Oh Canada! June 9th - Blanc Sablon, Quebec to L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland

Day 12 Saturday, June 9^th 

 Point of interest: Does anybody really know what time it is?

• Quebec is in the Eastern time zone.
• Most of Labrador operates on the Atlantic time zone, even though it’s officially in the Newfoundland time zone.  The Labrador Straights is the only part of Labrador that operates on Newfie time.
• And the Newfie time zone is ½ hour ahead of Atlantic Time. 
• So… if it’s 3:00 in Blanc Sablon, it’s 4:00 in Happy Valley-Goose Bay and 4:30 in Red Bay.

Thank goodness John thought to ask if the ferry crossing schedule was Blanc Sablon time (Eastern time) or Newfoundland time (an hour and a half later), because the answer was that the ferry runs on Newfie time.  Had we gone under the assumption that the crossing time was listed as local time in Blanc Sablon, we’d have been an hour and a half late! (confused yet?)

The ferry left at 9:30 a.m. Newfie time which was 8:00 Blanc Sablon time, and we had to be there an hour ahead of that.  So, after a hearty and delicious and early breakfast, served in the dining room with a beautiful view of the bay, we headed for the ferry that was to take us to Newfoundland. 

The crossing was smooth, but cold and foggy.  John and I spent as much time on deck as we could so we could really get the experience of crossing the Strait of Belle Isle early season.  We were in several layers including our parkas and were pretty comfortable, if still cold.  Nobody else was on deck except for some nice folks from New York and some ferry employees going about their tasks, but we didn’t care.  We were enjoying every minute of it.

Speaking of the folks from New York, after we all had enough of the chill on deck, we had a nice visit with them as well as another young couple.  The other young couple (darn that I can’t remember where they were from) was the same couple we met coming up the St. Lewis trail while we were headed down – the folks in the Yaris. 

The fellow asked if we remembered him honking and waving at us on the road the day before and we said yes we did, but it didn’t hit us at the time who they were.  He told us that when they passed us on the road he recognized our JOZPOND license plate from walking past it on that St. Lewis trail – hence the honk and wave.

Then they told us that they, too, had crossed the Trans-Labrador highway – IN THEIR YARIS!  Wow!  And no major disasters on the road either.  I bow to their courage!

The couple on the right are the intrepid travelers who traversed the hinterlands in their Toyota Yaris. The folks on either side of John are the ones from New York.  They had also driven across the Trans Lab Highway.  We'd see more of them before the trip was over.    

We checked out the ferry’s gift store and found another selection of – guess what – Labradorite!  And their prices were very reasonable, so nothing doing but we had to buy yet more of the stuff.  John got a great hat to boot.

Driving to L’Anse aux Meadows from the ferry landing in St. Barbe (pronounced Barb) was enjoyable, but alas, no moose.   We did see several growlers and bergy bits driving  along, and LOTS of stacks of wood.

It's hard to tell, but the stacks of wood continue down the road as far as you can see.

Iceberg!  Can't you get a sense of the chill, ghostliness of it?  Can't you just imagine the difficulty of trying to see it in the night?

A growler and a bergy bit floating amid the surf

I love this picture

Boat graveyard

Point of interest: About the Bergs

• There are different categories of and names for icebergs.  The largest are called Bergs and can be miles long and tens of tons. 
• As they break up into smaller pieces, say the size of a ship, they are called growlers.
•  As they become smaller, maybe the size of a small house, a car and smaller, they are called bergy bits.
• Smaller pieces of ice are harvested in Labrador/Newfoundland and used to brew beer, distill gin, are bottled and sold as iceberg water and are used as cubes in expensive cocktails. 
• Only about 10% of a floating berg is above the water.  They can roll at any time, so when boating near one, you need to be very cautious. 
• The bergs that float by Newfoundland broke off the Greenland glaciers and have been floating around the currents of the North Atlantic for about 3 years by the time they reach NL.  Then they last only about another month before melting away.

We found our B&B, the Viking Village, with no problems and were delighted with our room which faced Hay Cove.  Many of the rooms we’ve been in have the ceilings done in ship lapped pine boards, similar to what you see on the walls in the picture.  It’s very campy and nice.  If we ever have to redo a ceiling at camp, I might think of doing that.

John in our room at Viking Village B&B

Hay Cove from our bedroom balcony, here and below

We were lucky enough to have Madge’s wonderful moose dinner that night, along with about 10 other guests.  It was rather like a pot roast with a generous portion of moose, potatoes, turnips and cabbage.  WONderful!  It was my first moose and I’m afraid it set the bar pretty high for any future moose meals I might have.

There is a constant wind here, and everyone hangs their clothes on the line to dry.  They literally whip dry in minutes, I’d expect.