Wednesday, August 14, 2019
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| A Lonely Job in a Beautiful Location |
The rain clouds had passed on and we awoke to a bright sunny day. After breakfast, we continued toward Fortune, despite not being able to board the ferry. Immediately after leaving Frenchman’s Cove Provincial Park we were treated with beautiful coastal views as we travelled along the gravel road toward highway 210. We stopped at a desolate interpretive viewpoint with lot of decks and stairs, and after we’d taken pictures, noticed a young lady with pink hair and angel wings on her hoodie applying finish to one of the lower railings. This was a summer job and she had been deposited there to do this all day. What a beautiful but isolated workplace! As we were driving away, Jane noted that she might make faster progress using a brush wider than two inches but speed didn’t seem to be a high priority for her.
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| The Mariners’ Memorial & Harris House |
We connected to highway 210 south and when we were nearly to Fortune on a whim we decided to take a coastal loop road through the town of Grand Bank. This town received its name from the Grand Banks in the Atlantic Ocean which was the destination for fishing boats that in the past departed from here during the winter for six month voyages. In the small town, we parked the RV across the street from the Mariners’ Memorial Garden adjacent to the George C. Harris House. As we were taking pictures in the garden, the caretaker put down his weed-wacker, introduced himself (Bryan Clark), and explained the meaning of the garden. Among the flowers in the garden, there is a life-sized bronze female figure staring into the distance eternally expecting those who will never return from the sea. Below her there is a shallow pool with the bottom covered in smooth beach rocks. Scattered throughout the pool are 387 plaques with the names of lost seaman. When the sun shines through the plaques, they create eerie symbolic shadows of the names on the bottom of the pool. Bryan said that earlier in the summer, there is a memorial ceremony that attracts over 20k visitors to this tiny town. Bryan sets up, maintains and takes down the display every year, although this year will be the last of his five-year assignment. In a couple of weeks, every stone and plaque will be removed, cleaned and stored for next year. Throughout Newfoundland, we have constantly been exposed to information about shipwrecks and men lost at sea. This unique garden was a profound way to memorialize those that had lost their lives as well as those who were left behind to carry on with their lives. This is an innate part of the heritage of this community, and in reality, most of the bay villages along the Newfoundland coast.
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| Names of Fallen Seamen symbolically cast on the Pond Bottom |
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| Jane on the Widow’s Watchtower of the Harris House with the NL Flag |
We then toured the neighboring Harris House built by a wealthy ship owner and captain as a wedding gift for his son and wife in the early 1900s. The house was still outfitted with most of the original furniture including three pump organs. We were able to climb up to the widow’s watch on top of the roof to see a panoramic view of the town. Our hostess was a local young lady who was eager to move to St. John’s and start a pre-nursing program in a couple of weeks.
We then proceeded a short distance to Fortune and parked behind the Fortune Head Geology Centre. A bright young lady who was a geology student at the university in St. John’s lead us on an informative tour through the museum. A family with a young daughter accompanied us. The daughter was articulate and very interested in science so asked lots of good questions. The tour walked us though geologic time from the Paleozoic Era to today. Did you know that the rocks at Fortune Head are recognized as the global example of the Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary? And, consequently that there is a geologic age named Fortunian (529-541 million years ago)? Did you know that the geology of Newfoundland played a significant role in the development of the Theory of Plate Tectonics? Well, we leaned these geologic tidbits and a whole lot more from our enthusiastic guide. After our tour and walking around Fortune, we had lunch at Doc’s Cafe.
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| The Fortune Head Geology Center |
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| Dino Turd (upper left) and Track (lower right) on Display in the Geology Center. The Dino Gastrolich (upper right) is a Stone that was swallowed to aid Digestion. |
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| Retrieving a House after the Tsunami of 1929 |
We then hit the road and backtracked stopping at Walmart in Marystown for more DEF and other supplies before continuing north up 201 to the TCH. The attractiveness of this remote area was highlighted by the bright sunny and blue skies. On the TCH about an hour before our destination, we refueled and Jane took over the wheel. We exited the TCH and near the town of Trinity stopped at a small commercial RV campground. Not too surprisingly, all six of their sites were occupied so we continued to the Lockston Path Provincial Park where we were able to secure a cheap site (water only) with a pond view. We set up and Jane prepared a nice dinner of cheese and spinach ravioli with sauce and fresh green beans. Without power, it was a challenge keeping three pots boiling – two on the gas stove burners and one on a plug-in burner. However, the results were worth the effort. Afterwards, I blogged, continued reading in my third ebook and we made tentative plans for tomorrow.