When Jacques Cartier saw “New-Found-Land” in 1534, he said it was “The land God gave to Cain” because of the harsh, unforgiving nature of the desolate land. This is one of the many pictures we took in the Gros Morne National Park on the northward extending arm of NL along the west side of the island. It is spectacular, very rugged and remote, and "harsh...desolate land." The name “Gros Morne” means large, isolated mountain. The namesake mountain is a unique geological mountain composed of some of the oldest rocks in the world.

We are in Deer Lake, NL, south of Gros Morne, and we are heading back. This is Friday; on Sunday we catch the ferry back to the mainland, Nova Scotia. We will have spent 21 days on NL with one of those days being mostly spent in Labrador. It is Day 48, and tomorrow we move further south on the island to better position us to catch the shorter ferry ride back to NS.

After our mind-boggling encounter with the Root Cellar Capital of the World, we thought things just couldn’t get any better. But they did. We drove in, at times, heavy rain from Twillingate on the east coast of NL to Rocky Harbor on the western coast and then northward up the arm of NL to the very northern tip of NL at St. Anthony.

One of the highlights of the stay at St. Anthony, even better than root cellars, was the whale watching cruise. A cruise that started in the rain and ended in the rain, but when we found whales, the rain had stopped. It seems with rain come wind and rough seas. The boat pitched and yawed and at times the yaws were more like pitches. I did not get any photos of the whales because I was on the upper-most deck holding on for dear life. If I had let go of the railing to handle my camera, I would have been some of the jetsam, or is it flotsam, one sees in the ocean.

It was a successful cruise despite the conditions trying to match the spirit of what Cartier said in 1534. At times we had dolphins providing escort for our boat as they leaped alongside and swam across the bow. But the real stars were two humpback whales, feeding tight against the rocky shore and in the small coves that dotted the shoreline we followed. The whales were pushing fish close to the rocks in an effort to herd them to a place where the whales were more efficient in their feeding. We saw numerous spouts when the whales surfaced followed by backs as they arched back into the water. We were also treated to an occasional tail coming out of the water as well as pectoral fins. A successful whale watching tour indeed, but then the rains came again and we hightailed it back to where we started from believing that there may have been some truth in what Cartier said about Newfoundland.

We took two boat trips under much more pleasant conditions when we visited the Gros Morne area.

One was a boat tour around Bonnie Bay, a large bay at Gros Morne that opens into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We went by a number of small communities that dotted the bay, was serenaded with NL music, and saw lots of bald eagles in nests and in trees, mature adults and ones that had not yet developed the white heads.

We also hiked about a mile and a half into the park to a lake that had been a fjord at one time. It is a long narrow water way into the mountains, and at one time was filled with sea water. Over time the mouth became silted up, and the body of water was cut off from the ocean. It is now a fresh water lake but retains the shape and characteristics of a fjord.

Since the lake was created by glaciers, there were lots of hanging valleys along the sides that contributed a number of spectacular waterfalls.

At St. Anthony, which is about as far north on NL that one can get and have dry feet, in addition to the whale watching cruise, the other highlight was a visit to the only documented Norseman (okay, Viking) site in North America. This, of course, does not include the rune stone in the Alexandria, MN area. But I’m trying to write a serious blog here… Anaway, the site was run by Parks Canada, and we had a guide that told us the story of how the site was found, provided a discussion of the evidence that has convinced most folks that the site was settled by Norse, and talked about what experts say about the Norse presence in North America. The site is believed to have been occupied for less than 10 years and was never meant to be a settlement but a way station for the Norse as they explored further south. And this was probably not “Vinland” since no grapes grew in NL, but grapes did grow in New Brunswick leading to speculation that the Norse got a lot further south than NL. They also found butternuts on the site in NL, and again the closest butternut trees grew in New Brunswick. Interesting stuff. Oh, and they had a reconstructed Norse site with costumed presenters. Standard stuff for Parks Canada.

Before we headed too far south in NL, we did do a day trip to Labrador. The little we actually saw in the limited time we had pretty much matched the countryside and life style found in NL. Actually, NL and Labrador is one province.

The most interesting aspect of the visit for me was learning that Basque whalers came to Labrador in the mid 1500’s and established a whaling station there. They would sail all the way from Spain, hunt right whales for 2-4 months, process them for their oil, and return before winter set in with ships loaded down with barrels of whale oil. Fascinating country and fascinating history.

Onward, southward tomorrow. Next Wednesday we ride the tidal bore in the Bay of Fundy. It will be a muddy good time, or so I’m told. The following Sunday, then, we will be back in Maine, and we are betting that Maine is gonna look mighty good.