Stroll Through Harbour Breton

This is a Double-Blog Day!  That doesn't happen often, but today our 6-mile walk included 3 miles on the Between the Hills Trail to the Rocky Point Lighthouse, and then a walk back to our campground through the town of Harbour Breton.  You can read the prior blog entry for the first part of the hike.  But here we start home from the lighthouse:

A lighthouse, one of the first out-harbor lights designed to serve the fishing trade on the south coast, was built on Rocky Point in 1873 to mark the entrance to Harbour Breton. The square, wooden tower stood 4.3 metres tall, was painted white with red on its corners, and was topped by an octagonal lantern, whose sides were painted alternately red and white. The light's first keeper was William Lorenzen, who was paid $48 per year. 

In 1877, the light’s eighth-order lens was damaged when the lamp’s chimney glass broke during the night. The keeper was not blamed as his pay was not sufficient for, nor did his instructions “require a continuous nightly watch.” Besides, the inspector noted, “everyone knows that a lamp glass, on a carefully trimmed and regulated lamp may break at any time from unascertained causes.” The same accident happened in 1879, causing Inspector John T. Nevill to suggest that if dwellings were provided at lighthouses without one, the keeper could visit the light from time to time during the night rather than just light it at sunset and return in the morning to extinguish it. In the case of Rocky Point, however, Nevill felt the keeper was distracted by numerous other duties, and quoted a visitor to the lighthouse who said “a new lens and a new keeper are required.” 

A second lighthouse was constructed in 1881 to replace the old lighthouse, the present-day Rocky Point Lighthouse is a 28 foot tall round, cylindrical, prefabricated cast-iron tower surmounted by a lantern of triangular-paned design. It is located at the southern seaward entrance to the community of Harbour Breton. The lighthouse is the oldest extant lighthouse on the southwest coast of Newfoundland.

After absorbing the history of the lighthouse, we descended a long rank of stairs to the docks maintained by the Newfoundland-Labrador Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture:

Two boats were at the dock; one was a Coast Guard vessel, and the other a boat from 360 Marine, which is a local company that provides services to the marine and aquaculture industries on the Connaigre Peninsula:

We continued our walk back into the town of Harbour Breton, looking across into the Barasway part of Southwest Arm.  It was truly a grey foggy day:

Someone keeps or feeds ducks along the Southside Drive in Harbour Breton.  We saw several groups of ducks, including this mixed group --

-- and these white ducks mustering their little ducklings away from us as we walked by --

-- as well as these Rouen ducks:

On we walked through town, past the Elliott Premises, which was the base of the Newman family enterprises, which were merchants in seafood as well as port wine.  While the museum and cafe were closed today, we could walk out back and view part of Harbour Breton across the harbor:

Harbour Breton is a pretty town, and the largest on the Connaigre Peninsula of Newfoundland, with a population of over 1,500.  It has a variety of services for residents and travelers.

Situated on the northern side of Fortune Bay, it has a magnificent harbor and is one of the oldest and largest fishing centers on the south coast of Newfoundland. The harbor was used in the seventeenth century by Bretons (from Brittany, France), who were based at Placentia, on a nearby peninsula. After the Treaty of Utrecht between the British and French in 1713, the south coast was reserved for English fishing ships.

Harbour Breton suffered a significant tragedy on August 1, 1973. Around 3 am that day, after several weeks of rain, drizzle, fog and overcast conditions, a landslide swept down the hill above the monument site. Four houses were caught in the landslide and swept into the harbor. Four of Jack and Olive Hickey’s children died as a result of the landslide. The youngest survivor was 21 month old Cavell Hickey, the youngest daughter, who was still in her crib when water and mud carried her into the attic of her house. Protected by the sides of the crib, she was found by rescuers who cut through the roof of the destroyed house to bring her to safety. Slope movements continued over the next few days following the disastrous slide.  The families who lost their houses during the landslide, and those whose homes were considered at risk, were relocated to other sites in the community and a ban was imposed on further development in the landslide area.

Further along Southside Drive, we came across this pretty cascade tumbling down from a lake above the town into the harbor near the causeway connecting two parts of town on opposite sides of the harbor:

Another 1.5 miles, and we were home at our campground, having gotten a unique tour-by-foot of Harbour Breton!  We settled into our little home on wheels while westerly blew fog in over the campground from Deadman's Cove.  

Tomorrow is due to be rainy, so we are planning a drive around the Connaigre Peninsula.  We'll share that with you when we get back.