Moose, Whale Point and the Cape Norman Lighthouse

So.  Until we moved here to St. Lunaire-griquet, we still had not seen any moose. From Maine, through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, on up the western shore of Newfoundland: no moose. That changed last Friday when we saw two moose -- suddenly, and with panic, on the road.  The first leaped up onto the road out of nowhere, luckily far enough ahead of our Jeep that we could slow down and avoid any unlucky collision.  The second was loping along the side of the road at night and, with snow on its hindquarters, deceived us until we got uncomfortably close to it.  But we and it were both going slow enough that there was no real danger of moose crashes.  Still, we hadn't got a photo or gotten a good, non-panicked look.

That changed on Monday, June 5, 2023, when, as we were heading out on our second brilliantly sunny day of hiking, we came upon a moose munching his/her way along the far side of the road.  We saw it early enough that we caught one good portrait before it moved into the tuckamore:

Today's quest was a 8km hike to Cape Norman Lighthouse, by way of Whale Point.  To get to our trailhead, we drove through Cook's Harbor and out to Wild Bight, at the base of Cape Norman.  We were greeted with an appropriately Newfie sign informing us we had arrived:

We parked the Jeep and set out on our hike.  At the beginning, the shoreline next to us revealed great expanses of flat grey limestone, cracked by ice and water in many unusual ways.  Shortly after the start of our walk, we came across two rock monuments that looked like gravestones.  They stood side by side in a pair, with one significantly more eroded more than the other.  We speculated that, perhaps, one stone had been set years ago, and when it weathered to the point of illegibility, the local folk carved a second, like it, but could not bear to give up the original.  This is what they looked like (complete with iceberg in the distance):

The mystery of these carved stones increased as we continued on the hike.  The stones were set periodically along the trail -- always in pairs -- with one of them more eroded than the other.  It wasn't until we reached the far point of our hike that we came upon a bench, perched at the tip of Whale Point, that was built from wood beams set -- surprise! -- on a pair of these stones.  Aha!  Now it was clear.  The pairs of carved stones formed the sides and base of benches.  One was always weathered more than the other because one faced the winds, rain and ice storms more than the other.  At some point, when the wooden seats on the benches had long rotted, some folks turned the stones so they stood in pairs facing the trail.  Perhaps someone thought that wooden beams would eventually be cut again for the seats and that the stones should be saved for that event.  Yet, as far as we could tell, the only bench seat that remains is at on Whale Point.

When we started the hike, it was a frigid 36F, with the wind blowing and the fog bank constantly flirting with the shoreline alongside our trail.  Despite the harsh conditions, we were in high spirits:

No sooner had our hike started (even before we found the mysterious standing stones), than a triple-headed iceberg loomed out of the fog:

This was only the first of hundreds of icebergs we saw on the hike.  The shoreline kept showing us surprising new faces, variations on a theme of gray limestone:

Yet, here, just as at Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve the day before, Spring has sprung, and all the tundra flowers have started blooming.  We happened upon this cutie, which was different than any others we had yet seen on this trip to Newfoundland.  But what was the flower?  We did a deep photo search on the Internet, and the only match we got identified this with what must have been its scientific name:  "red flower."  Oh, well.

Everyone in Newfoundland, it seems, cuts firewood in the winter for next year's heat.  They try to complete the cutting in the winter, then cut, split and stack the wood during the spring, to let it season by fall, when the wood will need to be burned for heat, and the whole cutting-and-stacking process begins again.  Most Newfies stack their wood in traditional, long rows of cordwood.  However, some people wait to cut down and split the wood; so they season it by piling it in pyramid-type structures such as this one we spotted along the trail:

As best we could tell, the bay along which we hiked, Cailloux Bay, had been a big cod-fishing center, with the population living in Wild Bight and Cook's Harbour.  We spotted rotting pilings from old wharves as we walked along the gravelly beaches looking for sea glass.  Further up the bank of the shore, remnants of winches and other cabled equipment (used, presumably, to haul boats out of the water in winter) could be seen still embedded in the ground.  Other pieces of equipment had been salvaged and set out for display along the trail:

Did we mention what a great variety of shapes the limestone rock took along the beaches?

We bypassed Whale Point on the way to the Cape Norman Lighthouse, planning to hike out to it on our return trip.  It wasn't long before we reached the outer parts of Cape Norman, which resembled a moonscape.  Some enterprising locals had fashioned a trail out of gravel and smaller rocks, which made it easier to cross the small boulders to the various viewpoints approaching the lighthouse.

Here is a view of the lighthouse (in the distance in the mist, to the right of a radar tower that is more visible and taller than the lighthouse).  The gravel trail and small observation platforms led along the cliff toward the lighthouse:

It was lunchtime, and the locals had improved Cape Norman, immediately around the lighthouse, with numerous picnic tables.  These were the most substantial picnic table we have ever seen -- with seats so broad that we could barely swing our legs over them to sit down!  Look closely in the photo below and you'll see the tip of the lighthouse in the background between the two of us:

The gravel trail was not without its quirky challenges.  This staircase reminded us of something from Alice in Wonderland.  At first we thought it was falling apart, but, as Kathy climbed it, we examined it to find that it was built that way!  Okay, Newfies, we knew you had a sense of humor...

We eventually reached a point where we got a clear view of the Cape Norman Lighthouse and were lucky enough to take its portrait mid-flash:

The lighthouse is still an active aid to navigation and is kept in very good condition.  It also boasts two very large foghorns nearby.  We were glad that the fog had lifted by the time we got here.  We would not have wanted to be this close when they blasted their warnings.

If you look closely at the Fresnel lens at the top of the lighthouse, you'll see that one panel is covered with a 105th Confederation Anniversary Canadian flag.  We had been lucky enough to be in Canada in 2018 for the Canada Day celebration on the 150th anniversary, and it was a big deal.

This was the far point of our hike, and we started our return.  As we turned the far point of Cape Norman and worked our way south and out to Whale Point, we were treated to an amazing view of innumerable icebergs parading down Iceberg Alley:

So many icebergs drift this way because Cape Norman is on the northwest corner of Newfoundland.  Next to Quirpon (pronounced, "car-POON"), it is the northernmost point closest to Labrador, along whose eastern shore the icebergs run from their origin in Greenland.  In fact Labrador is so close to Cape Norman that, as the day cleared, we got a fabulous view of its shores, only about 18 miles away!

We worked our way around Whale Point, stopping at some pretty benches with a viewpoint allowing us to look across to Burnt Cape, where we had had our Excellent Adventure with Ted in the ecological reserve the day before.  We continued hiking and were treated to this mass of harbor ice on the shore of Cailloux Bay as we neared the end of our hike:

By the time we finished the hike, the afternoon had come, the sun was doing its work, and the temperature had risen nearly 20 degrees Fahrenheit to 54F!  We had stripped off most of our outer layers, our hats and gloves and were feeling a little overwarm as we arrived back at the Jeep.

Driving home, we looked for that moose again, but s/he appeared to have loped off to greener pastures.  Our drive home was moose-free.