Living near the Rocky Mountain parks we return year after year. We might do a different hike or experience each time or return to our best loved spots. Gros Morne National Park could easily become that kind of park as well. It’s a unique place and the park map showed 18 hikes of varying degrees of difficulty. You can’t say “I did Gros Morne Park” in just one visit. Where to begin?
The Tablelands
The
Discovery Center was a good orientation to the geology of the area. The Tablelands are actually the mantle of the
Earth which was thrust up by the tectonic forces of continents colliding. It’s peridotite rock which has weathered into
the rich orange color. It is not
conducive to soil production or plant life. It's so strange and intriguing.
To try to define something new, we tend to compare it to something we’ve seen before or perhaps read about. By that token, we thought the Tablelands looked like a Martian landscape or something out of Lord of the Rings. It also looked a bulldozer going wild or, at a certain sun angle, it look like a harvested field of wheat. It was an enjoyable hike, some of it along a boardwalk or worn path; and some of it scrambling over rocks. Needless to say, it was altogether very interesting.
After the hike, we ate our picnic lunch and then headed to Woody Point, to enjoy a cup of coffee and dessert. Gros Morne Park surrounds a series of little fishing villages that now thrive on the tourism industry as well. We met a young entrepreneur who had turned her grandfather’s fishing shed into a pottery shed/coffee shop.
In the need to find out what’s at the end of the road, we drove out to Trout River Pond. This is a landlocked fjord just a short distance from the sea. It was created by isostatic rebound after the glaciers melted. Trout River is an example of the many tiny fishing communities all the along the western shore of Newfoundland.
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| Community of Trout River |
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| Trout River Pond - a landlocked fjord, a freshwater land. |
L’Anse aux Meadows
If you want to see L’Anse aux Meadows, it’s a commitment. It is a long day’s drive from Gros Morne Park
to the upper end of the peninsula. As
our AirBnB host warned us, the kilometers are longer in Newfoundland.
We did find our host’s place at the end of the world. Quirpon is the northeastern most community in Newfoundland, and Boyce’s house was at the end of the road right next to the fishing dock where he and his buddies were unloading their catch of cod fish as we arrived. This is the real deal!
The next day we were transported to the world of Norsemen and Vikings. L’Anse aux Meadows is the site of first known evidence of European presence in the Americas. Norse expeditions sailed from Greenland and built a small encampment around 1030, staying only for a few years. They called this Vinland. Our guide was very informative as we learned how they might have lived here: hunting, logging and turning bog iron into nails, axes and other steel tools. The information was pieced together from archeological discovery and the Norse Sagas of old that were written down many centuries later. These were fascinating tales, a whole other side of Canadian history.
Eventually we had to return to the present and continue on in the fog and rain.
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