Yiss, Bye

"Yiss, bye!" said with a single head toss with upward sweeping eyes pretty much expresses exactly how I feel about Newfoundland.  Let me translate.  "Yes, boy!" is a common slang term used to express both very positive and very negative feelings - depending on your inflection and whether you toss you head in exuberance or mournfully shake your head back and forth.  I learned this from Mike, the water taxi guy along with some other great NL slang.

Western Newfoundland is gorgeous.

I think it would even be gorgeous in the dead of winter.  However, I've been many places with great scenery or fabulous art (Paris comes to mind), and the people who live in those places range from downright rude to barely tolerant, to civil because you're giving them money, to pleasant, to outright friendly and welcoming.  Newfoundland's people fall into the last description.  To be truthful, they remind me of people in West Texas.  As someone I met at the post office yesterday expressed it when I remarked everyone was so friendly, "Well, there are so few of us we love new people."  To be fair, it also helps we are early in the 'season', it's hard to get here, and we are something of a novelty - I can almost, not quite, but almost, see 'cowboys and Indians' cross their eyes when we say we are from Texas. I actually discussed Monument Valley with some old guy, and he was impressed I'd seen it.

The weather here is almost unpredictable.  Literally.  Part of it is being right on the ocean, and part of the inability to find an accurate weather prediction is the natural micro climates which pocket this area.

There are the highest mountains in Newfoundland in Gros Morne National Park (about 2600' feet), and butted up against the mountains are a combination of bogs and marshes which run down to the seashore but only in certain places.  The mountains have the

usual compliment of firs and deciduous trees - similar to New England since these mountains have been logged making way for the trees with leaves that turn colors in the fall to flourish.  (Oh, did I forget to mention the three EAGLES we saw?)   There are also areas of forest interspersed with natural meadows

where the caribou graze. THEN, there are the tablelands which is why this area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Canada developed it as a National Park in the 1970's.

The tablelands are actually the Earth's mantle heaved up and left exposed when two of the Earth's continental plates collided upteen years ago - that's an Oklahoma expression meaning, it was a really long time ago and I can't remember the exact number.  When the dust finally settled, you have the Earth's mantle sitting cheek and jowl with an ancient ocean bottom.  Their juxtaposition is credited with helping develop and prove the tectonic theory of the Earth's formation, and geologists come from all over the world to study here since the geology of the Gros Morne area is so unique.  There's also a study station for marine biologists here.

Because the mantle rocks of the Tablelands were so close to the core of the Earth, they are full of

heavy metals and are actually toxic to plants.  The few which manage to grow are poisonous to animals.  If this were there states, there would be warning signs ("DON'T LICK THE ROCKS")  However, this is Canada, so it's assumed you have some sense and understand chromium (to name a one of the inert heavy metals found in the rocks and soil) isn't good to eat.  We learned all this and more from the Ranger led hike we took up into the shoulder of the Tablelands.

This area is dotted with tiny towns which are mostly under 1000 people each.  We are staying at Norris Point, named for Ned Norris, an English trapper who, in 1790, was the first European to live here.  So, the town is named for him, and one of the small coves is called "Neddie's Harbor".  Another town, 'Cow Head' got its name because a French fisherman thought one of the rocks looked like, yes, a cow's head.  The area names are a mixture of French and English.  The tallest mountain was named by the French:  Gros Morne.  It means big sad mountain because it's bald on top.  Men have always been obsessed with their baldness, haven't they?  Cow Head is also a harbor, and the open sea is dramatically different from the protected harbors.  This is a peninsula which separates the Cow Head harbor from the open ocean.

The dominant feature of the geography here are the open and closed fjords.

As the glaciers retreated during the last ice age, they gouged out long, deep channels which the ocean rushed in to fill.  Bonne Bay, the dominant bay of the area where we are staying is an example of one of those fjords.    Norris Point is at the narrow neck where three fjords meet at 'the tickle' so named because it doesn't freeze over in the winter.

More interesting are the enclosed fjords.

 Where there was bog or marsh covered by the glacier, the channel left behind by the glacier was closed to the ocean since the bog rebounded by filling with water just like a sponge when the glacier retreated leaving the deep channel landlocked.  They Newfoundlanders call these landlocked fjords 'ponds'.  We walked in two miles through a marsh/bog area to get to the boat tour of an enclosed fjord.  We boat toured the Western Brook Pond.  They actually helicoptered the boats in pieces, or drug the pieces by sled over the frozen bogs in the winter, built a boathouse, and assembled the tour boats.  Boy, talk about beautiful.  We were worried since it was foggy the day we scheduled the boat ride, but slowly the fog lifted creating fantastic pictures.

A couple of miles away from the marsh and the faux fjord was this lovely seashore dotted with fishing shacks.  Fishing, specifically, lobstering is still the mainstay of the economy, and Bonne Bay is dotted with lobster traps and buoys.

One big surprise here is the food.  Each one of these tiny towns seems to have attracted one or two really talented chefs.  We've had some fabulous meals here.  This meal

was so pretty, and another example of the fifty ways to eat lobster.  This wasn't even my favorite meal here.

To sum Western Newfoundland up, I offer this final picture:  (Please notice, I'm wearing a new necklace from the glass maker from Rocky Harbor.  For a closer look, I posted it on FB.)  And, yes, I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt, a fleece vest and a windbreaker.  I think it was 62 this day.  Just perfect.  And, that's Newfoundland, just perfect.