Baie Verte

We left Deer Lake in pouring rain, and the drive along the Trans Canada was interesting. Like all major highways in Canada, the heavy truck traffic has worn ruts into the pavement that nicely fill with water when it rains. Our van is quite light on the front end and I’m always aware of the possibility of hydroplaning so tend to either hug the side of the road to stay out of the ruts (preferred) or hug the centre line (not fun with lots of oncoming traffic). Also fun was seeing the line of cars stretching behind us. There are lots of passing zones and as we drive around 90 kph it’s great fun providing commentary to each other watching cars and trucks all trying to get past the slow VW van! Thankfully we got off the major highway for the last 45 minutes to Baie Verte.

We stopped at the visitor information centre and had a great chat with the 3 high school students staffing the centre. They were really happy to see people and like many places we go here, our old VW Westfalia camper gets a lot of admirers. We talked to them about places to see and what it was like to live in the area. The major employment is either in the copper or gold mines in the area or fishing. Most young people leave, and one of the 3 students had just graduated and was off to Memorial University in September. Like all small towns in Newfoundland (and most other places we’ve travelled), they are slowing declining. People do go back, later in life but you end up with towns with few, if any, young families and a slow decline is services and support structures.

We had lunch in the van looking out over the water and then decided to head out to La Scie, another small town on the coast about 30 minutes away. There is a tea house there that Cathy found on the NL tourism site. The road there was dead straight, rolling up and down hills, and recently re-paved, a very nice drive. La Scie is another of the old French fishing ports that are all along this part of the Province. The French starting fishing here in the 1500’s and there’s still a small fishing fleet there. We found the Outpost Museum and Tea Room and what a find! The building was the home to husband of the couple operating it as a Tea Room. We had a long talk with him about the house, our travels, and of course, our van, as he was another fan of these old campers! 26 years ago they converted the house into the museum and tea room and either built or bought the house next door. His wife, Valerie, who runs tea room has been operating this since it opened. She was working in the fish plant up until it closed. Tourism is their livelyhood now and the are seeing that slowly declining as well. They host a kitchen party Saturday and Wednesday and while we’d love to go, we missed Saturday and are leaving Wednesday for the Twillingate area. There was another lady working with Valerie who was from Virginia. She and her husband started coming to Canada many years ago when they were looking for a place for a bike trip. They ended up taking the ferry from Maine to Nova Scotia, fell in love with the area and have been back, exploring the east coast, every year. She comes to La Scie every year for the summer then heads to the Southern States for the winter. They mentioned another American couple who had been coming there for many years as well who ended buying a house in La Scie. They spend 6 months in there every year!

Monday, the weather changed dramatically. From a high of 10 in pouring rain on Sunday to 24 and sun on Monday! We headed north for the 30 minute drive to Fleur de Lys to check out the Dorset Soapstone Quarry and Museum. Unfortunately the museum was not there. They were redoing the building and there were a couple of bumps getting all the artifacts back in place. The quarry itself was only 200 meters behind the museum, and beyond that, there was a trail to Spotted Pt., at the tip of the peninsula. The Dorset Quarry is named after the Dorset Inuit that were the original people living in Newfoundland between 500 BC to 500 AD, predating the Vikings! They quarried the soapstone from the cliffs, slowly chiselling it away with harder stone chisels they made to create lamps and bowls. As you see from the picture below, they chiselled the shape of the object they wanted and managed to remove it from the cliff face for finishing. Some apparently were removed already hollowed but so far no one can explain how they managed this with only simple stone tools, including the archeologist who studied the area.

We continued on the trail that was about 2 km out to the point and the views were spectacular. We were hoping to see whales again, but they still haven’t arrived in this area. Oh well.

When we got back from our walk, we had a talk with a young woman who was at the museum-to-be helping out. She had just graduated with a degree in Sustainability Resource Management, and was hoping to either teach or work in the resource industry. It‘s the stories of the people we’re meeting here that‘s making this trip special. For instance, the young man we first talked to at the museum was from Alberta but had married a girl from Fleur de Lys. He’d spent time studying theology in Germany but felt he’s found home in a small town in Newfoundland. Baie Verte and area is a bit more out of the way, and when we’ve stopped, locals always ask were we’re from and hope that we’re enjoying our trip (ok, driving the old van helps…). Not sure what tomorrow will bring but pretty sure it will consist of some mix of scenery, driving, great people, and maybe a good feed!

Got up to another sunny day, with temps forecast to hit the mid 20’s. We decided to explore the west coast of the middle arm. First stop was Westport to hopefully get a walk out to the lighthouse. As luck would have it, the trail was closed for maintenance. Oh well, still worth the drive. A beautiful spot! Next was a trip over to Purbeck‘s Cove, about 6km away down a dirt road. A small fishing village, and again, very beautiful!

We still wanted to go a walk so we took a drive out to Seal Cove. Jackpot! As drove around the last bend, we saw a large iceberg that was slowly drifting south. Found a place to have lunch then took a walk up the Iceberg viewing platform. Chatted with a local who was hard at work loading wood into a trailer. This was the only iceberg to pass the area this year, and there was none the past couple of years.

Our hoped for walk to a lookout was closed so loaded with pictures we drove back into Baie Verte to wash the van. This is the first time it’s been in an actual car wash since we’ve owned it (I’ve always washed it by hand). We found out just h where it leaked and how much! Not surprised, and not really an issue. Just wanted to get some of the road grime and salt off for awhile.

Back to the campsite for a lazy afternoon and a perfect end to touring around the Baie Verte area. In 3 days we’ve visited Baie Verte, La Scie, Fleur de Lys, Westport, Purbeck’s Cove, and Seal Cove. Lots we didn’t see of course but there’s always next time. Tomorrow we’re off to Dildo Run Provincial Park, just south of Twillingate.