Picture this: Tom and I decided to trek down to the southern coast of the Avalon peninsula (the peninsula in Newfoundland that is the furthest east) and “see what we see on the way”. It is a beautiful clear day in St. Johns so we were excited to see some beautiful coastline. The further south we get the bumpier the road, and to our dismay, a fog creeped in and covered the coastline. No more pretty views for us. Suddenly, from the right side of the road a moose emerged (there was a ditch on the side so she literally came from nowhere) and ambled across the highway. Instead of yelling something helpful like “MOOSE” -all I can say (with a volume increase each time I uttered it) was “Whoa, Whoaaa, Whoaaaa”. Given that we have been married 25 years Tom was able to translate that to “Caution: there is a moose in the road”. He slowed down (A LOT) and we somehow avoided hitting the moose. “Did you get a moose photo Dianne?” you might ask. NO! I was too busy watching my life flash before my eyes.
Before we had our close encounter of the moose kind, we stopped at a small community called Ferryland where an archaeological dig is ongoing. George Calvert (later Lord Baltimore), founded the colony in 1623. The colony is also where Sally Kirk became the first female entrepreneur in North America. When her husband died it was expected that she would return to England to be with her family. She instead stayed and kept the plantation and the fishing business going until she died.
There is a wealth of artifacts still here since the place was suddenly burned down and destroyed by the French in 1696. We went on a really interesting guided tour. There are several different buildings that have been uncovered in the dig.
These are the walls of a “mansion”, the one large house found here. Also, the archaeologist found glass remnants with lead in them and only the middle or upper class were able to afford leaded glass windows.
This building must have been an industrial building due to its lack of a fireplace. Please note that cobblestone floor – that is original. It is in such good shape that you might think it was recently laid. My knees hurt just looking at that floor as I imagine myself on my hands and knees laying down each rock.
Here is a privy (outhouse). It had an outlet to the sea. The tides would come in twice a day and they would fill up the privy and essentially flush it. The Newfoundlanders (aka Newfies) like to say they had the first flushing toilet in North America.
On our way back to St. Johns, after we finally emerged from the fog we saw this beautiful farm – made me hungry for vegetables just looking at it.
After dinner we headed down to George St (the one in St. John’s with 25 bars in a two block area) to have a drink. The place was hopping since it was Saturday night. We felt quite hip just being there 🙂
North Atlantic Canada 2019 