sunny. We finished the museum on signal hill. Then we spent 1-2 hours hiking around the area. We saw gun placements and various views of St. John and the surrounding area. Gordon might tell you we walked uphill the entire time. We were on top of the hill for the firing of then noon cannon. This was a tradition for many years, but stopped in the 20^th century. It was started again last year. Volunteers can sign up to fire the cannon. If only we had known, we could have dress up in period military costume and learned the ritual. We were fortunate to see the solar powered hydro foil boat. The boat is sailing around the world. It looks like a space ship on water. It stopped just before entering Port St. John. We went to the top of Cabot Tower, then down the hill to the museum for lunch.

Our next stop was the Geo Museum. We could have spent all day there. It is built into the rocks. A small café and gift shop are on the top. Then you go below ground to the museum. The hill sides are part of the walls. The staff showed different movies continuously throughout the day and professional geologists and other staff gave guided tours every few minutes. We had a guided tour of the oil exhibit. It covered aspects of drilling in the great banks, including the survival suit everyone was trained to use before they could be transported to the rig. Then we saw a movie about small animals, like frogs and fire ants. As that finished we had a guided tour that gave us a lesson on the three kinds of rocks—sedimentary, igneous, and ??? We had a guide talk about the “Whispers of the Rock.” It talked about the rock walls that were part of the museum. We saw a 3-D movie on icebergs and ice shelves. Finally, we toured the exhibit on the Titanic.

Although we were on our way home, it took a while to get there. We stopped to get iceberg beer at Quidi Vidi, gas, groceries, and hardware. We covered most of the city. What a beautiful, modern city it is and the old buildings are well preserved. St. John’s is the capital of the Newfoundland/Labrador Province. Did you know Newfoundland did not come part of Canada until 1949? It had been a territory of Britain and an independent nation before then. Labrador joined Canada at the same time and became part of the same province. Today Labrador has only 30,000 people.

I forgot to mention that St. John gets 20’ of snow per year on average. It has gotten more.

N. Sydney (night before ferry ride)Eddie Coffee and his group, Entertainment at Lobster and Prime Rib Supper.

Ferry Pictures

view from ferry on departure

Firing Noon Cannon at Cabot Tower, St. John

View of St. John from battery placement

view of entrance to St. John's Harbor

Quidi Vidi

Friday, August 2, was a travel day. We had another beautiful, sunny day. We took time to see part of Terra Nova National Park, so were the last to arrive at the campground. We ended up on a site with 20 amp service (a long electrical cord to the barn/bath house. We are the only ones in our group with electricity. Everyone else has generators, although one couple, that had never dry camped, found out their generator was broken. They are now hooked up to the tail gunners generator.

After our travel briefing, we got screeched. We are now honorary Newfoundler. It was quite the ceremony. A British soldier (the RV park owner) and 4 of our group paraded to our group. Two of them were wearing life jackets and the large yellow rain hat (typical Newfounder hat which is kind of the shape of a fireman’s hat, but is soft plastic).

The other two wore rain suits with hats. We had to make an oath to the king. After the oath, we made a toast to the king with a small bit of Screeher's rum. Finally, we kissed the King (a frozen cod). It was funny.

Wagon Master prepares to kiss King Cod

Saturday, August 3

What a busy day we had! We ride shared into Bonavista (We are actually outside of town in the county, but in the area that is Ft. Union). Of course, it was rainy and cold most of the day. We skipped the 3 murals on the water tower at Lookout point and went to the Ryan Premises National Historic Site. We went to the water tower and lookout at the end of our day. The museum commemorates five centuries of commercial fishing on Canada’s east coast. Five buildings are part of the saltfish mercantile complex. This would be the group that supplied the fishing supplies and personal supplies of the fisherman in exchange for salt cod. An individual culled the dried fish into various grades, which determined the credit the fisherman would received. The culler was paid by the business. As you can imagine, the fisherman were not always given a fair deal. A guide gave us a demonstration of the salted fish process. Making salted cod was a family project and making salted or pickled code was done on plantations. Fisherman would bring in the fish. They would be hauled to the fish shed, which was right above the water. One person would cut the throat and open the gut. Another would remove the gut, saving the liver, which was turned into cod liver oil, and the head. Sometimes heads were saved for the tongue and the cheeks, some of which were eaten by the fishermen (I tried fried cod tongue and they are very good). Guts and unused parts were thrown into the ocean. The next person would remove the spine. Cod have no other bone or scales. Fish are salted. Then they are taken somewhere else where they are stacked up with layers of salt on and around each fish. The staking helps remove moisture. They the fish are washed in salt water. Hopefully, it is dry day and they can be put outside on flakes. Fish left too long in salt water receive a much lower grade when culled. Flakes are wooden structures with brush on top. Fish are put on this to finish drying out. The fish need to be turned every few hours. Women and children usually take care of the drying.

It was hard for fishermen to make a living on this credit system. Some turned to lumbering in the winter or hunting for seals. Eventually fisherman in this area formed a cooperative, which gave them money for their fish.

The first fishermen were recruited on the British. They came for a few seasons to fish and returned to England. The British would then put the experience sailors in the royal navy. Some of the fishermen stayed to avoid inscription in the navy.

Pictures of Displays at Ryan Mercentile Complex

After we finished the exhibits in the five buildings we went to lunch. I had a Newfounder’s lunch of brewis. It was pretty blah. It consisted of salted cod, salted pork deep fat fried, and hardtack. It came with a piece of raisin molasses bread. Gordon and the other couple with us had other things.

After lunch, the entire group met at Matthew Legacy. John Cabot (actually Caboto) was an Italian sponsored by the British. His job was to find a passage to the West Indies. Instead, he found N. America. He later tried a different route around S. America, but never returned. John sailed in the Matthew. Newfoundlanders celebrated the 500 yr. anniversary of their finding in 1997. People on the island built a duplicate Matthew. It sailed to England and returned to Bonavista. Queen Elizabeth came for the dedication of the ship. The ship is usually outside in the summer and dry docked in a shed in the winter. Because of some wood rot, it was in the shed.

Matthew's Legacy (in dry dock)

Winter Quarter's for Matthew's Legacy

Next stop was the Mockbeggar Plantation. It may be the oldest identifiable fishery plantation in existence in Newfoundland. Five buildings were part of the plantation, but only the house was open. The house had many owners, including F. Gordon Bradley, a lawyer and politician, who played a significant role in the move to bring Newfoundland into Confederation of Canada. He became the first representative in the Canadian Cabinet, and later served as a member of Senate. His family donated the property to the Province. The house was large and well furnished (furniture dated from 1930’s). It was not the typical fisherman’s house.

Mockbeggar Plantation House (front)

After the plantation, we went to the Bonavista Light House for a guided tour. It was next to a huge rock with thousands of puffins. The house of the light keepers was built around the round light house. It made for some interesting rooms. Some of our group saw whale from here. We did not see them until our next stop, Dungeon Rock.

kerosene lights in top of light house

puffins & gulls near Bonavista Lighthouse

Dungeon rock was probably a sea cave with two entrances. At some point in time the ceiling of the cave collapsed. Now you can look down to where the cave used to me and see the two entrances from the land side. There were a couple of viewing platforms from here. When we looked out we saw whales feeding. There were several that stayed in this area and they were probably humpback whales and fin whales. We came back after supper and they were still in the area, but a little farther away.

Dungeon (collapsed sea cave with two entrances

Bonavista Water Tower, one of three murals showing

View of Bonavista from water tower

August 4

We left earlier today, but we ended earlier as well. We went to Elliston, a short distance from our campground, but on a very, very bumpy road. It was so bad, that it seemed like 20 miles instead of 3 1/2miles. First we had an orientation to the town that went on and on. The town was on the verge of dying. The economy plunged in 2000 and the village could not afford to pay its light bills. A committee met to see what could be done. They decided to build on the number root cellars the town has and the puffin viewing area. They now bill themselves as the root cellar capital of the world. There are about 135 in a 2 km. area. There are a lot of root cellars in the area. For us, the real attraction was the puffin viewing. On some days the puffins cross from their nesting rocks and walk all around you. That did not happen, but they did land on the cliff edge where we were sitting or standing (in the rain of course). It was quite incredible. After viewing puffins, we had lunch in the towns orange lodge (a protestant association like the Knights of Columbus).

After lunch, we went to Ft. Union. Ft. Union was eventually the home of William Ford Coaker, who formed the first fisherman’s union. Fishermen got paid in cash instead of credit. This was definitely better for them and they got better prices for their fish. Croaker built the merchandise building (like the Ryan buildings we saw yesterday). Croaker went on to do so many, many things. He built houses for his various managers, houses for the fisherman. They all had electricity. Managers had indoor plumbing and running water. Croaker built the power plant. People in Ft. Union had electricity before people in N. York City. He published the Fisherman’s Advocate, built a bakery, owned a fleet of ships, operated the carpentry shop, plumbing, electrical shop and numerous national and international businesses. He built a beautiful home here in 1917, which we also got to see. His wife and daughter never lived with him, but a niece and her husband moved in with him. She made many changes to the house. It was called a cottage because it only had 1 ½ stories.

We decided to go back to the RV park. Gordon stayed there and rested and I went back to the puffins.