At Noddy Cove just south of L'Anse aux Meadows there was an iceberg just under the headland, with a path leading up to a point a couple of hundred metres above it. There were loads of icebergs around Twillingate and again along the east coast of the Northern Peninsula, but this was the most exciting view we had of one. The photo does not do it justice -- the iceberg doesn't look much bigger than an iceberg lettuce, and I look like I could just about toss my hat onto it.
A lot of historic places have lost their specialness, but L'Anse aux Meadows still feels like the end of something
. Once the extremity of Europe, still the end of Newfoundland, bleak and windswept. The Norse were on the verge of settling North America five centuries before Columbus, but changed their mind. There is much scope for the imagination here.
The Grenfell Museum and house (two sites with single admission) is well worth a visit. Surely Grenfell deserves to be better known in Canada.
The thrombolites at Flowers Cove are said to exist at only one other place in the world, in Australia. I still don't really understand what they are, but having walked on them, I am content with that.
Englee is a substantial community somewhat off the main road, but also worth a visit. If you go that way, stop at the signposted salmon stream south of Main Brook, where the salmon have to swim through a lengthy underground channel to get to where they want to go. From a few feet away you can look right down at them milling about the entrance to the cavern, trying to get up enough courage to plunge into the darkness.
This was also where we saw the moose on the road. The people we stayed with at Green Island Cove said someone had once counted 80 moose during a single drive down from St Anthony at dawn. Moose are an introduced species on the island, but there are said to be three per square kilometre up around these parts.
Northern Peninsula
Thursday, July 07, 2016
St. Anthony, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
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2025-02-15