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graculusNorth from Port au Choix, I headed off to one of the main must-see points of my trip, the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows - this UNESCO listed site is the earliest verified European settlement in North America, dating back to around a thousand years ago.
Unfortunately, as I discovered when I got there, the visitor centre is being refurbished and wasn't done yet for the new tourist season, so what was available for visitors was severely curtailed. No introductory video (which talks about the archaeology done on site in the 1960's and the information held in Norse sagas that seems to link to it) and no exhibit of what was discovered.
What the guidebooks didn't tell me was about the risk of crashing your car driving to L'Anse aux Meadows because of the sudden appearance of icebergs. The official tourism website has an extremely cool page that has a map of where the icebergs are so I knew there were a bunch off the northern capes, but that didn't prepare me for driving up an incline in the road and suddenly being presented with this off to my right:
A reconstructed peat house at L'Anse aux Meadows, which I can vouch was extremely cosy and warm inside on a miserable and damp June day:
There are resident interpreters on site, dressed in Viking-period clothing, who are more than happy to talk all you like about what life would have been like there. Unfortunately, I was a little thrown by hearing one of them talking about his winter home in Tampa! :P
More icebergs:
A common roadsign in northern Newfoundland:
Off the shore at nearby Raleigh, this is what happens when icebergs start to fall apart - this was about 50 feet from the beach:
The coast from near my bed and breakfast on Cape Onion, just round from where the previous pic was taken, the next morning, complete with a small iceberg:
Another from where I was staying:
The next day, it was off to St. Anthony for a boat trip out to see icebergs and whales, complete with yet another beautiful blue sky. Here's the town itself, which was at that time totally without electricity on the left hand shore because of a truck taking down three electricity poles. So no Tim Horton's for me! :(
No whales either, on this trip, but the most awesome iceberg (of which I took about 40 pics, so I won't inflict all of those on you!), about 110 feet high and 200 across, we were told that it had been in the same place for about 4-5 weeks. The water was about 600 feet deep at this point and the iceberg had grounded there.
The blue lines you can see are meltwater where the iceberg has cracked, water has flowed into the crack and then refrozen. It takes the icebergs about two years to get from Baffin Island to the northern coast of Newfoundland, as they get trapped in the pack ice each winter.
This gives an idea of how close to shore even large icebergs can end up:
Finally, in the next post, it's farewell to the north of the island (plus moose!) and back to Gros Morne National Park for a little kayaking before I have to go home! :(
Unfortunately, as I discovered when I got there, the visitor centre is being refurbished and wasn't done yet for the new tourist season, so what was available for visitors was severely curtailed. No introductory video (which talks about the archaeology done on site in the 1960's and the information held in Norse sagas that seems to link to it) and no exhibit of what was discovered.
What the guidebooks didn't tell me was about the risk of crashing your car driving to L'Anse aux Meadows because of the sudden appearance of icebergs. The official tourism website has an extremely cool page that has a map of where the icebergs are so I knew there were a bunch off the northern capes, but that didn't prepare me for driving up an incline in the road and suddenly being presented with this off to my right:
A reconstructed peat house at L'Anse aux Meadows, which I can vouch was extremely cosy and warm inside on a miserable and damp June day:
There are resident interpreters on site, dressed in Viking-period clothing, who are more than happy to talk all you like about what life would have been like there. Unfortunately, I was a little thrown by hearing one of them talking about his winter home in Tampa! :P
More icebergs:
A common roadsign in northern Newfoundland:
Off the shore at nearby Raleigh, this is what happens when icebergs start to fall apart - this was about 50 feet from the beach:
The coast from near my bed and breakfast on Cape Onion, just round from where the previous pic was taken, the next morning, complete with a small iceberg:
Another from where I was staying:
The next day, it was off to St. Anthony for a boat trip out to see icebergs and whales, complete with yet another beautiful blue sky. Here's the town itself, which was at that time totally without electricity on the left hand shore because of a truck taking down three electricity poles. So no Tim Horton's for me! :(
No whales either, on this trip, but the most awesome iceberg (of which I took about 40 pics, so I won't inflict all of those on you!), about 110 feet high and 200 across, we were told that it had been in the same place for about 4-5 weeks. The water was about 600 feet deep at this point and the iceberg had grounded there.
The blue lines you can see are meltwater where the iceberg has cracked, water has flowed into the crack and then refrozen. It takes the icebergs about two years to get from Baffin Island to the northern coast of Newfoundland, as they get trapped in the pack ice each winter.
This gives an idea of how close to shore even large icebergs can end up:
Finally, in the next post, it's farewell to the north of the island (plus moose!) and back to Gros Morne National Park for a little kayaking before I have to go home! :(
