Strait of Belle Isle; Battle Harbour, Labrador

15 July continued:

Whales and icebergs

The Strait of Belle Isle is considered a wildlife superhighway, linking the relatively warm waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence with cold Atlantic waters (the Labrador current) coming from the Arctic Ocean. Fish and marine mammals  travel north and south along this narrow corridor in search of food and have attracted people to the area for thousands of years.

Iceberg in the Strait of Belle Isle. Icebergs break off glaciers
in Greenland and travel south with the Labrador current at
an average speed of 0.7 km/h (but up to 3.6 km/h)

Sooty shearwater. Shearwaters have narrow wings, have to run
over the water to get up speed for take-off. 

Whale and distant iceberg.
Most whale sightings were of the "tha she blows" variety.

Minke whale - the only one I learned to identify. 
It doesn't blow much.

Battle Harbour

Located on a rocky island, Battle Harbour is Newfoundland and Labrador’s only intact salt fishing village, maintained by a local historical trust. The mercantile salt-fish premises at Battle Harbour were originally established by John Slade & Co of Poole, England in the early 1770s. Salt fish is cod that has been cleaned, split, salted and dried. 
After 1820, the population increased when Battle Harbour was declared capital of the floater fishery. "Floater fishery" consisted of Newfoundland fishermen who fished in Labrador waters in the summer, and returned to Newfoundland in the fall. 
In 1892, Dr Wilfred Grenfell arrived. In 1893 he built Labrador’s first hospital here. 

The 1904 Marconi wireless telegraph station is marked by a plaque on the high point of the island.
Robert Peary held his press conference here in 1909, claiming the first successful expedition to the North Pole. 
In the late 1960s residents were encouraged to move to the mainland, mostly to Mary’s Harbour. In 1990 the Battle Harbour Historic Trust was founded: it maintains buildings and operates boats, inn, site tours, and lunches.

These are "flakes" where the split cod was dried. When it looked
like rain the women rushed out to stack and cover up the cod.

Hudson Bay Company net store. HBC rented nets to fishermen.

The evening ferry from Mary's Harbour has just arrived
(plus some of our group in the red wetskins are about
to embark on Zodiac dinghy).

Although it was sunny in Battle Harbour, it was cold - the first cool day on this trip.

This is Kyle's more dramatic view of Battle Harbour.

A highlight of the tour of the village was entering the Anglican Church to find Jim Payne playing the organ. Jim is the One Ocean "artist-in-residence" on the ship, singer, multi-instrumentalist, hiker, gardener and Zodiac driver. His website is http://www.singsonginc.ca/  For the past few years he has spent the week between Christmas and New Year's touring oil installations on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland

15 July 2012.

The ship anchored near red dot, we went in Zodiacs to a dock,

then bus to the Visitor Centre.

This is the earliest known European settlement in the New World (c. 1000 AD).  The archaeological remains, discovered in 1960, are a UNESCO World Heritage site. Three Norse buildings have been reconstructed to give visitors an idea of what the settlement was like. It's thought the Vikings moved on because the natives were unfriendly (but they didn't leave in a hurry).
"The site is dominated by barrens, coastal bogs and stunted forests known locally as tuckamore, home to over 280 different plants. In the past four to five thousand years many people have lived at L'Anse aux Meadows ... among them a small group of Norse sailors." (Parks Canada)

The Vikings are coming.

Jane Thomson and Tony Beck.
Keen photographers will go to any length for the best shot.

These are the excavated ruins that have been covered with sand and turf.

Artefacts found on the site, clockwise from bottom left:
Spindle whorl, Cloak pin, Needle hone, Butternut (!), Fragment of bone needle.

Wood carving on the reconstructed Norse houses.
This reminds me of stone carvings in the Isle of Man

Dead murres hanging in a corner - still eaten by the locals.

Jimi poses with a spear (harpoon?).

A Viking and Patricia

Atuat with helmet, spear and shield

Poles lean up against a sod house.

Me in front of doorway to main reconstructed house. 

The reconstructed houses are within a fenced area. These
must have been cosy houses with their thick turf walls.

Woody Point, Tablelands of Gros Morne National Park

14 July 2012.

Our ship moored in Bonne Bay off Woody Point.

The town of Woody Point, NL, population 400. 

View of the Tablelands from our ship.

Jane Thomson drives the Zodiac to Woody Point.
Diane Loeb is on the right.

At Woody Point we were welcomed by the mayor, early in the morning. We walked through the town and on a trail past wild roses, alders, orchids, and sheep laurel (Kalmia), to the Discovery Centre. (The flowers will have their own "post," when I've found out what most of them are.)

A resident of Woody Point 

The Discovery Trail, Tablelands behind.

UN, Canadian and Newfoundland & Labrador flags
at the Discovery Centre - Gros Morne is World Heritage site.

That's snow! The melting snow feeds waterfalls

"The park provides a rare example of the process of continental drift, where deep ocean crust and the rocks of the Earth's mantle lie exposed. More recent glacial action has resulted in some spectacular scenery, with coastal lowland, alpine plateau, fjords, glacial valleys, sheer cliffs, waterfalls and many pristine lakes. The park comprises part of the Long Range Mountains on the Gulf of St Lawrence. The serpentine hills in the south-west (Tablelands) comprise ultra-basic igneous rocks, which, due to high heavy metal content, inhibit most plant life." 
These landscapes provided evidence of plate tectonics to researchers.

Kevin, Parks Canada guide, explains continental drift
and how the Tablelands formed from the Earth's mantle

Serpentine, a mineral containing magnesium, iron, silicate.
The lines are chrysotile (asbestos).

Gros Morne mountain to the northeast.

The high magnesium content of the mantle rocks hinders
plant life,  this is why it looks like a desert.

A number of steep sided, glacial valleys cut through the Long Range scarp face,
forming deep, oligotrophic fjords (with few plant nutrients, high oxygen content,
clear water), with vertical cliffs up to 685 m high. This was taken in the late evening
as we left Bonne Bay.

 In one day we only saw a very small part of the National Park - perhaps I will be able to return some time.

Back on the ship, Patricia gave a workshop on sewing Duffle socks, felt liners for kamiks, which can also be worn as slippers. Then Jimi and Ted talked about traditional Inuit clothing - first catch your polar bear... These three are among the Environmental Technology students from Arctic College, Iqaluit, who are accompanying us on the ship for their marine biology field trip. In ET they also learn survival skills, including traditional skills such as building an igloo.

Jimi wears sealskin kamiks and a summer parka. The soles
are bearded seal (tough) and the uppers are ringed seal.

Ted wears a summer parka and his polar bear pants,
after describing the polar bear hunt. His bear was a 9 foot male.

Zohra couldn't resist trying on the polar bear pants.

Kamiks

At sea, en route to Gros Morne National Park

13 July 2012.
Four presentations to keep us amused as we head for Gros Morne.

1. Jane Thomson, until recently a professor of art history at the University of Calgary, and a former chief curator for the Newfoundland Museums, talked about the importance of Harp seals to people that lived on the Northern peninsula (between Gros Morne and L'Anse aux Meadows), for clothing, tools and food, as well as for tents. Bladders were used for floats, blood was used as glue. Port au Choix is seal whelping area. Archaeological sites have harpoon heads, seal effigies.

2. Tony Beck, naturalist and photographer, talked about how to improve our photos. Composition, timing, simple, clean backgrounds for flowers, using Photoshop to get rid of overhead wires. Focus on the eyes (for birds) - if the eyes are in focus it doesn't matter if the rest isn't. Use flash in bright sunlight to reduce shadows. Underexpose and then correct with Photoshop.

3. Sean Cadigan (Memorial University professor): Newfoundland in the Colonial era. Great Britain originally discouraged settlement in Labrador so that the Inuit would stay and trade would develop. The Moravian Mission was encouraged. Palliser's Act was intended to keep Newfoundland for GB. Returning fishermen would spend their money in GB. Newfoundland was unusual in that women's work (drying and processing fish) determined the quality and hence price of fish, and women managed and made decisions on property as their men were away at sea. The naval government didn't understand this and whipped two men for not being in charge of their households, which led to end of naval government in 1824. This is when Newfoundland became a colony, not a place to fish and return home.

4. Jacques Sirois, grew up in Québec city, moved to Newfoundland to learn English(!), now lives in Victoria B.C. His talk: "Auk, auk, auk." Six species of auks or Alcids survive in this area (the great auk was eaten to extinction by 1800). They are black on top and white underneath and only come ashore to breed. They swim underwater using their narrow wings. 

Atlantic puffin; Common murre (Turr in NL, Guillemot in GB) which occurs where there's no ice; Thick billed murre (Brünnich's guillemot) which occurs where there is ice; the Dovekie (Little auk); Razorbill; and Black guillemot. These are the most prolific sea birds on Canada's coasts. Puffins are making a bit of a come-back since the cod moratorium - before that thousands of them were caught and died in gill nets. The Common murre and Razorbills lay one egg on cliffs. Chicks jump off the cliff at 20 days old, before they can fly. Father takes over and escorts and feeds chick on its sea migration to the Grand Banks. Auks are often seen in small flocks flying in lines low above the water.

View from the bridge. The orange and blue display is depth.

The electronic chart display, which is to the right of above photo.
The ship is about to round Cape Ray (Port aux Basques),
the SW corner of Newfoundland. Speed 10 knots.

Nate (one of the drivers/naturalists) just before sunset.

Sunset - looking NW across Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Île aux marins, Le Grand Colombier, St. Pierre

12 July 2012.

In the morning: meet the presenters, make sure the wet weather gear fits (get smaller gumboots), learn how to get in and out of Zodiac dinghies from the ship, at a dock and on a wet landing (rocks or beach), learn our way around the ship.

A small section of the flag locker on the bridge.
The French flag is missing because it is being flown on the
foremast, we are in France.

Then life boat drill. Some of us climbed into the lifeboat. This was very slow and difficult for the larger, less mobile passengers when wearing a life jacket, as the entrance was small and had handles and things in the way. (Scary - the slowness).

Starboard lifeboat.

View from inside the lifeboat, showing obstructions

We were a bit delayed getting in to St. Pierre because of the "Sixth 350 mile yacht race, Halifax to St. Pierre."

St. Pierre and yacht race.

The Customs arrive on the pilot boat.
Four of the photos in this post were taken by Kyle (on right),
who has a bigger telephoto lens than anyone else. 

 First stop in St Pierre for me was Île aux Marins. We arrived at the dock in four Zodiacs while four more cruised around the auk colonies first. There's an impressive museum. Only summer residents now, some from France. The schools are now all on the main island, St. Pierre. A Merlin was spotted chasing a Swift.

Sea urchin far inland on Île aux Marins. Probably brought by a seagull.

Then for a Zodiac cruise around Le Grand-Colombier, an island that's the nesting site for auks of all kinds: Atlantic puffins that nest in deep burrows, thousands of Common murres standing shoulder to shoulder, and a few Razorbills and Thick-billed murres. All expert divers. The chicks leave the nest before they can fly, and migrate afloat accompanied by the moulting males, who also cannot fly. We also saw Black-legged kittiwakes, Black guillemots, and Harbour and Grey seals. The sea was very choppy and with the strong wind we got quite wet - or was it the driver? But that's why we have the wetskins.

Jacques Sirois, Zodiac driver and birder.

Puffins on the grass at the mouths of their burrows, and Common murres on the rock.

Puffin (Kylefoto).

Still from slideshow

Still from slideshow

Still from slideshow

Still from slideshow

Murres, still from slideshow

Still from slideshow

Seals on the rocks, murres, puffins and razorbills in the air.

The large church on Île aux Marins is in the distance

This is Kyle's photo of the inside of the church on Île aux Marins.

Then in to St. Pierre to walk around the town, see all the French cars, and spend Euros in the expensive shops.  The young people here have their university education in France or Québec paid for by the French government, as well as airfares and living allowance.