L'Anse aux Meadows

Mantra stayed tied to the Government Wharf in St. Anthony today because the wind and sea conditions were not favorable for a departure to Greenland. We rented a car from the local dealership. I walked to pick it up, admiring the abundance of colorful wildflowers along the road.

Orange, yellow, white and pink flowers

Clover and other flowers

View of the harbor from the road

Woodland forget-me-nots

After a stop at the large local hardware (practically Lowe's or Home Depot size), we drove north to L'Anse aux Meadows, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and part of Parks Canada, which has free admission to all its locations this summer. It was an unusual and glorious sunny day, and we only needed a couple layers of tops (mainly because of the cold wind). 

L'Anse aux Meadows is famous as the oldest site where artifacts found during archeological digs prove that Norse voyagers from Greenland set up camp here around 1000 A.D. These artifacts are the oldest evidence of European presence in the Americas. Another interesting aspect of L'Anse aux Meadows is that it is considered the place where the descendants of the human migration from Africa to the northwest through Europe and the descendants of the people who traveled to the east through Asia and the Americas first met. 

In 1960, a Norwegian explorer and writer, Helge Ingstad, came upon the site at L’Anse aux Meadows. He was making an intensive search for Norse landing places along the coast from New England northward. At L’Anse aux Meadows, a local inhabitant, George Decker, led him to a group of overgrown bumps and ridges that looked as if they might be building remains. They later proved to be all that was left of that colony.

For the next eight years, Helge and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, led an international team of archaeologists from Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and the United States in the excavation of the site. The Ingstads found that the overgrown ridges were the lower courses of the walls of eight Norse buildings from the 11th century. The walls and roofs had been of peat turf, laid over a supporting wood frame. Long narrow fireplaces in the middle of the floor served for heating, lighting and cooking. 

Among the ruins of the buildings, excavators unearthed the kind of artifacts found on similar sites in Iceland and Greenland. Inside the cooking pit of one of the large dwellings lay a bronze, ring-headed pin of the kind Norsemen used to fasten their cloaks. Inside another building was a stone oil lamp and a small spindle whorl, once used as the flywheel of a handheld spindle. In the fire pit of a third dwelling was the fragment of a bone needle believed to have been used for a form of knitting. There was also a small-decorated brass fragment that once had been gilded. 

Situated at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland, this exceptional archaeological site consists of eight timber-framed turf structures built in the same style as those found in Norse Greenland and Iceland from the same period. The buildings include three dwellings, one forge and four workshops, on a narrow terrace overlooking a peat bog and small brook near the shore of Epaves Bay in the Straight of Belle Isle.

Brook by the Norse encampment

Ridges indicating walls of the peat covered buildings

The Ingstads and others were able to connect the remains of the buildings and the few artifacts with the Icelandic sagas. The Saga of Erik the Red and the Saga of the Greenlanders, both thought to have been written around 1200 based on oral history, contain detailed, but sometimes conflicting accounts of the voyages to Vinland (usually interpreted as coastal North America). These sagas are generally regarded as works of literature, rather than purely historical accounts, with scholars debating their factual accuracy. The artifacts and remains of buildings correspond with the stories told in the Vinland Sagas, which document the voyages of Leif Erikson and other Norse explorers who ventured westward across the Atlantic Ocean from Iceland and Greenland to find and explore new territory, and particularly to find a source of lumber, as Greenland has no trees and therefore no source of wood for constructing buildings and boats or for heat. It is speculated that L'Anse aux Meadows was established as a work camp by Leif Erikson, but the artifacts found there cannot prove that he was the man. 

Interestingly, the Norse did not set up the site as a permanent settlement. Rather, it was a self-supporting work camp, the main purpose of which was to fell trees and make lumber to be transported back to Greenland. It is believed that the captain and crew of a ship stayed at L'Anse aux Meadows until they were able to fill the ship with wood, from one to three years. Travel from and to Greenland was limited to the short summer season of about four months when voyaging was possible. After about ten years, L'Anse aux Meadows was abandoned. It is believed that the last ship's crew and captain packed all their valuable items which they had brought from Greenland or made locally, burned their buildings so that others could not use them, and departed forever. The fact that there are so few artifacts discovered during the archeological digs leads to this conclusion. 

There are three instances where the sagas relate contact with the native people and that trade took place. Conflict is not specifically cited, but it could be that relationships turned bad. It could also be true that the return on investment was not favorable. 

It seems amazing that so much of this camp is still discernible to the naked eye through the rectangular array of ridges and indentations in the boggy soil. Parks Canada has created a reconstruction of one of the large buildings and its outbuildings, and the rooms contain not only items that would have been in these buildings but re-enactors who were able to tell us about daily life. A single long building would have included private quarters for the captain and his wife and the navigator and his wife, a large room with a central fire pit where 25-30 men would have worked and slept together, often choking on the smoke from the fires. Another room would have been a place for doing woodwork and other tasks, while the farthest room would have been the women's workroom. The women at the camp would have been not only the wives of the captain and the navigator but there servants. Together, these women worked together to card, spin and weave wool, sew and do other domestic chores. They would have made the cloth for new sails and sail repairs, with the sails all being made of woven wool. 

Re-creation of a Norse large hall

Communal room

Room and sleeping closets for the captain and navigator

Section of inner wall made with rough hewn wood 

Woman sewing in the common room

Man, having turned a bowl, finishing it with a hand tool

Norse loom, with stones to tension the wool strands

Woman showing how to use a handheld spindle

After a tour with a park ranger and our exploration of the reconstructed buildings and conversations with the re-enactors, we left the historical part of L'Anse aux Meadows to hike on the Birchy Nuddick Trail, walking over craggy low hills, along a beach with large boulders and black sand, and across boggy land on well-constructed boardwalks. Islands off the coast punctuate the ocean water. The subarctic maritime climate (cool to cold and wet) of the area supports small, dense forests of short balsam firs and spruces. Extensive barrens are covered with reindeer moss and lichen that thrive in the windy, harsh conditions. At this time of year, wildflowers are blooming and berries are ripening in the coastal heathlands, and we delighted in noticing the variety of colorful species low to the ground. At the end of the trail, we came to Skin Pond, so named because seal skins were soaked in there to soften them before processing.

Enis and Peter by the beach

Clear water and islands offshore

Irises by a spring

Crowberries and lichen

Barrens

Purple pitcher plant, a carnivorous species

Yellow water lilies and sheep laurel at Skin Pond

Cloudberries

It was just after 4 p.m. when we got back to the car, and we had to hurry to get back to St. Anthony before 5:00, when we had to return the vehicle. I drove slightly over the speed limit. We made it to Foodland at 4:45 and stocked up on last provisions. I dropped Peter and Enis and all our groceries and hardware purchases on the wharf and quickly drove to the dealership, only a couple minutes late.

While JibSea and Next Chapter left early this morning, we were glad we spent the day here and spent the time to visit L'Anse aux Meadows. It's quite possible we will never be here again.

Peter is now working on making pockets that can be attached by the rudder bearings to hold he few dozen disposable hand warmers we have so that they can keep the rudder from seizing up in this cold water. We have noticed that the wheel movement has become progressively more stiff as we have traveled north. This is a jerry-rigged solution.

Enis has made attempt number two to install plastic sheeting to the back of the pilot house to provide protection from the cold and wind, using the tape with stronger adhesive, the spring-loaded curtain rod, the lighter weight plastic and the clamps we purchased at the hardware.

Are we ready to depart for Greenland tomorrow morning? I think we are as ready as we ever are going to be.

St. Anthony, Newfoundland

On Tuesday, July 29, at 10 a.m., we cast off our lines from the dock in Bonavista. The wind was about 12 knots from the SSE, and we sailed up the coast of Newfoundland for three hours wing and wing, with the spinnaker pole holding out the clew, before having to turn the engine on. The wind was fickle on this trip. A half hour later, the engine was off again as we were able to sail. By 4:30, we were sailing dead down wind at 6.5 knots, wing and wing again with the pole, with the wind at 16 knots. There was a failure in the TinyPilot motor controller while I was napping, but Peter, of course, was able to fix the problem. Before sunset, the wind picked up to 20-24 knots and was clocking to the southwest. 

Sailing wing and wing with the pole

Early this morning, stormy skies poured down rain, and Peter and Enis put three reefs in the mainsail and partially furled the genoa. When Sherri took watch just before 9 a.m., it was still dismal and damp, but the sky cleared within half an hour, and we were motor-sailing with both sails. Enis was already asleep in the aft cabin, and Peter went to bed also. Alone on deck, I spotted our first iceberg! At first, I thought I was seeing a great white cruise ship on the horizon. When I realized that it was an irregularly shaped berg with bergy bits trailing after it, I yelled down the companionway; Peter came up but Enis was exhausted and didn't hear my announcement, and I did not waken him. The berg was about three miles away toward land. It was irregularly shaped, with a deep crevasse near the center from which an almost vertical face rose on the inner, southern end of the giant chunk of ice. Luckily, the sun was shining brightly and we could see it clearly, even the shadows where it had been undercut by the ocean waves.

First iceberg and a bergy bit to its right

The rest of our journey today was uneventful, with the capricious strength of the wind causing us to use the engine off and on several times before we arrived in the harbor of St. Anthony at nearly 7 p.m., dwarfed behind a 65-foot fishing vessel.

The fishing boat in front of us

Part of the St. Anthony fishing fleet on the eastern shore of the harbor

After all the lines were secured and we settled in, we put our layers back on and went for a walk even though there does not appear to be a town center. As it was, we never made it to the main road because we stopped by to see the trawler on the adjacent wharf, where Travis and Stephanie from Jibsea were visiting. The owners and their two children, ages three and nine, welcomed us onboard, and we stayed to chat for an hour or so. They also plan to leave on Friday for Greenland. I spent most of my time playing with the three year old.

Lovely wild flowers on the wharf

I hastily made dinner when we returned to Mantra around 9:30, and the three of us are all on our computers now. 

At 7:30 a.m. on Friday, July 25, we cast off from the dock at St. John's and continued to voyage north while waiting for favorable weather conditions to cross to Greenland. As usual, the sky above was a mass of low-lying pale gray clouds, and it was damp and cold, requiring several layers of clothing. With 18-20 knot southwest wind, we made good speed, which always makes Peter happy.

Peter at the wheel under gloomy skies

About 1:30 p.m.,we had reached the Baccalieu Tickle, which was a new nautical term for me, so I had to look it up. The term "tickle" is particular to Newfoundland and defined as a narrow salt water strait, as in an entrance to a harbour or between islands or land masses. In this case, the tickle is between the Bay of Verde Peninsula (part of the larger Avalon Peninsula) and Baccalieu Island, the largest seabird island in Newfoundland. It supports the greatest diversity of breeding seabirds in eastern North America, including storm petrals, Atlantic puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, northern gannets, northern fulmars, black guillemots, common murres, thick-billed murres, razorbills, herring gulls, and great black-backed gulls. Baccalieu's size of three square miles dwarfs that of tiny Puffin Island, only about 50 feet to its west. Thousands of puffins were floating on the water by the island, diving for fish and flying in swarms through the air. It is quite difficult to get sharp photos or videos of birds in constant motion from a rocking boat with the low light of overcast skies requiring longer shutter speeds. So, I tried not to focus on getting the best shots and instead just enjoy being surrounded by that many birds--mostly puffins but also others.

Approaching Puffin and Baccalieu Island in breaking waves

Birds on Puffin Island

Flying puffins and other seabirds

Puffins on the water and flying

After about half an hour of circling around the area, we continued north toward Bonavista, having decided to bypass Trinity Bay. The wind increased to 25-30 knots from the WSW and the seas were up to 8 feet, requiring hand steering. 

We encountered whales, both humpbacks and minkes, starting around 6:30 p.m., off the coast of the Bonavista Peninsula. This was a real thrill, watching them blow and arc up from the water, with the sea streaming off their glistening black backs. The humpbacks usually raised their flukes and sometimes slapped them on the surface. What a joy it was to see them and anticipate where the next one might be spotted. Up they came repeatedly off the bow and stern and to starboard and port, sometimes quite close. Adult humpbacks are about the same length and weight as Mantra, so we wouldn't want to tussle with them. 

Minke whale

(Tomorrow I hope to figure out how to upload videos!)

At 8:40 p.m., we tied up at the public dock in Bonavista. We immediately went ashore to seek out restaurants. Some were already closed. Two that looked promising in terms of the menu and the ambiance had already closed their kitchens. The only choice was PK's Restaurant, so we ate there. I had a pizza with pineapple and mushrooms; the mushrooms were canned mushrooms (yuck!). Peter and Enis both had deep fried seafood and fries, and it appeared that the oil in the deep fryer had been used too many times. It was definitely the most basic and uninspired meal we have had so far.

Mantra on the breakwater dock in Bonavista Harbour

The next morning (Saturday, July 26), it continued--no surprise--to be damp and dismal, but at least the temperature was in the mid-60s! (THIS IS NOT SUMMER!) After a late breakfast, Peter and I went for a walk. We visited the Mockbeggar Plantation house, named for the English hamlet in Hampshire, England, where the first owners were from. A fishery plantation site since the 1700s, the Mockbeggar Plantation was a thriving operation that played a major role in the development of Bonavista. The main house was built in the 1870s and has been restored to 1939. F. Gordon Bradley, a Newfoundland statesman and advocate for Confederation with Canada lived here with his family until his death in 1966. The house was part of his wife's property. Some of the furniture in the house was constructed by Bradley's father, who was a cabinetmaker, and many of the household items belonged to the Bradley's. 

From there, we walked to the hardware, which we found closed, along with the grocery store next door, because it was Bonavista Day, an annual celebration of John Cabot's 1497 landing in North America. Apparently, the records are not definitive, and other places in Newfoundland claim to be his first landfall, but in 1997, to mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, both the Canadian and British governments declared Cape Bonavista as representing Cabot's first landing site. The town's name supposedly comes from the Italian "O Buon Vista" ("Oh happy sight"), attributed to John Cabot when he saw land after crossing the Northern Atlantic, but one has to wonder. How do we know what he said when we don't even know where he landed? 

The locals, who are very helpful and friendly, claim, as they do in St. John's, that there has been a town here for over 500 years, but this is not quite true. While temporary, seasonal fishing camps existed, historical records indicate that permanent settlement did not take place until the mid-17th century, with the first record of a census dating to 1675, so in reality, there was no town here until a little over 350 years ago. 

We were walking back to the main downtown area when a nice man pulled over and offered us a ride as it was pouring rain. He had no particular destination and agreed to drop us off at the Ryan Premises, a National Historic Site. It is preserved as an example of a large-scale merchant operation in an early Newfoundland outport. 

Born in Bonavista, James M. Ryan was the first of ten children of an Irish immigrant who, along with his brothers, built an international trading company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On October 20, 1857, when Ryan was just 15 years old, he and his father started a fishery supply business and public house at Bailey's Cove, a section of Bonavista. This became a successful enterprise, and in 1869 Ryan had acquired enough capital to purchase the site of Ryan's Premises on Bonavista Harbour. The company bought and sold salt cod, supplied salt and other materials for the cod fishery, and sold general merchandise. Incorporated in 1870 as James Ryan and Company, the enterprise had already expanded beyond Bonavista to other communities along the coast. By 1895, James Ryan Ltd was exporting 100,000 quintals (approximately 5,000,000 kg) of salt cod, approximately 10% of the total for Newfoundland. James Ryan died in 1917, but the family carried on the fish trade until 1952, and remained in the retail business until 1978.

Two of the buildings on the site, the former retail store and the fish store, contain fascinating exhibits about Bonavista as a fishing community; inshore, international and Labrador fisheries; and the seal harvesting industry. One section is chock-full of items from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, arranged by theme, including items found in a dentist's office, a doctor's office, a school, a general store, and a carpenter's workshop. Across the road from these buildings is the Proprietor's house, where rooms are evocative of the wealthy lifestyle of James Ryan. 

Household items on display in the Ryan Premises' museum

More items in the fascinating museum

Items from a dentists office

Peter at the Ryan Premises

James Ryan's home

Dining room with many original pieces of furniture

By the time we had finished visiting the Ryan Premises, the rain had stopped, although the skies had not cleared. We returned to the dock and Mantra just as Enis was getting ready to go out for a walk after having worked all afternoon. 

Late in the afternoon, Peter and Enis walked to the floating dock to visit Jib Sea, the only other sailboat at that time in the harbor, where they met Travis and Stephanie and learned that they were also traveling to Greenland imminently. Peter and Enis arrived back with crème brûlée, which we decided to save for dessert after dinner in town. We went to the Bonavista Brewing Taproom, where the food, service and atmosphere were a big improvement over P.K's. 

On Sunday morning (July 29), I awoke, as usual later than Peter and Enis, to find that the skies were at least a pale shade of blue and that Enis had gone out to the Lovely Grand Bakeshop for coffee and returned with large scones. Enis seemed to be expecting something less dry and dense, but Peter and I both thought that the texture and taste were what was to be expected in an English scone.

Since our arrival on the dock, many people, locals and tourists, had stopped to admire our boat and chat with us, and we spent much more time in conversation than usual on a dock. In between, we got some work done. Peter and Enis worked on various boat tasks, and I continued with laundry. I had done two loads the previous day after the rain and before dinner, but nothing dried outside and we put up a clothes line over our bed and used every hook available, to no avail, even with the heat and the dehumidifier on. It's hard to overcome the ambient 95% humidity. On Sunday, I did another four loads, and the weak sunshine and breeze actually dried everything before the end of the day.

Travis and Stephanie has gone for a bike ride to the lighthouse on the point and seen puffins up close, strongly encouraging us to go out there. After tourists with questions and comments left, they came aboard and we exchanged tales and plans. 

After the last load of laundry was done at 3 p.m., Peter and Enis set aside their work and we set off to walk the three miles or so to the point, hoping that someone would pick us up along the way. While still in town, we passed by a house where freshly caught cod was hung out in the front yard to dry. 

Catch of the day

Enis with cod

Cod drying

Despite having our thumbs out most of the time, no one slowed down to pick us up. Eventually, we gave up and just enjoyed the scenery.

Bonavista

Cows in community pasture

Fish flake, a raised area for drying salted cod

Multi-colored rocks on the coast

Bluebells

Black crowberry (left) and common juniper (right)

Dwarf cornel

Puffins on land, taking off and landing

Sheer drop off at the headland

Cape Bonavista Lighthouse

In all, we walked seven and a half miles, and, while we could see puffins on the rock across a narrow crevasse from the headland, none of them were on our side of the water. In all, we were out for five hours, only stopping for ice cream at the Little Dairy King. As the day progressed, the patches of washed out blue diminished until there was only gray. But, around sunset, there were some gorgeous golden tones in the sky and on the water and land.

Near sunset on the Cape Shore Trail

Sunlit reeds among the peaty soil

Peter and Enis decided to stop at Marsh's for take-out pizza. I had already had pizza twice within a week, and the ice cream had filled me up, so I continued on to the boat. Fortunately, although all traces of sunlight had disappeared, the laundry was still dry on the lifelines and hadn't started to collect the condensation that comes with the night. As it turned out, they would have had to wait an hour for a pizza, so they chose fried chicken, fries, coleslaw and (frozen) fried mozzarella sticks. It was a dinner of greasy fast food.

The plan was to leave today. This morning, by the time I awoke, Enis had already been to the grocery store and hardware, and Peter had spoken with Travis and Stephanie, who departed just after that. I made us breakfast burritos and then began to prepare food for the passage, including pasta salad and couscous salad. Enis cleaned the deck and filled the water tanks. He had found plastic sheeting and worked on installing weather protection for the pilot house, which is open at the aft end. After going to the harbormaster's office and paying the $20/night docking fee, Peter returned with fantastic, mounted photographs of puffins, which Jerry, the dock master, had taken and was selling for only $10 each. Then, Peter went into the forepeak to work on wiring for the spotlight. 

Other sailing vessels began to arrive on the dock, all Newfoundlanders. The woman on the first boat to tie up expressed relief that they were back on land.  She also offered to give us a ride if we needed to run errands. At first I declined, but then I thought some more about how the prices in Canada are reasonable, with the Canadian dollar at 75% of the American dollar, and about how I did not know where or how I would be able to provision in Greenland or whether there would be a good selection of food, so I took her up on her offer (right after I purchased a couple more of Jerry's photographs). Enis and I went to Foodland, where she waited for us, and stocked up on fruits and vegetables, cheese, milk, eggs, cooking oil, snacks and Coke Zero (which Enis prefers to Diet Coke). 

Sometime after 3 p.m., I prepared a very late lunch of pasta with mushroom marinara sauce before we departed. After we ate, we looked at the weather again as well as the forecast and analysis from Chris Parker, who basically said I wouldn't go there if I were you. By Friday, wind conditions off the southwest coast of Greenland have the possibility of being Force 10, or full storm. (A hurricane is Force 12.) We made a prudent decision to continue on tomorrow morning to St. Anthony's. Later in the day, we received a text from Travis and Stephanie saying they were diverting to St. Anthony's because of the possibility of very nasty weather in a few days, so I guess we will see them again. We will leave for there tomorrow morning. 

Meanwhile, we continue to endure the subarctic climate here, where both the air temperature and water temperature are hovering around 50 degrees F (10 degrees C). Fortunately, the heating system is working well and we have plenty of layers of warm clothing. What was I thinking when I packed four swimsuits and two sundresses???