Dildo, Newfoundland

We couldn't drive past Dildo, Nfld., without dropping in to buy a postcard and some souvenirs.

Hanging out at the souvenir shop

But Dildo is more than just a funny name.

It's also a really pretty, typical Newfoundland village.

We walked down to the wharf

And enjoyed the brightly painted fishing sheds.

Nicely painted boats!

I think every town in Newfoundland has a building like this with the multicolored doors.

We checked out the Newfoundland version of a garbage can. (I think the usual wheelie bin would get blown away down the street.)

We spotted this mallard/domestic duck cross and his biracial family.

No place is properly visited unless you've stuck your face through  a hole in a sign!

That's our story and we're sticking to it.

 

Terra Nova National Park

 The first thing we ran into as we drove out of the campground on the Humber River was this fox on the side of the road.

We only spent one night in Terra Nova National Park so we didn't get to see a lot of the park.  Oh well, next time!

 We used the facilities to wash our laundry and treated ourselves to an ice cream cones.

Leo and I walked along  the lovely Big Brook.

No shortage

Of squirrels along the trail.

We followed along the river

And then walked through a bog 

and back up to the campground.  We stopped to enjoy the signature National Park red chairs

   that look out over the bog.
 

Humber River

The next day was a long driving day.  We drove down all the way back to Deer Lake.  Wildfire smoke blew in from Quebec.  We went from chilly weather in the north to hot, humid and smoky in thee interior.

We camped at Sir Richard Squires Provincial Park on the Humber River, which flows into Deer Lake.

We hiked to the viewpoint above the falls.

Below the falls there were lots of fishermen in rented dories and in their hip waders fishing for salmon.

But these salmon are the ones that got away!

 

L'anse aux Meadows

We were pretty excited when we saw our first icebergs as we drove north to L'Anse aux Meadows. We pulled off the road take photos and a bunch of other tourists pulled off too.

We camped at Pistolet Bay Provincial Park but I guess we took no pictures.  We never saw the bay but there was a freshwater pond with a swimming beach. It was not swimming weather.

The next morning we drove to L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site.  The first thing you see is this metal sculpture of Viking silhouettes.

We took a guided tour of the site. Our guide was born and raised in L'anse aux Meadows and used to run around as a kid among the Ruins. They used to think it was an old Indian settlement until two archaeologists from Denmark came looking for the Vinland of Viking sagas.

Our guide in front of the remains of a Norse longhouse.  The excavations were recovered with sod to leave them undisturbed for future excavations.

Our guide pointed out these bakeapple (cloudberry) flowers. He told us he harvests and eats twelve kinds of berries.  That would be bakeapple, partridge berry (lingonberry), blueberry, cranberry, raspberry, strawberries, crowberries. . . What else?

 

Below is a cloak pin found on the site which is one of the artifacts found that proved that it was a Viking Settlement. Also found were a spindle wheel for spinning wool and a bone needle.  

L'anse aux Meadows is the only authenticated Viking site in North America. .  They believe it was used as a temporary settlement used for boat repair,where they forged iron and made nails for ship repair.

Further along was a recreated Viking village with sod houses and a blacksmith that shows how the people lived at L'anse aux Meadows/.

The only inauthentic touch: they replaced the peat fires with natural gas.

Just down the road from the historic site is Norstead, a low-key attraction that also recreates a Viking village as they were in Iceland and Greenland but doesn't attempt to be historically accurate to life in L'anse aux Meadows.

The village centre's around a replica of a Viking cargo ship which was built and sailed from Greenland to L'Anse aux Meadows in 1997.

It was very cool.  

Here the re-enactor is explaining the boat to Leo. Sounds like it was a very harrowing trip.

It was a blustery day! We did a little re-enacting ourselves!

In nearby St. Lunaire-Griguet we stopped to photograph this large iceberg.

Then we went for lunch at the Daily Catch.  Leo had fish and chips and I had a delicious fish chowder.

Next door there were whale vertebrae perched on the roof.

 Pistolet Bay was moose central, we saw three moose on the road between the campsite and L'Anse aux Meadows.

Trip to the Tablelands

 

We drove to the Tablelands for a guided tour of this geologically significant area of Gros Morne Park.

Our enthusiastic ranger on 2nd day on the job

Gros Marne is a Unesco world heritage site because it "provides a rare example of the process of continental drift, where deep ocean crust and the rocks of the earth's mantle lie exposed." Thus the Tablelands.  The soil contains high concentrations of toxic minerals and little nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium, the essential minerals for plant life.

What vegetation you do see grows because of later glaciation which brought in other rocks.  Lichen was able to grow on the bits of normal rocks, and then other vegetation was able to establish itself.

Typical Gros Morne landscape on right, Tablelands landscape on the left. Low vegetation growing along the trail where outside gravel was brought in.

The trees are still very stunted.

The other successful plants are the carnivorous species because they get their nutrients from the insects they capture and digest:

Picture plant, Newfoundland's Provincial flower,

Butterwort:

And sundew.

Afterwards we continued on to Trout River, a typical Newfoundland fishing village.

They've built a boardwalk along the shore as a low-key tourist attraction.

We were the only tourists there.

But the season doesn't start till July.

Typical Newfie mode of transportation in front of the post office:

Later in the evening on our walk to the campsite pond 

a few warblers were gracious enough to pose for Leo.

An American redstart:

And the Bird of the Day, bay-breasted warbler.

Lousy Picture, but a lifer!