Around St. Anthony, Newfoundland

Hi Blog!

Friday, June 22, 2018, was our first full day in St. Anthony located on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. We have six days here to explore all around the Viking Coast. After yesterday’s long drive, we decided to spend our first day getting better acquainted with the area. One of Kathy’s bucket list items was to see the icebergs in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland. Our first stop was the Visitor’s Center to get a some local maps and to reserve our iceberg boat tour. Little did we know that all we had to do was look out into the harbour.  Here is our first Newfoundland iceberg photo. You know there will be more!

The St. Anthony’s Visitor Center is located in the Grenfell Historic Properties. The museum interprets the life and time of Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell.

Sir William Thomason Grenfell is credited with being the man who changed the life of people all along the Northern Peninsula and Southern Labrador. In 1883, Grenfell entered the London Hospital Medical School and soon after he joined the Royal National Mission To Deep Sea Fisherman, an organization which provided medical and spiritual services to North Sea Fisherman. He was the first doctor to visit the region. In addition to practicing medicine, Dr. Grenfell preached, built hospitals, established schools and orphanages. He also sought out others to help him with his mission. Here is one of the early hospital buildings.

When the new hospital in St. Anthony was built in 1967, the Grenfell Mission commissioned Jordi Bonet, an artist from Montreal to create a mural in the hospital rotunda. The eight murals stand floor to ceiling and are made of hundreds of of ceramic tiles which depict the culture and history of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The waters off Fishing Point are the summer home to majestic, thousand year old icebergs. The originals of North Atlantic icebergs are the tidewater glaciers of West Greenland where up to 30,000 to 40,000 icebergs are calved annually. These glaciers account for 85% of the icebergs that reach Newfoundland with the remainder coming from East Greenland and northern Ellesmere Island. As we approached Fishing Point, we noticed lots of ice. We assumed they were berg bits, but later learned that this ice was sea ice – frozen salt water.

While not technically an iceberg, it was still a lot of fun to see all the different shapes and sizes. We thought this little guy looked like a whale.

Kathy just can’t contain her love for those little icy blobs.

Soon after reaching Fishing Point, we see a real iceberg. You can tell the difference by taste. Sea Ice tastes salty. Iceberg ice is pure fresh glacier water. Since the water in the icebergs was frozen some 15,000 years ago, it has no pollution or chemicals added. It’s so pure, a brewery in St. Johns make beer from iceberg water.

There are several establishments on Fishing Point, in addition to the lighthouse. Just behind the Lighthouse Cafe is the Viking Feast building. More on that in a later blog.

Fishing Cove Lighthouse (which is actually on Fox Point) defines the eastern side of the entrance to St. Anthony Harbour. The lighthouse was constructed in 1912.

At the end of Fishing Point are several hiking trails. We followed a wooden boardwalk on the right hand side which led back into a cove where several icebergs beached themselves.  As the waves pound them, they soon crack and melt. If you look closely, the one in the foreground already has an arch worn into it.

After hiking around the cove, we soon came face to face with Fishing Point Head. The trail to the top is called Dare Devil Trail and has 476 stairs that take you to the top of head. Here Kathy takes a breather looking back down on all the harbour ice.

The trail description didn’t lie when it said the view from the head was spectacular.

We did wander around the head for a bit looking for a wayward polar bear. They apparently cross the Straight of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland. Seals like to jump aboard pack ice to have their pups. As the pack ice flows south, the polar bears follow. Once the ice melts and the seals head back out to sea, the polar bears walk back up north and then swim the 40K back to Labrador. Dave looked far and wide, but didn’t see any polar bears. However, he did see a kangaroo in Australia!

After descending 476 steps, Kathy was elated to find a Red Chair to rest with great views of the lighthouse! While not an official Parks Canada Red Chair, any port in a storm as they say.

The gift shop across the street from the Lighthouse Cafe is also a museum on all things Northern Peninsula. We read up on the history of the area. We also added a new beanie baby to the collection in honor of the Newfoundland Polar Bears. Here is Dribble posing with his uncle.

It was getting late in the day, so we decided to head back to camp. On the way, we were held up by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as they performed a vehicle safety inspection of every single vehicle heading into and out of St. Anthony. What an adventure!