July 18, 2001. Monday we traveled from Bonavista to Gander where we visited and air museum and went to the Silent Witness Memorial.
3488 3495The Silent Witness Memorial honors the 256 members of the 101st Airborne Division that died in the crash of an Arrow Air charter plane on Dec. 12, 1985.
There is a statue of and unarmed American soldier holding the hands of a boy and a girl, who at one time, each held an olive branch. The olive branch signifies the peacekeeping mission the soldiers were returning from in the Sinai peninsula. The boy and girl now hold American Flags and the girl has the remnants of the olive branch. The statues are looking in the direction of Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
3504 3511Gander pictures are at: http://summer2011jb.shutterfly.com/pictures/2984
July 19. Tuesday morning we were off to Twillingate, NL which calls itself the “Iceberg Capital of the World”.
They really do have ice bergs here. As we were setting up one of our group started hollering about an ice berg, we could see it from the campground although it was a good distance away from us. The next morning as we were driving to see a place called Prime Berth we saw a couple more in the bay
3523.3 3526 Prime Berth is a fishing museum created by David Boyd, who is also a fisherman. Due to quotas set by the department of Fisheries, he makes his quota in just a few days fishing and so has plenty of time to run the museum.
3542.1 354 He works at getting the message out about what is happening to the fisheries. He told us about a fish called the Capelin. It is a member of the smelt family and is an essential part of the food chain, eaten by whales, seals, cod, squid, mackerel and seabirds. Besides being used for fish meal and fish oil products, apparently the roe of this fish has become a delicacy. The roe is mixed with wabasi and sold as wasabi caviar. Huge numbers are caught and his fear is that the schools will be decimated as the cod were. If that would happen it would impact all the other fish that depend on the capelin for food.
The museum has many artifacts, one being a 50 foot whale skeleton. Boyd found it dead and now has the skeleton on display. There was another man there who told stories, sang a few songs about Newfoundland and played an instrument called an “Ugly Stick” which, when used properly, could find it’s way into a percussion section of a band.
3542.5 3548The baleen from the whale was quite stiff, Boyd also demonstrated how to prepare a cod for salting, which preserved the cod for long periods of time. Salt Cod was a major industry before the fishing ban went into effect.
Our next stop was the Durrell Museum which is situated on a hill with the name of “Old Maid”. It over looks a harbor and many of us took the time for pictures before we went into the museum.
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3579.1 3590The museum had many displays, one that caught my attention was the story of polar bears that found their way to Twillingate. The first one had to be put down while it was possible to tranquilize the second and move it safely away.
3591 3611The final stop, not counting the one for ice cream, was at the Long Point Light House.
The terrain is extremely rugged but there are many hiking trails for those with strong legs and good knees. At the base of a cliff we could see a chunk of ice from a former ice berg.
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Thursday was our last day in Twillingate. We went on a whale / iceberg watching boat and had what was probably, for us, a once in a lifetime experience. We came up to a small ice berg, circled around for pictures.
3631 3634Notice how the water has melted the ice causing an overhang. As the boat turned away we heard a loud sound, something between a long cracking and a bang. As we all looked toward the ice berg we could see a big chunk of it breaking off and falling into the water. None of us were fast enough to get a picture of the chuck falling but here is a sequence that shows what happened after. These first two show the ice berg before and just after the chunk falls into the water. The chunk is submerged and some of the spay is seen.
3640 3641Having lost the weight of the chunk of ice the ice berg rocks backward and forward as the chunks of ice now float away. By the way, the boat captain wasted no time in moving further away.
3642 3645.1Later as we were inbound we saw that the iceberg had changed positions owning to the change in its center of gravity and buoyancy. Shortly after that we did see a small whale.
We went to another ice berg that looked like a solid block from a distance but surprisingly changed shape as we went around it. There was even a face looking at us. There are more pictures of this ice berg on line.
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3666 3667We ended the day at a small theater in Twillingate where we saw a group of seven women called the “Spit Peas” play their instruments and sing, several song being folk songs about life in the Maritimes and Twillingate. One of the members wrote several of the songs. We enjoyed their music so much that we bought one of their CD’s.
July 22, Friday. We drove, while tapping our toes to the Split Peas CD, to Rocky Harbour, a town in Gros Morn National Park. BTW the most expensive gas, so far, has been $5.14 per gallon for regular.
Twillingate pictures are at: http://summer2011jb.shutterfly.com/pictures/2863
We are here for three nights and will leave here Monday, July 25 for St. Anthony NL. We did some sight seeing in the park, stopped at the Visitors Center to watch an excellent movie about the park and did some cleaning of the motor home, washing clothes and relaxing. This area was settled by the French and name Gros Morne. Gros Morne translated is supposed to mean “Big Hill”. Here is a picture of it.
July 24. After dinner we took a ride to look for moose. There are supposed to be about 5000 in the park. It was approximately 8:45 PM when we spotted two of them.
Tomorrow we leave for St. Anthony. That will be our furthest point on this trip. After that we start heading back toward Hermon Maine where the caravan will disband.
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