Sunday, August 11, 2019
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| Cape Spear Lighthouse and Bunker |
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| Emerging from the Cape Spear Bunker |
This morning at 9:00, along with another RVing couple, we boarded the Legend Tours van at the campground kiosk for the “Combination Tour” to five sites around the St. John’s area. Our guide, George, was an ex-taxi driver born and raised in St. John’s and was very knowledgeable and chatty. The first official stop was Cape Spear, but along the way we stopped at an overlook to view the town of St. John’s (pop. 200k) and also, a small unsettled harbor with a wonderful view. Cape Spear is the most “easternliest” point in North America. Of course, there is a nice lighthouse there but there are also accessible bunkers that Canadian and U.S. troops used during WWII to watch out for German U-boats. Earlier in the year, it’s also a spot for watching whales and icebergs. From Cape Spear, we headed to nearby Petty Harbour surrounded by a quaint fishing village. A couple of decades ago, the Canadian government began restricting commercial fishing boats to only 15 cod per weekend day. Now it’s impossible to make a livelihoods from cod fishing alone. Many “bay folks” in the coastal towns now work for Irving commuting 1.5 hours to their offshore oil rigs for three week shifts.
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| The Coastline at Cape Spear |
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| Jane at Petty Harbour |
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Newfie Door Bell
at Petty Harbour |
After Cape Spear, we headed back into St. John’s winding through commercial and historic districts with constant narration until we arrived at Quidi Vidi (Latin for “what I saw”). This is a pretty and popular upscale district and home of the the Quidi Vidi brewery that produces the Iceberg beer that Jane & I have sampled. Overlooking a small inlet, George told us a personal story. Many years age while he was driving nearby in his taxi, he heard on the radio that there was a polar bear on an iceberg at the very inlet we were standing at. When he arrived, he was the only one at that spot to see the huge iceberg as tall as the cliffs on either side of the inlet with a polar bear walking back and forth. The polar bear eventually walked ashore onto one of the cliffs. Wildlife officials were in a boat that George couldn’t see and tranquilized the bear then struggled up the hillside to tie the bears legs and lift it by helicopter. Except the rope broke, and down went the bear. Eventually,
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Our Guide, George, at Quidi Vidi describing
his Polar Bear Experience |
the polar bear was rescued safely and released. This was before cellphones and George didn’t have a camera to capture this amazing event, but he said to search for “Newfoundland polar bear iceberg rescue” on YouTube for video of the ordeal. However, we don’t have sufficient internet access so I haven’t been able to check it out yet.
From Quidi Vidi, we proceeded uphill to Cabot Tower on Signal Hill. Signal Hill was the site of the first transatlantic radio transmission which was accomplished with a wire antenna held aloft by a kite. (How about that trick, Ben Franklin!) Because we were running short of time, I dashed up Cabot Tower on top of Signal Hill to behold some beautiful 360 degree views of the the town of St. John’s, its bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. After our group reassembled in the tour van, we proceeded back through St. John’s with more narration to a local golf course and dropped off a fellow passenger. From there, we went back into town and Jane & I were deposited at The Rooms.
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| Cabot Tower at Signal Hill |
The Rooms is a large four-story modern building near historic St. John’s that houses several cultural and historic museums (plus gift shop and restaurant). It got its name because it replaced the back rooms of several shops that were formerly used to store cod. We spent quite awhile wandering around this facility taking in all sorts of information and displays from a Haootia quadriformis (the world’s oldest muscular animal) fossil to a video about the throat singing tradition among pairs of Intuit women. Oh, and we viewed another rare astrolabe! We left The Rooms to walk around downtown including George Street which is famous for it bars and music. We ended up eating lunch (salad, cod au gratin, and Guiness stout) at the Celtic Hearth. We then walked around some more and drank lattes at a Starbucks before proceeding to a nearby bus stop to wait for the number 10 bus back to the Memorial University Center (MUN). From there we instantly boarded the number 1 bus to our campground. Once back to the RV, we rested, blogged, and did some more laundry during the evening.
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| Jane & John at the Signal Hill Look Off |
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| View of St. John’s from Cabot Tower on Signal Hill |
Terrific photos and commentary! Love hearing what you are doing.
Thanks. Wish you were here.