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Anchor symbols indicate where we've anchored! The sailboat symbols indicate where we anchored in cases where we doubled our track.
We've come a long way baby!
Ancient Peoples
Fleur de Lys, Newfoundland50 08' N -56 06'W
August 1, 2009
Our land home is in the mid-Atlantic of the United States, the most populous part of the country. It’s easy to feel far removed from nature, from history, and from the people that originally inhabited the area. There’s something about Newfoundland though that makes it all seem . . . closer to the bone, more accessible.
Lanse Aux Meadows showed us a window into the Vikings. Fleur De Lys (flower of lilies) showed us the ancient peoples, Dorsets. This is a bustling little town and we’d inadvertently hit it during the Dorset Festival weekend.
The Dorset people inhabited the area between 1100 and 1600 years ago. What drew them to this area were the soapstone cliffs just outside of the present town. Bowls shapes were roughed out in place, chiseled off and then hollowed out and finished. Today the cliffs bear the bowl shaped indentations made by these ancient peoples. It was easy to stand there and picture scaffolding set up along the cliff face, the sound of children as they ran around and talking amongst the adults. The Dorsets traded these items, making this one of the first commercial mining operations in the world.
There are some bowls roughed out but not chiseled off the wall. What interrupted their work? What caused them to abandon this place?
The modern local people didn’t think anything of those strange shapes in the cliffs. Children played and explored there. It was just part of what had always been there. In the early 19990’s archeologist “discovered” the site and began excavating. If you visit there’s a wonderful museum that interprets the Dorset history and early European activities in the area.
Hiking trails lead from in back of the museum past the soapstone cliffs and out to the headland. Reminder – soapstone is slippery! Gorgeous views with whale watching and guillemots with their striking colors – bright orange feet and white wing patches.
Outdoor concert started at 10:30pm! Great music and dancing. Chatted with some local folks and then tumbled into bed. These long daylight hours can be exhausting . . .
Garden Party
50°54’N 055°54’W
"I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends. A chance to share old memories and play our songs again . . . "
Hard to think of a better escort than a pod of Atlantic White-sided Dolphins. If watching them frolic (there really is no better word for what they do) in our bow wave doesn't bring a smile to your face, something is seriously wrong. So we entered the lovely, protected harbor of Conche with huge smiles after our dolphin escort pulled away.
Conche is a beautiful little town of around 240 people nestled on the inside of a natural harbor. It wasn't connected by road until 1969 and I think it was a dirt road until well into the 70's. There wasn't much of a write-up in our cruising guide but we decided to give it a go.
We tied up near the end of the large municipal dock and I started dinner preparations. The docks tend to be a guy hangout and I hadn't realized I was missing some girl time until Russ said, "There are some women walking down the dock." Dinner preparations were hastily dropped in favor of conversation.
That's how we met sisters-in-law Clara Carroll and Clara Carroll. We can relate as we have a son named Josh and a son-in-law named Josh! Clara's granddaughter Bridgette was visiting and gave us a lesson on squid hounds, the local name for Atlantic white-sided dolphins.
Someone mentioned toutons and we had to confess our ignorance. Toutons are Newfoundland's fried dough concoction. Really, is there any culture in the world that doesn't have some version of fried dough in their cooking? Somehow we'd made it 1/4 of the way around "The Rock" without sampling this delicacy.
There's a joke about Newfoundlanders, "Where can you find the largest population of Newfoundlanders? Alberta!" After the collapse of the cod fishery a lot of Newfoundlanders move away from home to find work and a lot of them go to the oil fields in Alberta. Added to that, a lot of small communities have been resettled to create larger concentrations of people so services like electricity can be delivered more efficiently. All of these people living away from home have started a new tradition of celebrations - "Come Home Week" or "Garden Parties" are designated times when far flung family and community members come back. It's a great time to enjoy the best of Newfoundland ~ visiting, music, drinking and eating . . . not necessarily in that order.
We finally said good night to our visitors with plans to meet up the next day. After dinner, Clara stopped by with some touton dough and fancy molasses. Visions of fried dough filled our dreams and they became reality in the morning. Yum! It’s a very tangy dough, not a sourdough tang but a sharp tang. The fancy molasses was a tad strong for me but rolled in sugar the toutons were very yummy indeed!
There’s great hiking around here and we set out to explore. Meeting Clara on the way, she invited us to a kitchen party at a friend’s fish stage. A little dictionary input on Newfoundland terms: fish stage – building, sometimes built over the water to house all the paraphernalia associated with fishing; kitchen party – held in a kitchen, fish stage or wherever there’s space for a gathering includes lots of music, lots of drink and a great time. Yeah!
I’m a museum nut and the French Shores Interpretive Center more than satisfied my fix. They’ve been working on a tapestry depicting the history of the area and I got to embroider a bit on it.
http://www.frenchshoretapestry.com/en/news.asp
Our hike led us onto the ocean side of the cliff for incredible views. Then by the site of a World War II plane crash. The BZ 277 had engine problems and crash landed in a field. The children watched form their schoolroom and thought they were being attacked. All three crewmen survived.
The kitchen party was a little slow in getting started so Tom, one of the hosts, loaned us his car so we could drive around a bit. The lookout on Sailor Jack’s Hill (big enough to have a dance party!) the French cemetery . . . France still had interests in Newfoundland until 1904. The French Navy used to come to restore the cemetery every year until Canada enforced the 200 mile limit in 1972. An invitation has been issued and the community hopes they’ll get a French ship visiting soon.
Wow, what music at the kitchen party! I’ll try to put up some video clips. Clara’s niece sang. And Clara Carroll from Flowers Cove has 2 music CD's out and she sang too. Russ pulled out his mouth organs and I tapped my foot.
Dinner at the museum and Tom showed us some of the things his family donated including a beautiful brass spy glass. One of the favorite activities of boys in the winter was jumping from ice pan to ice pan. An ice pan is basically a slab of ice that’s floating. Jump on it wrong and you’ll end up in the drink. Tom rescued a cousin who fell in.
BINGO! The ladies invited me to join them at the bingo table and set me up. OK I was a tad nervous about juggling 4 cards but it wasn’t quite the rapid fire calling of numbers I was expecting. Fun hanging out with them though. Hot chocolate at the local café and we said our reluctant good byes. More Garden Festivities that we'll miss but the weather clock is ticking and we still have a looonnnnggggg way to go.
Conche goes down as one of our favorite stops. Lots to do here, great hiking, and some new friends.
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