Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Day 45 - St Anthony





We just boarded our charter bus and started for L’Anse aux Meadows when someone shouted
moooose! Not a half mile from the camp site was the first moose sighting for many of us! Newfoundland reportedly has approximately 120,000 moose; seemingly invisible until this morning.










L’Anse aux meadows (the cove of meadow’s) is now a National Heritage Site of Canada. It  marks the site of an early Norse village that was discovered in 1960, following an archeological dig by Anne Stine Ingstad. The park had an interpretive center, guided tour and a reconstructed long house fashioned after the information gained from the scientific findings.





 


 From the original site of the Norse village we moved down the road to a reconstructed Viking village and Port of Trade called Norstead.











This was very well done, with demonstrations of a day in the life of a Norseman and his family in the year 1000 BC.







 





















Sheila and Janice won the ax throwing contest, “nailing their throw” on the very first try! 




This was in contrast to some big guy’s (I won’t name names) who didn’t seem to know which end of the ax to use!







 Dark Tickle is a small island off the shores of Labrador and a Tickle is a ”Newfie” term for a small inlet. Following our morning of Viking adventures we stopped at the “DarkTickle” gift shop, specializing in local berry jams and jellies. We were enlightened as to the difference between a Blueberry, Bake apple, Newfoundland black berry and Partridgeberry to name just a few.








Following a quick lunch we were off to visit the Grenfell Historic Properties.




Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell was a physician, a man of faith, an entrepreneur, but most of all a humanitarian. He literally changed the lives of the Northern Newfoundland and Labrador fisherman, by developing a healthcare system, a fisherman’s cooperative to pay them a living wage, provided off season employment programs with training in such crafts as lumbering, carpentry, boat building, along with schools and educational programs for the children.









We visited the Curtis Memorial Hospital, named after one of Dr. Grenfells dedicated associates, and viewed the Jordi Bonet murals. The murals located in the rotunda of the hospital were commissioned by the institution to depict the “culture and history of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador”.






The Grenfell experience, lived up to demonstrating Dr. Grenfells philosophy in which he stated “that our purpose of this world is not to have and hold in this life but to give and serve”.



Our day was topped off with a Viking Feast, held in a Norsemen , long house which looked much like a very large “root cellar”.   After a traditional meal of capelin, cod tongue, a jigs dinner, salmon and some sort of cod stuffing, we were entertained by an authentic appearing Viking holding a grievance court.





The cast of the show was made up from our own Adventure Caravan Players, featuring Alan, Betty, and Monte as the protagonists




 Jim, Debi, Janet and Joe as the defendants. The complaints were “cheap wine”, “curly hair” and “a wild moose chase”. 




The court overwhelmingly ruled in favor of the defendants. What a fun night!









Submitted by:
#11 Gretta & David Storrs