It is definitely an indoor activities kind of day. We are going to spend time at “The Rooms” – a museum and cultural center located here in St. Johns.
The Rooms is truly a treasure. The building is new (opened in 2005), very open, and houses various exhibits and art galleries. It has 4 floors and each floor has an open lobby area.
There is an exhibit hall dedicated to WWI that includes individual stories about men that fought in the war and women who helped the war effort by nursing, knitting warm clothing, rolling bandages, etc. There is another exhibit hall that talks about the various animals that inhabit Newfoundland. And yet another that is dedicated to information about the fishing industry and way of life. There are other exhibit halls as well, but I lost track. Amongst the exhibit halls are art galleries and little booths that contain information about Newfoundland culture.
This booth talks about the importance of music in Newfoundland. Many communities were very isolated – particularly in the winter. To bring some levity in their lives they would have “kitchen parties” where various people would venture over to someone’s kitchen bringing their instrument of choice and they would play music for their friends. Many people did not have access to, or the money for, a musical instrument so they would create their own percussion instrument from a stick and fondly refer to it as an “ugly stick”
The Rooms also has information on some of the great expressions in Newfoundland (at times it seems that we are in a foreign country). For example, people in Newfoundland do not ask you if you are visiting Newfoundland. They instead ask you if you have “come from away” (incidentally that is the name of a musical that was created based on the hospitality that the people of Newfoundland extended to the numerous US passenger jets that were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11 when all US airports were closed) Window shopping is called “twacking around” – something I have been accused of doing on numerous occasions.
After a couple of hours when we were “museumed out” we headed for Cape Spear – the most Easterly point of North America
Oddly enough there are now 2 lighthouses there now – the original one (that has since been renovated, but is not used as a lighthouse any longer)….
…and the newer one that was erected in 1955.
As you may have noticed – wherever there are lighthouses there are nice views and Cape Spear is no exception
Cape Spears also housed a very important military installation during WWII. Here is one of the two big guns located at that fort. These were made in Pennsylvania in 1890 and brought here and installed in 1942. It seems that indicates a pretty low priority by the US, but hey – antique or not, a ten-ton gun is a ten ton-gun.
In all, it was a great day – and yes, we did go back to the fish and chips place in Quidi Vidi for the 2nd day in a row.
North Atlantic Canada 2019 