Pics and notes: Newfoundland, Labrador and Nova Scotia
 

After an unexpectedly long delay I have eventually got some pics and notes of a five week trip to NL and NS last September onto the web:

http://homepage.mac.com/wasleys/Canada/canada_10_mw/

These are GREAT pictures (I know because I used to LIVE in Newfoundland some years ago) and they brought back many memories.

Thanks very much for posting.

Your photos are beautiful! I've been to Nova Scotia twice, but haven't made it yet to NewFoundland or Labrador. Question: what do you mean when you say that when you were in Labrador you spent most of your time in Newfoundland?
What was the weather like in September? Is the hiking difficult?

@Kwoo,

When you get off the ferry in Labrador you are roughly in the middle of the stretch of paved road which is about 50/50 in Newfoundland/Québec Provinces. We spent most of our time in the Newfoundland section.

If you read the notes you will see that weather was everything from perfect to hurricane. When planning we noted that the area doesn't really have a dry season so chose September as we thought it would still be reasonably warm and wouldn't be too busy. We got some sunny weather, some dull and dreary weather, some very wet weather and some very windy weather.

Walking we did was easy as my wife has dodgy knees, much of our time walking was on boardwalks. Doubtless there is plenty of hairy stuff in places like Gros Morne.

"When you get off the ferry in Labrador you are roughly in the middle of the stretch of paved road which is about 50/50 in Newfoundland/Québec Provinces. We spent most of our time in the Newfoundland section."

Not quite. When you get off the ferry from Newfoundland at Blanc Sablon you are in the Province of Québec, not in Labrador. There is no such thing as the "Newfoundland section" of Labrador. Labrador is the mainland part of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and none of it lies within the Province of Québec.

The question of the boundary between what was then Newfoundland and Canada was a long-standing one dating back to 1763 and was finally settled in 1927, when Newfoundland was still a separate Dominion. So even though Blanc Sablon is very close to the Labrador border, it is not part of Labrador.

@laverendrye,

My post didn’t refer to a Newfoundland section of Labrador but to such a section of the paved road. But, mea maxima culpa, I did not use the title of the Province that has applied since 2001. More generally I must admit to a degree of terminological inexactitude when referring to our time on a small section of the south coast of the Labrador Peninsula.

However I am in good company. The website of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Transportation and Works refers to the ferry between St Barbe and Blanc Sablon as an intra-provincial service. Presumably the same august body is responsible for erecting the road signs on the island of Newfoundland directing you to the Labrador Ferry. This must be very confusing to some people; the references should be to an inter-provincial service and the Québec Ferry as any fule kno.
;-)

Sorry to have nitpicked. Your report and photos were most interesting.

Oh my goodness, your pictures are WONDERFUL. The nature/botany pictures are especially skillful. I went through all of the NL west coast galleries, and skimmed the rest. I grew up in Corner Brook, with parents from Bonne Bay and the Northern Peninsula, taught in Forteau for 3 years, and now live in just south of the Dover fault, so I have a lot of pictures of these places--and yours are all better!

You were indeed lucky to have escaped being marooned by Igor, as Trouty was nearly destroyed, and much of the Bonavista peninsula was cut off for several days.

Not to be nitpicky, but in case anyone tries to find it on a map--the community in Gros Morne 1 is Trout River, not Trout Harbour.

@nfldbeothuk,

Many thanks for pointing out Trouty Harbour errors, I'll change them ASAP - and be more careful about checking and pasting in future.

We saw the videos of Trouty after Igor and found it heartbreaking to see the damage, especially after we had just been there in really lovely weather.

Um, I meant Trout Harbour, but they all say Trout River now (I hope).

And thanks to all for kind comments about pics.

Thanks to Wasleys and others for the geography lesson! I don't know that much about NF and Labrador but hope to go some day. It's nice to know there are easy walks on boardwalks.

CHANGE OF URL

I've changed servers and the pictures and notes from this are now at:

http://wasleys.org.uk/Canada/canada_10_mw/index.html