Hiking the Fogo Head Trail

Today is Canada Day!  Happy Birthday to the confederation of provinces that occurred July 1, 1867, a short 156 years ago.  We remember vividly being in Revelstoke, British Columbia on Canada Day in 2017, the 150th birthday and a big celebration all over Canada.  Today we will enjoy a birthday celebration at the community arena on Fogo Island, complete with birthday cake, BBQ and music; and, tonight, the local Lions Club, which runs our campground, will have a folk music show right beside our campground!

But what is a holiday without a hike?

Today, we picked the nearby Fogo Head Trail to explore.  The trailhead was a short walk from our campground:

The weather today was perfect for a hike, warm and sunny with a cool breeze, and clouds to cut the heat of the sun.  Spring has truly arrived, bringing the blossoming tundra plants --

-- and the butterflies, mating birds -- and the mosquitoes and biting black flies.

But I digress.

The trail climbs quickly out and up Fogo Head, offering expansive views back toward the community of Fogo --

-- and over to Brimstone Head, which we hiked the other day and where our pretty beachside campsite is located:

One of the other chief attractions of a climb to a headland in Newfoundland is a chance, during the right season, to spy icebergs on parade.  Here, looking northwest toward the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, past the Change Islands, we could spot a number of bergs headed our way:

We always love the unusual and varying detail in a close-up photo of an iceberg:

This photo is unique for us, because it shows a whole school of bergy bits trailing off to the east (to the right in the photo below) from the becalmed iceberg from which they have broken away.  They make a wake of sorts as they blow beyond the parent berg:

Reaching the top of Fogo Head, we got a great view of the neighborhood of Fogo which was our destination (in the foreground) with a view of where we hiked yesterday on the Lion's Den Trail:

And, of course, an even more expansive view of the whole community:

From the top of Fogo Head, the trail becomes a series of terraces connected by steep staircases leading down to a flat grassy area and a cove:

The flat grassy area is in fact a sloping valley (possibly a cove when seas were highter) leading into wild lands that beckon irresistibly for the hiker to ramble trackless through the rocky landscape:

The cove shoreline remains, and Kathy, ever on the lookout for opportunities to hunt sea glass, started exploring the rocky/gravelly beach, while David hung back momentarily to examine a colorful object left by unnamed visitors for unknown purposes:

Looking back up toward the top of Fogo Head, we marveled at the length and steepness of the staircases:

We reached the other trailhead and, with good fortune, spotted this craft shop called, "The Lookout":

For all the genuine crafts and arts that are homegrown throughout Newfoundland, we have had a hard time finding shops that sell genuine items of handiwork, rather tourist schlock.  As it happens, The Lookout is a genuine local consignment shop and sang its siren song to us on instruments such as quilts, books by local storytellers, hand knit socks and other artwork.  We took advantage of this rare opportunity to give something back to the local communities that are so welcoming to us and other tourists, and hauled our booty with us as we walked the road through the community, back to our campground.

We passed the Bleak House Museum, which is a museum that is the preserved home of an early seafood merchant of the Town of Fogo.  We wanted to look at the exhibits, but, as with other cultural and historical visitor centers in Newfoundland, it does not open until the first non-holiday day after Canada Day.  So all we had to enjoy from this museum visit was the discovery of the unofficial Fogo Island flag, flown proudly in the yard of the museum along with the Canadian flag to celebrate Canada Day:

Our walk back to the campground gave us a chance to look closely at some of the traditional Newfoundland architecture still common in Fogo.  Fittingly, the local streets even proclaim the history of this province, and we couldn't resist getting a sample of names and architecture for you:

Well, it's time to close this blog entry and prepare to run off to the Canada Day celebrations.  We hope your weekend is as enjoyable as our has been so far!