Travel With The Thayers: #34 St. Anthony’s part 1

#34 St. Anthony’s part 1

Sunday July 21, 2019

The rain beat upon the roof all night and into the morning as we set off toward the top corner of this peninsula and St. Anthony. The highway follows the Gulf of St. Lawrence and passes little village after little village.

Little town of Anchor Point

Little town of Flower Cove

Other little villages

The Gulf of St. Lawrence along Newfoundland's northwestern coast.

Eddie's Cove is a good example of the neat and tidy way most people maintain their homes in Newfoundland. From here the highway turns east to the other side of the peninsula.

Garden plots along the roadside have become a common sight for us now. What we learned is that when the highway was put in, the topsoil was moved to the side of the road. Good soil is hard to come by on “the rock”. So people obtain a permit, just like they do for wood piles and grow mostly root vegetables during the short growing season. (If I put this in an earlier blog, oh well)

The Triple Falls RV Park needs better signage. We almost drove right past it on the way in, and even after we knew where it was. They were expecting a caravan so we got to park next to the office and had to work at getting level. Then we set off to explore St. Anthony.

Monday, July 22, 2019

The fog shrouded the sky and limited visibility in many places. Not sure what this plane represents, and we didn’t stop to look….just took a photo of it in St. Anthony. We drove the length of the town which extended around the bay, and stopped by the whale watching boat tours for information. The weather forecasters called for good weather on Tuesday. So we signed up for the Wednesday tour and decided to visit the Viking Village today.

Large playgrounds exist in almost every town, even the tiny villages. Large areas with lots of playground equipment appear to be part of their culture.

On the way out to L’Anse aux Meadows we first stopped at St. Lunaire to visit the Dark Tickle. A tickle by the way is a shallow part of the bay where you hope the bottom doesn’t tickle your boat. Dark Tickle Co. Wild Berry Economusee makes jams from local, wild berries.

This day they were making bakeapple jam. Bakeapple is commonly called a Cloudberry, which I have never heard of either. Partridgeberry is featured everywhere. It is a Lingonberry, and tart. The boutique stocks a nice selection of gifts with their berry products. I found the berry names interesting. Upstairs is a bistro.

On the way upstairs you find a display of the Granchain Exhibit. It honors a man prominent in the American Revolutionary Way and expeditions with Captain Cook. We have never heard of him before.

Here is a tour boat ride we passed up. No Zodiacs thank you.

We explored a few more roads before arriving at L’Anse aux Meadows. Just before the parking area we spotted a moose munching in the brush. She stuck her head into the bushes, so all we got to photograph was her back side....about the middle, brown shape.

A Welcome to Vinland sign points the way to the UNESCO World Heritage Site. This site represents the first authenticated European Presence in North America about 1000 AD. People often associate the word Vinland with wine and grapes, but grapes certainly don’t grow here. The “vin” here means coastal meadow. Another misconception is “Viking Village”. Vikings were pirates. The people who came here were Norse looking for trees.

In 985 AD, Bjarni Herjolfssson sailed from Iceland to Greenland. He got blown off course and landed here. He returned to Greenland, sold his boat to Leif Erickson and told him about the land. Leif and his son Erik the Red went searching for the land.

They established a base camp. Some went in search of wood. Others explored the sea. The area showed a richness of berries, fish, wood and green grass. Wood was especially needed in Greenland.

The Norse got along with the aboriginal people for a while. This sculpture represents their meeting: Norse on the left, aboriginals on the right. Then relations broke down and the Norse left. Over time with wind and snow the grass grew over the site. Locals always thought it might be the remains of an Indian village. In 1960, Helge Ingstead came looking for the Norse village he had heard about. He and his wife started digging and L’Anse aux Meadow was created with as many as 500 visitors a day.

The Visitor Center offers a wealth of information.

It traces the beginning of man from Africa and across the planet.

Displays tell of the Norse people and their voyages here, their ships, their weapons etc. The film gives a great overview.

A model of a Knorr ship.

A couple of reader boards.

Then we zipped our coats, pulled up our hoods, put on mittens and headed out into the cold wind and rain with our guide Clayton. Clayton lives nearby and has watched the creation of L’Anse aux Meadows over the years. As a child he played in the “Indian village”. His first hand information was interesting.

They have discovered what they believe to be a large hall build for someone of high status, a house for lower-status living or place for smelting, a hut for slaves, a small hall built for laborers, a hut used by women as living quarters and workroom, and a leader’s hall twice the size of Erik the Red’s home in Greenland.

The small indentation was slave quarters.

It is believed this space had the large house for Leif Erickson or his son.

At the far end of the actual site, stands a replica of what the camp probably looked like. Costumed interpreters offer information. Walls are six feet thick: 2 feet peat, 2 feet gravel, 2 feet peat.

The longhouse included private sleeping quarters for the leaders.

Where we sat around the fire is the kitchen and where most people slept around the fire on the benches. It was nice and toasty in here.

The men’s work room for weapons and you could pick up a sword or try on a helmet.

The woman’s work room included a loom and spinning supplies. The women made the sails. They spoke of no children in this working camp. But Derrille and I think 2 women to 60 men could be a problem, and it is likely that men did the cooking and weaving chores.

After checking out the other buildings in the complex we headed back to the Interpretive Center. They had a lovely gift shop where we left a couple donations.

We warmed up in the car on our way just down the road to Norstead Village. This replica of a typical Scandinavian village of 790-1066 AD also holds the Snorri…a boat crafted to handle the sea. Here it is stored in a building for protection from the harsh elements.

The first European child born in Newfoundland was named Snorri. That name was given to the replica of Leif Erickson’s boat that sailed from Greenland to Newfoundland in 1998. The crew of nine men took 87 days to make the journey. A larger crew could have shortened the time.

The Norse people built boats using a combination of woodworking techniques, iron fastenings and ingenious waterproofing of the joints. The results make a strong yet light craft that can carry heavy cargo, withstand the pounding of the North Atlantic and still draw into shallow water.

The sail hung on the back wall, and rigging to the side.

For you boat people: The Snorri weighs 12 tons, carries 13 tons of ballast, 2 tons of gear and 8 tons of cargo, yet only drafts 3.5 feet. The workmanship up close amazed us! However, looking at the inside doesn’t make me want to spend any time on it, especially months. It doesn’t have much room below for sleeping and living.

The Norstead Village includes a Chieftain house, a Long house, a main hall, a blacksmith shop and a church. We found the costumed interpreters very knowledgeable.

Chickens roam around, while a pig and sheep are penned. This garden looked healthy.

I liked the church, except the pew benches only look about 8-10 inches wide.

Below the village in the town of Norstead, a 10 foot statue of Leif Ericson stands overlooking the harbor. The Leif Ericson Foundation of Seattle donated the statue.

We explored a few more roads up this way and were treated to spot an owl on a power line and a large fox cross the road in front of us. The owl flew off and this is what I got. The fox ran into the shadows.

Since daylight hangs around, even on a less than stellar day, we returned to St. Anthony. At Fishing Point a staircase rises 550 feet up the mountain side. The guys decided to climb the 476 stairs. They had a limited view because of the fog and we couldn’t see the staircase in the fog when they went up.

Lynn and I hit the gift shop which held interesting treasures. Inside the shop a large section was devoted to a museum. The exhibits told about moose, whales, beavers, polar bears, the mummers, the roadside gardens and wood piles to name a few displays. Stuffed animals let us get up close to these beautiful creatures.