Bibbling Around Baie Verte Peninsula

Sunday, June 25, 2023

Hi Blog!

It's been a few days since we left Labrador. After taking the ferry, we spent a day in St. Barbe on the Newfoundland coast just catching up with chores. After recharging our proverbial batteries, we now have our sights set on Fogo Island in Central Newfoundland. In order to catch the ferry to Fogo before the big Canada Day Weekend (July 1st), we've had to drive longer and stay shorter than we usually like. After a six hour drive on Saturday, we arrived at the King's Point RV Park on the Baie Verte Peninsula. We quickly got settled and walked Ruby before heading out to explore. 

Just a short drive from our campground was Rattling Brook Falls.

A short hike along a boardwalk and stairs led us to a viewing platform. The Rattling Brook falls over 850 feet down the side of a cliff and into the Southwest Arm leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

That was our afternoon outing after arriving in King's Point.  Next we had to plan the one day we would have here between moves.  The weather was forecast for pouring rain all day, so it would need to be a drive with stops.

By now, the wildfire smoke from Quebec and Western Canada has made its way to Newfoundland. Because of the smog, we weren't able to get any good photos from our drive. At least the heavy rains might wash the smoke out of the air.

We got an early start in order to visit several of the outport towns on the Baie Verte Peninsula. After leaving the Trans Canada Highway, signs warned us about the potholes. We had a couple rough spots, but it was better than we expected.

We stopped at Middle Arm Brook to take in the falls. This brook is a scheduled salmon stream. We were hoping to see salmon jump up the falls, but it was raining too hard to stay long enough to spot them.

Our first outport was the community of Westport, population 185. Westport was the first permanent settlement on the peninsula.

We were hoping to visit the Westport Cove Lighthouse, but we learned it required a short hike up and over the head at the end of the cove, and it was pouring rain.

So, pictured below is what we would have seen, had we been willing to get soaking wet.

However, all was not lost. We did get a picture of this rooster.

And, snapped a couple photos of some icebergs in Wiseman's Cove.

After Westport, we drove over to the town of Baie Verte to get gas. On the way, we stopped to take in the Western Arm. In geography, an arm is a narrow extension, inlet, or smaller reach, of water flowing out from a much larger body of water. In this case, the Western Arm flows from the Atlantic Ocean.

The Baie Verte Peninsula is a land of complex geology and associated mineral deposits that underlie steep, thickly wooded hills. We traveled up and down those hills and through long valleys. Millennia ago, glaciers rounded the hill tops, and thousands of lakes dot the valleys. After weeks of cold weather, it is nice to see some flowers blooming.

Our next destination was Fleur-de-Lys, located at the very tip of the Baie Verte Peninsula. The Town of Fleur-de-Lys is a small community that consists of about 220 people. The area has a sheltered harbor that has been in use for 4500 years. The name Fleur-de-Lys was given to the area by seasonal French fishermen. A rock formation above the harbor has three hummocks which resembles the French fleur-de-lys, its national symbol and a reminder of home.

Once in town, our first stop was Sam's Place Cafe. The cafe and museum were created in memory of Samantha Walsh. Sam was 13 years old in 2000 when a 16 year old neighbor boy murdered her and hid her body. It took 17 days before the truth came out. At first we were afraid it might be a little sad to visit her place, but it got great reviews so we decided to stop and check it out.

The cafe was bright and cheery. The local folks were very friendly. The coffee was really good and the bagel and cream cheese we had for breakfast was fresh and tasty. We only wish they had a larger menu. We got some good tips from the locals on where to spot icebergs. Before we left, we stopped to take in the view from the back of the cafe. If the weather had been better, it would have been fun to sit in those chairs and watch the boats go in and out of the harbor.

We took the road until it went no further. Out in the harbor were two icebergs.

On the way back through town, we stopped at the Dorset Soapstone Quarry. The Dorset people mined the soapstone over 1600 years ago. The Dorset used the soft soapstone found here to manufacture cooking pots, bowls and small oil lamps. We followed the boardwalk around behind the museum. Unfortunately, the museum doesn't open until July 1st.

The site consists of an extensive series of heavily-worked soapstone outcrops which bear the scars of several hundred years of Dorset quarrying activities for the production of soapstone vessels. 

There are approximately one thousand removal scars preserved in the main exposed soapstone outcrop. These carvings are testimony to the quarry’s 500 year use which began approximately 1600 years ago. The quarry provided soapstone, which is a soft rock easily worked into forms such as bowls, pipes or figurines, and which also holds heat well. Archaeological evidence suggests the Maritime Archaic peoples used it approximately 4000 years ago, while Middle Dorset Paleo-Eskimos used the soapstone approximately 1200-1800 years ago. The Middle Dorset have been directly associated with this quarry, as their finished vessels correspond in size with extraction scars on the quarry face. These scars enable archaeologists to reconstruct prehistoric quarrying behavior.

To continue our tour of Baie Verte Peninsula, we drove over to Coachmans Cove. They are very proud of their French Bread Oven.

Today's weather was not very conducive to baking bread, so the oven was not being used.  However, we enjoyed the visit because it reminded us of our wonderful visit to the French Bread Oven in Port au Choix, where the volunteers, having just opened it for the season, regaled us with tales and information and sold us some tasty Newfie bread.

The icebergs were just where the locals at Sam Place said they would be. Kathy even managed to find a bit of beach to explore for some more sea glass.  This is the best photo we could get, due to fog and rain:

Our last outport was the village of La Scie. The name La Scie is French for "The Saw." The French fishermen who had established a fishing station here in the 1700s gave it this name because of how the surrounding hills appeared to look similar to the teeth on a saw blade.

It was lunchtime when we arrived in La Scie. We were hoping for some good home cooked Newfie food at the Outport Museum and Tea Room. Built in the early 1940s, the two-story house is an authentic example of outport living. It is filled with décor of that time period.

The tea room is located in the back of the house. There was a bit of a local reunion in progress when we arrived. Three old blokes were reminiscing about growing up with fisherman fathers.  We were treated to a number of funny stories as we dined on our traditional Newfie yellow pea soup with dough boys (a/k/a dumplings) and grilled cheese sandwiches. 

As we finished up our late lunch, a couple musicians stopped by. They asked us if we played and invited us to stick around. We would have loved to stay, but we still had miles to go to finish our tour. 

 

Before leaving La Scie, we did manage to grab another couple of icebergs.

One last look at La Scie before we started our hour-and-a-half drive back to camp. We made the best of a rainy day.

So this was a day of turning rainy lemons into car-touring lemonade.  The weather is supposed to be better for our move tomorrow to Lewisporte, and there is a forecast for nice weather on our layover day, so we hope to have another adventure there.  Stay tuned!