Friday, September 20, 2013

Stuff on the Road

The last part of our trip to Newfoundland has taken us up the northern peninsula to the spot where the Vikings arrived 1000 years ago.  Along the way we kept our eyes peeled along the side of the road for, of course, the fabled Newfoundland moose, of which there are 'supposedly' 4 for every square kilometre. The land was definitely moose country, swampy little ponds with stubby little trees - we would surely see many!

In St. Anthony's we had jams and desserts made with 2 local berries I'd never heard of before - bakeapple and partridgeberry.  Bakeapple are similar to raspberries, although they are yellow when ripe. They grow on small plants in bogs, one berry per plant so very time consuming to gather and expensive to purchase. Patridgeberries are small, bright red, round. Both are delicious.

As we were driving we noticed, for hundreds of kilometres, huge stacks of firewood, piled by the side of the road. We later found out that the wood is brought out in the winter, piled there by individuals, then used for firewood the next fall/winter.  Each person has their own pile! We also noticed small, fenced in vegetable gardens adjacent to the highway.  Apparently, their yards are too rocky to grow anything, but beside the road, in the middle of nowhere, where the road building machines have dug up the earth and the peat, the conditions are ideal for growing potatoes, cabbages and a few other items.



Another interesting sight beside the road are the big red chairs.  Seemingly randomly placed throughout Gros Morne National Park (to avoid being redundant I won't say in the middle of nowhere), they are just there for you to enjoy the view. So that's exactly what Marj did to watch the sun starting to set!



Well wouldn't you know it - hunting season started a few days ago. So guess what all the moose are doing?  However, we did see many slow driving (or stopping right in front of us!) pickup trucks driven by men with bright red hats.  Even saw a few men obviously working on a carcass by the side of the road, another on top of an ATV being hauled into town. We had almost resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't see one. Then suddenly, Marj spots something in the distance, we back up down the road and sure enough, loping off through the woods:

1 comment:

dorothy said...

Have you been to Ferryland yet - very interesting archaeology dig of the colony Lord Baltimore established 400 or so years ago. His wife was not impressed, so they up and moved to what is now Maryland. I think they were only in Ferryland for a year or so but quite a big townsite - even had automatic flush sewerage. South of St. Johns on the Avalon peninsula.

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