Ted's Excellent Adventure in Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve

Located near the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland and surrounded on three sides by cold waters from the Strait of Belle Isle, the Burnt Cape peninsula has some of the most arctic conditions on the Island of Newfoundland. It is this cold climate, together with a unique landscape and calcium-rich soil, that allows northern plant species to grow here in a rich and rare variety.

The 1 km by 3 km Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve takes up almost all of the Burnt Cape peninsula. And though it may have the coldest conditions in Newfoundland, the Cape is home to more than 300 plant species-about 30 of which are considered rare.

As part of the region's Iceberg Festival, which we are attending the first two weeks of June, visits to the Ecological Reserve were offered with a local guide.  We got in touch with our guide, Ted Hedderson, who owns several establishments in the Raleigh, Newfoundland area.  He agreed to meet us at Marina's Mini-Mart in Raleigh, to drive us over to the Reserve.

He was also kind enough to snap our photo as we arrived in the Reserve!

 

 

 Driving in the Reserve felt like riding in a rover on another planet:

 

From a distance, the Cape appears desolate, yet up close, particularly during the months of June and July, tiny arctic plants pop up everywhere and provide a rainbow carpet of color. Some of these plants are growing at their southernmost limits. Others are at their northernmost. Some can be found only in a few other areas. These arctic-alpine plants are relicts of the flora that invaded when the last glaciers retreated. 

 

This is the only place in the world where Burnt Cape cinquefoil grows.  At this time of year, it starts to produce its delicate, but bright, yellow flowers:

 

 

The following are just a few of the beautiful spring-blossoming plants we saw on our outing.  Due to the harsh conditions, vegetation must be very hardy and grows very slowly, so some of the plants in these photos could be hundreds of years old.

 

 

Here is a creeping juniper -- complete with small juniper berries, that grows horizontally in order to survive the harsh, cold winds on the Cape:

 

 

If you look closely at each of the plants in this environment, you find that the entire plant spreads far beyond the visible blossoms.  It is possible to find the main stem and trace how all the other branches connect to it.  For this reason, as a visitor walks, it is important to look carefully at the full extent of plants (which are often the same grey color as the grey limestone rocks and soil) to avoid stepping on and killing portions of these fragile plants:

 

 

The Cape’s arctic conditions have also led to the formation of “frost polygons”-strange, geometric arrangements of rocks on the surface of the ground. Caused by intense freeze/thaw cycles, they are usually found only in northern or Arctic areas of permafrost.  As the ice pushes the "walls" of the polygons outward, a small depression is left, which can gather and hold rainwater.  This facilitates the growth of small plants around the inner perimeter of the frost polygon, where they are sheltered from the frigid wind:

 

 

Ted took the opportunity to show us the rugged and dramatic coastline around the cape, including the shelf formation of rock which ushers the sea water into a sea cave behind and below us in this photo:

 

 

Ted pointed out a large tide pool on top of the flat rocks just above the level of the sea water (it has a round white formation of ice in the photo below).  He said that this pool remains year-round, supplied with water from waves crashing into the rocks.  During the summer, he said, his daughter loved to come over here and swim with her friends in the tide pool water, which felt as warm as a bathtub due the heating effect of sunlight:

 

 

We couldn't see the small sea cave mentioned above, but Ted led us on a hike across the peninsula to another location where a much bigger sea cave was more accessible.  We climbed right down to the edge of the water and could peer back into the cave, which Ted said runs perhaps 100 feet into the rock.

 

 

Our two hours passed all too quickly, and Ted let us off back in Raleigh, where we picked up our Jeep.  Raleigh is an old fishing village, and visitors can still see the remains of cod wharves where the cod were cleaned, salted and dried before being shipped to market:

 

 

We found a lunch spot on an isthmus that separates Pistolet Bay, to the south, from Ha Ha Bay to the north, and we enjoyed the view of icebergs and harbor ice floating past us as we drank our hot chocolate and ate our hot soup:

 

 

It is speculated that the name of Ha Ha Bay is from the archaic French haha (a type of boundary or fence that could not be seen until closely approached). Certainly this name is descriptive of the way that the isthmus connecting Burnt Cove  Peninsula to the main land where Raleigh is located was not visible to the French explorers who sailed into Ha Ha Bay from the sea.  They thought they were going to be able to sail through into Pistolet Bay but were surprised and had to turn around.

 

The isthmus has black sand, gravel and rock beaches, so we decided to try our luck at some beachcombing after lunch, before moving on to our afternoon hike in Ship Cove (check out the next blog entry for that).

 

Kathy scored some very pretty pieces of sea glass, and we picked up a perfect, undamaged sea urchin skeleton which we think we will give to our grandson, who loves beachcombing:

All in all, the tour with Ted and our lunch in his small outport town was a Most Excellent Adventure and a great use for part of what turned out to be our first sunny day on the Northern Peninsula.