#43 Eastport Part 2
Wednesday Aug. 14,
2019
We head off for
Gambo, (population 1,978). This is the bay by our RV park.
We see this kind of
driving a lot up here. Cars pass on
solid yellow lines, and on curves. Note
the oncoming car in the second photo while the other car is still in the left land. Our crazy driver made it safely in front.
We are going into the
Joseph R. Smallwood Interpretation Center. We didn’t care for his one much.
The Joey Smallwood story tells about the man
considered the father of the confederation. He fought hard to get Newfoundland
considered and voted in as a Canadian Province. He also worked with the unions.
Before we went in,
Jay talked with the man fishing on the dock. The man has lived here all his life.
Derrille saw a sign
about a Dover Fault. Nothing was
mentioned in the tour books. First we
had to find the village of Dover, population 662.
The little interpretative center told the
story of the continental plates separating here eons ago. It also tells of tidal waves and other
disasters in the area.
Lynn and Jay having fun and posing
at the Dover Fault
We drove out the road
next to the building and walked up the hill. Newfoundland does a great job of combining boardwalks and stairs to reach view points.
The young lady manning this center said it was
easy to see. And so it was!
The viewing tower had interesting reader boards and beautiful views.
The Come From Away
musical gets a lot of attention in these parts. Apparently the romance started here in Dover.
Well, this is it! The U shaped land between the two hills is
the fault. The land on the left goes
with Europe/Africa and the one on the right goes with North America. Hmmm not quite what we expected.
A bit of a side note here: The Canadian Waste Management system uses these containers at the end of most driveways for garbage collection. Most are some shade of brown. Others are painted to match the trim or front doors of the house. Others are elaborately decorated. If we see more decorated ones along a way I will pop them in. It is difficult to see and photograph them before we pass by.
I am easily
fascinated….big house, laundry line.
This lovely purple house is built on top of the rock as many homes are in Newfoundland. No dirt, just rock. By the way it had a purple garbage box.
Here is another home built around the rock. We passed one house that had lopped of the corner of the foundation to get around the rock.
Some small towns have combined to conserve services. Here are a couple of examples.
Loved this sign!
Sights along the coast going north.
Further up the road we stopped at Newton (pop.400).
Churches in Newtown. These two sits close to each other. Didn't get the top of the red roofed church, so I put in two photos.
Big house (grins)
We crossed onto Barbour Island to tour the Barbour Living Heritage
Village. The Barbours were a prominent
merchant family involved with fishing and sealing.
The Barbour 19th century properties include two historic homes, a school house, a fisherman stage, a theater what used to be a store, a Sealer’s Interpretation Center closed for renovation, art gallery, restaurant, and the visitor center and craft shop.
The visitor center stocked some lovely crafts.
This miniature Barbour house set just outside the visitor center.
The Olde Shoppe
Restaurant
The fishing shed
houses the usual fishing things and the gondola used for a while. The fileting table hasn’t changed over the
years and is still used today.
The presence of small natural harbors and channels between the houses made someone label this the Venice of Newfoundland. They even brought in a gondola for rides, but the rocks and the acid in the water beat it up too much.
This school room has
two organs. The primary skill of the
teacher was not her teaching ability, but she was required to know how to play
the organ. The school rules haven’t
changed much either.
Captain Benjamin
Barbour originally built the home for his nine sons and two daughters. He finished
it in 1875. The house was built unique
since it was built with two identical sides and could have been divided. Notice the two front doors and inside there are two stairways.
The interior had 32 rooms including 12 bedrooms, two dining rooms, one upstairs
parlour and two kitchens. Although
Benjamin had all those children the docent only spoke of his two sons Samuel
and Edward. I believe they were the youngest, so the father said if they didn’t
like living together they could wall up the middle of the house.
This kitchen had two stoves. One burns wood and the other burns oil. We didn't see the other kitchen.
This dining room includes rare orange dishes and depression dishes too.
The twin staircases
make this house unique, as do the twin front doors.
The twin stairs looked like this from second floor. The third floor was off limits. The bedrooms were standard fare for the times.
The captain had some kind of radio to get news about his soldier son at the front. It operated with headphones. Later they had a speakers put in. The house had very modern radio systems.
The original retail store of the brothers, Samuel and Edward, now provides space for a theater. The day we visited a dinner theater was being hosted.
The second house was originally the dream of Capt. Alphaeus Barbour, but it lost it to debt. Later it became owned by Samuel and his wife the school teacher. Their son Edward later inherited.
The residents had three choices of tables from which to eat a meal. The top photo was a little room by the front door. The formal dining room in the other two photos had the big table and the one by the windows for tea.
The staircase to the upstairs. It had a very grand feel as walked upstairs.
From here we headed home. On the way we saw these interesting creatures in someone’s front yard. They live right on the highway.
The Salvation Army has a large presence up here as a church and school. Many of the buildings look like this one in Gambo. Some are much bigger than this one.
Gill’s Grill in Gambo
was our choice for dinner. Loved this
moose, and dinner was good too.
Thursday Aug. 15,
2019
Terra Nova National Park turned out to be disappointing. We were expecting exhibits and films etc. Terra Nova had a very poor touching tank and just a few reading exhibits. We did take a short hike through the trees. For those who love to hike, this is the place! Several trails run though the park.
We drove to Blue Hill
and hiked to the lookout. It was a
cloudy day, but we stayed a while to watch the view.
After seeing the
relief map of the park we drove to the village of Happy Adventure (pop.
200). This little place sits right next
to the deep Newman Sound.
Then we drove to the
north to St. Chad’s and a small ferry ready to go to one of the island.
The photos for these places are on my phone, but....my computer will not let me download for some reason. Still working on the problem.
Tomorrow we go to
Bonavista.
