Where the Vikings Landed

We got up this morning around 7 AM to fog. We both showered (mine was cold, unfortunately) and went down to breakfast around 8:30. The dining table was packed with guests. They could seat 8 at a time and it turned out the B&B was overflowing last night. They have at least 5 bedrooms to rent out and all were full. As guests left the dining table, Marilyn cleaned up the spots and put down new placemats and napkins and re-set the spot for the next guest.
When we were seated, there was a couple from Morewood, ON just finishing and two young lads from Saskatchewan just about to be served. There was a plate of fresh tea biscuits, butter, home made partridgeberry, bakeapple and strawberry/rhubarb jams, a plate of fresh fruit, orange juice, apple juice and a pot of coffee on the table. We were asked if we would like a full hot breakfast, sausage, eggs and toast and we both said “yes”.  Marilyn chatted with and waited on everyone and her husband Lou, did all the cooking.
Shortly after we arrived at the table, the final guests arrived. They were a young couple, originally from Belgium, now living in Brampton, as she works for the school board there; and her sister, who is visiting from Belgium.We didn’t get back to our room until 9:20. We packed up, left, and drove the short distance to the L’Anse aux meadows Historic site to see the Viking settlement. 

The plaque at the entrance to this site says “ Discovered in 1960, this is the first authenticated Norse site found in North America and could be Leif Ericsson’s short-lived Vinland camp. Some time about AD 1000 Norse seafarers established a base here from which they explored southwards. The traces of bog iron found – the first known example of iron smelting in the new world – in conjunction with evidence of carpentry suggest that boat repair was an important activity. The distance from their homelands and conflict with Native people may have led the Norse to abandon the site.”

We went on a guided tour and we were very fortunate to have a local fellow, who has always lived in this area and now works for Parks Canada, as a tour guide.
He was a very interesting character. He told us that he played on these mounds when he was a kid. They thought they were old Indian mounds. He also helped out during the archeological dig and became very knowledgeable about the site which led to his employment with Parks Canada. We spent about 2 ½ hrs exploring the site. 

It was noon and we decided to forego Norstead and drive back to Lighthouse Point in St-Anthony one more time for a final glimpse at some of the 120 icebergs that are supposed to be in this area.  As we were driving back, I said I felt like one of those people in the show “tornado chasers”, only we were chasing icebergs. It was just as foggy at the site as the day before, but we did see one iceberg. Before beginning our 5 hour drive back to Deer Lake we had lunch at Pizza Delight.  It was 2:30 PM when we left St. Anthony. 

 
The scenery on the drive back was once again simply breathtaking. A couple of times today, I found myself choked up; a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes – just in awe of the beauty of this country. I was looking at a beautiful blue/green body of water on my right with the sun glistening on the water and the rays spreading out in a fan at the horizon; and beautiful green tree covered mountains on my left; our favourite music playing on the MP3 through the car speakers, and driving with my honey. There were a couple of spots along this road that we picked out as the perfect spot to build a house.

We took a lot of photos on the drive back. As we drove, both yesterday and today, we noticed quite a few vegetable gardens along this route. There wasn’t a house or building anywhere near them – and it appeared that people just found a patch of fertile soil, put a fence around it and planted a garden. Many of them had plastic bags hanging from lines surrounding them to keep the birds away. We never saw anyone working in any of these gardens and Marcel kept joking that perhaps they were grow ops!

 
We also saw numerous locations along the roadside where lobster pods were stacked and huge stacks of wood. 

Sometimes there were stacks of very long logs (the length of a tree). In other places 8-10 foot logs were stacked to form tee-pees. Our best guess is this is how they dried the wood. We also spotted a wooden sleigh oln the side of the road, used to carry wood in the winter.

About 3 km up the road from our RV park, we found a country market. We had heard about this place from Marcel’s niece Christine and her husband Van. We were told we absolutely must stop there and were pleased that it was still open. We bought a jar of Partridgeberry jam, one of black currant jelly and a container of fresh cream for breakfast tomorrow. We also bought a package of home made sausages – that will be dinner one night this week. 

We didn’t get back to the RV park until 8PM. Total mileage for this trip to the tip and back to our campground is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,000 km. We reset our trip odometer part way up the road and when we looked at it when we were nearing our campground again we had put on 940 km. I have to say it was definitely worth the drive.