Newfoundland heritage day

Going back in time to re-visit the Newfoundland history and culture at a wonderful heritage day organized by the Springdale Pentacostal Church.

The green place mat show cases the Newfoundland tartan, which is a plaid pattern with a specific selection of colours and arrangement to represent and identify Newfoundland.

The meaning of each colour on the tartan

Brunch from top left to bottom right: Raisin loaf, baked beans in molasses (Québecois use maple syrup), toutan with molasses, fish cake, baloney, macaroni casserole

Fetching water: The wooden square is called a hoop and is used to
prevent the buckets from swinging and bumping into the legs.
How do you think they walk through gates and doors?
They elevate one bucket to tilt the hoop until it reaches a narrower vertical alignment to allow user to pass through the entrance.

Sunday attire for church

Making salt fish (cod)

Laundry day

Rickett's blue square made the water blue but will ensure your shirts come out white 

Newfie fashion

This week was spirit week at school and each day of the week was a particular theme. These are photos from the Newfie dress-up day.

Left to right: Snowshoes, a bucket with a mop wring (the two wooden  looking handles come together to squeeze water out of the mop), two punts, a glass washing board, a lobster cage, old fashion fishing reel with green fishing line. 

Holding a fishing reel with a jigger (hook)

The orange boots are rubber boots with toe protectors against chain saws.
On the right is someone with chest waders which are rubber boots attached to rubber overalls for fishing in the river.  

Left to right: Salmon fishing vest for the multiple and colourful flies the fishermen use as bait.
Orange vest for hunting in the woods so other hunters can see you.
Furry woods hat to keep warm. Yellow fishing rain jacket. 

Left to right: More orange and reflective strips for visibility.
Orange beanie (tuque) so hunters won't shoot at your head by mistake.
Balaclava for blocking wind on a snowmobile.

Camouflage baseball cap, jacket, pants, rubber boots for duck hunting. The guns permitted in duck hunting have a shorter range and therefore the hunters need to be closer to their target and blend in with their environment. The girl has a black and white plastic duck hanging from her backpack which is used as a decoy. Hunters toss the decoy in the water and wait for the real ducks to congregate around the decoy. 

Left to right: Newfie ladies in the past with home sew dresses, an apron, a head covering and rubbers.
More camo attire which is popular to wear as everyday attire for young people,
 just like now sweat pants and hoodies are the attire on anglo-Canadian university campus.

Me in my new pair of rubbers (great for slush and puddles), a heavy checkered red and black woods jacket which can be reversed to reveal orange on the other side for hunting. 

Sunday drive in the Twilingate area

St Patrick's day, I was invited to go for a Sunday drive up to Twilingate - the iceberg capital of Newfoundland. Here is a map of the 240 km drive and all the coves we stopped to visit.

Point A= Lewisporte
Point B = Micheal's Harbour (Cute coastal community with high islands enclosing the harbour giving it an intimate feel.)
Point C= Boyd's Cove (Beothuk Interpretation Centre--> The Beothuk people are an extinct aboriginal group. The last of that ethnic group died in 1829.)
Point D= Summerford
Point E= Cottlesville
Point F= Herring's Neck
Point G= Durrel, Township of Twilingate (Winery)
Point H= Crow Head, Township of Twilingate (10 miles of coastal hiking trail!)
Point I= Indian Cove
Point J= Lewisporte


Agrandir le plan

If I get the chance, I want to bike back to explore all the hiking trails along the way.

A crab pot. That's some big crab.

Cottlesville. 

Note the houses dotting the perimeter of the cove.

Herring's Neck

Whore's egg, or sea urchin according to the more scientific sounding term.

Durrel

Buddy and Patches - dog cemetary

Pans of ice. 

Kids use to jump from one pan to another for fun.

If you look really carefully, you'll see a tiny iceberg. 

The Newfies don't consider the small ones icebergs; they call the small ones growler. 

Cow Head, Twilingate

Frozen waterfall at Indian Cove

Fauna: Seal

We have another storm day today (wind warning of 100km/h), so I'm going to do another around of catch up blogging. 

Now that we are into spring, we are getting a lot of storms, so whenever the sun is out, I make it my highest priority to go out and enjoy it while it is here. 

The harbour is still frozen, but patches of ice is starting to break up. 

I was peacefully soaking in the evening sky and reflecting on nature's beauty when a black spot on the ice caught my eye.

It's a seal!

I either have a harp seal here or a harbour seal... Click here to learn more about the types of seals in Canada.

A different ice opening... a different seal? I can't tell.

I have heard about seal sighting in the Lewisporte Harbour in the spring when they come into and up on the the ice in the harbour to give birth. Ever since, I have been waiting patiently to see one. They are quite entertaining creatures. This seal I was watching periodically slipped in and out of the water and on to the ice playing. Apparently sometimes they get lost and come up onto the road.

Sight-seeing around the harbour

Boats are a common sight here in Lewisporte. Lewisporte in the past was an important port for many cargo boats and oil tankers. The town's location in central Newfoundland makes it an ideal place to act as a distribution centre for surrounding communities. Lewisporte is approximately the half-way point on the TransCanada highway around the island between Port-aux-Basque at the south-westernly tip of Newfoundland and St John's, the provincial capital at the other bound at the south-eastern tip. Ships in the habour in the past contained various goods for Labrador and oil for the airplanes in Gander. However two events since have changed the shipping industry in Lewisporte. First was the construction and completion of a road connecting the province of Quebec to Labrador. Second was the diversion of international Europe bound flights from the Gander airport to St John's. The few remaining ships seen now in the harbour are mainly oil tankers which go between Lewisporte and Labrador. (Here is a photo of the cylindrical oil reservoirs in town formerly used to temporary store oil until it could be shipped to neighbouring communities.)

Oil tankers to Labrador

Of the few small towns I have lived in or visited here in Newfoundland, many share the same story of a prosperous past, but a fragile future. In the past, things evolved slowly and steadily so small local industries could be competitive. With the modern economy, the industries which survive now are the ones which are multinational and which have more capacity and capital to adapt to the rapid changing times. For the people who have settled on this island now having established roots and sentimental connection to their communities, these people struggle to find ways to continue to stay and sustain themselves in the place they have come to know as home.  

Having grown up in the cities, I was never really preoccupied by the going and coming of new industries, because the industries usually come to us (and if they don't, our infrastructure can support smaller but diverse industries to sustain the economy). Unfortunately I learned that here in smaller towns, they don't have the same infrastructure for diverse industries, and thus, when one industry falls, it greatly impacts the town.

One of the main challenging issues small towns struggle with is to seek new ways to encourage economic development to increase the town's financial well-being, but also to foster family and community bonds. 

The economic development strategies includes attracting new venture, and more importantly, re-attracting the young people from the town who head off to the big cities for higher education. From various conversations, it seems that re-attracting the young people is an extremely important objective. Sure, any young people will bring talent and increase consumption once they start families, but nothing beats having family back. The communities here really value family ties. (I will write about family ties in another post soon.) Maybe with advancing communication and technology, in the future, more people can work virtually allowing more young people to return to their home towns. 

Winter activities: Back-country skiing and snowshoeing

Solo ski over a bog mid-February

This winter, I didn't expect get any skiing in since I decided against bringing over my skis, and since I knew I wouldn't have a car to hop over to the nearest ski trail a town away. Well I was wrong. Despite not having skis, I was quickly outfitted with some after talking to a few people (not only was I lent skis, but snowshoes too!). I have learned this year that, whenever I seek or need something, all I have to do is tell people about it, and somehow I always end up getting what I was looking for. People here in general all want to help; that's the best thing about small towns. Despite not being able to get to a properly groomed ski trail, I was still able to ski. By hanging out with some of the locals, I learned to think outside of the "groomed-trail luxury" to find my own paths and make my own trail. I learned how to back-country ski: I learned to follow the snowmobile trails; I learned to double pole across glassy ponds; I learned to ski around the edges of lakes. Having said that, I do not advise anyone to go out and make their own trail if they are not familiar with the land. I always wait until someone shows me an area once before going out on my own.

Some photos from last week-end's ski (beginning of March).

Ski buddies on Indian Arm Pond (but really, it's a lake)

See the faint plateau in the background?
That's Mount Peyton at 352m high.

Before this year, I have only gone snowshoeing once, but that was on packed and old snow, so I didn't really understand the point of wearing snowshoes. I quickly found out when I ventured out into the woods one day after a fresh snowstorm. It is significantly more challenging to walk in knee deep snow where with every step you have to pull your entire leg out before advancing to sink anew with the next step. With the help of snowshoes, I only sink around half a foot and not 3 feet saving my legs from needing to lift feet high.