The capital, St. John’s, is the oldest English settlement on the North American continent. You can imagine the birthday party they throw for themselves! Add to that the following simultaneous events: 1) the Summer Solstice;  2) the Supermoon; 3) the first warm summery day; 4) a 3 day holiday weekend (Canada’s Discovery Day); 5) the last day of school; and, 6) the humpback whales hanging out for several days at the “Narrows”, the entry to the Bay so their low spout and big splashy tails can be seen from town….party down!

At 5 venues in the city, four times a day, throughout the week, there was free Irish Trad music, pocket opera, ethnic dance presentations, community dances…and did I mention free cupcakes? We had to hustle to catch the free acts, along with a wonderful production of Mozart’s Magic Flute, and the exhibits at “The Rooms”, a gorgeous museum space. We loved the Roaring 20’s exhibit, as shown in gorgeous period shoes.  The image below is The Narrows from the on-site cafe at The Rooms. We also love our new friends at “Tango On The Edge”, where we danced at two Practicas and took lessons in a private home.

Still, nothing was more unique and outstanding than the Johnson Geo Center, a huge geothermal building, built deeply under ground; one exhibition hall is faced by the oldest rocks on the planet.

Just slightly uphill is Signal Hill, where flag communication ruled until the first transatlantic wire was received by Marconi here, chosen because Ireland and St. John’s present the shortest distance between the two continents.

I love exhibits that remind me how inconsequential I am, how briefly humans have been around, how little time we have to live a life. Sand grains in clear columns reach from the exhibition hall 5 stories to the surface and further up to the top of the sculpture 26 feet high to show the age of the universe, one year for each grain. To its side stands an 8 ft. tall sand column representing the first life form on the earth. Finally a knee high, nearly empty, clear column with a handful of sand representing the years since our ancestors first “peopled” the earth, and to the side, a skeletal copy of “Lucy”, our oldest humanoid skeletal remains found in Africa. It is a mind tweek like the picture of the Milky Way, with a pointer to a dot way out on the edge, “You are here”. Our response: RUN! quickly back to the Rocket Bakery for a slice of the Chocolate Ganache Cake…a la mode, of course.

Charming, sophisticated, and tolerant, St. John’s feels like a pint-sized Santa Monica 40 years ago. They enjoyed celebrating with us the U.S. Supreme Court’s wisdom in protecting the civil rights of  ALL of our citizens. Canada has given same sex couples marital benefits for years. The population (100,000) is educated, predominantly middle class, disturbingly white, and happily, extremely respectful of pedestrians. However, the darker side of this lovely place is that real estate prices have skyrocketed, pushing students, the working poor, and fixed income elderly out of the city. We loved this gorgeous island and know we must return as we didn’t even do any get around to biking or kayaking.

With over 700 distinct breeding sites for seabirds in Newfoundland, our hikes were extraordinary. No need to jump a boat to see Gannet or Puffin colonies. Walk out a promontory at Cape Bonavista or Elliston to see 400 breeding pairs of Puffins only 50 feet away on their island aerie.

While you’re there, walk among 135 root cellars in town, making this the world root cellar capital. Nearby, fat and shaggy ponies wander among the sheep. Haven’t had enough whales yet? Take the ferry between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to see pods of minke whales on the bow. Yep, we will be back…after we go everywhere else!

We have to saunter on to Halifax to celebrate Canada Day (July 1st…celebrated like our July 4th) with the Nova Scotia International Tatoo Parade , and a month “stop-over” in Halifax. We are looking forward to leaving the Roadtrek parked, as we house-share with a dog-friendly family, and enjoy the cooler summer weather…while the U.S. once again swelters in abnormally high summer heat. Happy Canada Day!

Although the East Coast of Newfoundland is named “Iceberg Alley”, the Bergs arrive later there so the island’s Iceberg Festival is always held at the most Northwestern tip of Newfoundland in the small town of St. Anthony (pronounced “ANN-tunny” without the H, in the Irish Tradition, just like the number “30” rhymes with dirty). You can see from the bird’s eye view in winter below, with Labrador on top separated from Newfoundland with pack ice. It is more likely that you could ski-doo between Labrador and Newfoundland in winter, as the ferry cannot use the shortest route between the two parts of the province for much of the year. We volunteered at the Festival and met the the local celebrities; the “Iceberg Hunters”. Featured in a 4 part series premiered on the Weather Channel in the U.S., this was the first public showing in Canada.

Two old farts and the “Greenhorn”, an adorable interior decorator son from St. John’s, harvested Bergie Bits to provide a local water bottler with “the purest water on earth”.  Actually, they spend a bucket of ammunition shooting holes in the biggest iceburgs hoping to create a crack, and a fall that breaks the big chunk into manageable bits to load on the boat.  These guys were just so funny, on and off camera, and always at the expense of the the earnest Greenhorn. Funny…unless you had to work for them. It reminded me of working for my father; my brother and I started at age 12 to find our own summer jobs to avoid such a fate. The Festival also had iceberg wine and champagne tastings, boat and ATV tours, Irish trad music and community dances, wild berry tastings like “Bakeapple”, and Viking saga storytelling by firelight in sod huts at L’Anse Au Meadows archeological site below.

Further south, in Flowers Cove, Thrombolites litter the shallow water. 3.5 billion year old “clots” of sedimentary material cemented by cyanobacteria A.K.A., blue-green algae. They are found only here and in Western Australia. They are a good indicator of the only life that existed on the planet in that epoch.

Away from the coast, the country is 95% bogs. Power and telephone wires can’t be anchored in a bog so there are built up “rock boxes” for added support all along the highways. There have been 636 auto/moose collisions so far this year, including 6 fatalities. In areas of high moose activity and fast highways with poor sight lines, there are motion detectors pointed toward the forest that flash warning lights 1/4 mile in each direction to warn of moose approaching the road.

Canada is rich with minerals and water. It makes for interesting politics. Quebec’s maps show Labrador within their province, but Labrador and Newfoundland are one province, and a rich one due to the minerals, ores, and hydroelectric power produced in Labrador and sold to New York. The folk music here reflects fierce independence from Quebec, and hardly a soul here speaks French.

Bogs birth bugs, and twice when we were stopped in provincial parks to empty our sewage tank, we have been swarmed by blackflies and mosquitoes. With hundreds of biting bugs inside the vehicle in the four minutes needed to dump, the ranger advised us to, “Open the windows and drive 120!”…we assumed he meant that in kilometers. It worked, but we may have abandoned the idea of a summer road trip to Alaska , the Yukon and the Northern Territories as we would be prisoners stuck inside the Roadtrek, hiding out. The forests across Newfoundland are mostly “Tuckamore”; fir and spruce trees, spindly, sparse, and with a shallow root system in the bogs; clearly at risk for blowing over in gale force winds if they were taller or leafier.  Similar to the trees, the residents adapt to the seasons too; there are many root vegetable gardens in small plots along the highways as seen above. Fenced to keep the moose out, wedged in the open space between the road and forest, the plots receive both windbreak and maximum sun in these long northern summer days, and the property belongs to the “Crown” so the residents own it. I just can’t imagine the California Highway Patrol getting down with highway gardeners.

Wouldn’t you know that Newfoundland is also the “Root Cellar Capital of the World” with 136 root cellars to visit in the small town of Elliston, in the East on the Bonavista Peninsula.

Gros Morne National Park features a hike on the earth’s mantle via trails over the Tablelands, and a boat tour of the “Fjords” on Western Brook Pond. Formed by glaciers, this was a true fjords until the delta was pushed up from continental thrust and bog took over creating a pond. The salt water was slowly replaced with fresh, and now it is so pure, it has insufficient ions to conduct electricity so the park pumps don’t work in it.

Although we saw humpback whales (small spouts and dominant splashy tails) from the shore in St. John’s (next blog, East Coast Newfoundland), our best sighting was a pod of Orcas, four adults and 2 calves that circled in front of us for 30 minutes while fishing for capelin in front of the Rose Blanche granite lighthouse, engineered by Robert Lewis Stevenson’s family. It helps that Orcas have a huge spout and dominant black dorsal fin as we could follow them out to sea for a long time as well. We are so used to whale watching in California where they are migrating so you see them for an instant. Here and in St. John, the whales stay in place and fill up on capelin in preparation for migration south at the end of summer.

 …and then there is the sweet, huge, and well-padded “Newfie”, symbol of winter, seen in an art exhibit at the Rooms in St. John, and as an ambassador for the island. This ten-month old puppy “Roland”, weighs 150 lb and attended his first competition last week, where he peed on the judge…Wow! I’ve wanted to do that a few times!

Leaving Cape Breton by ferry to Newfoundland, we crept up to Northern Newfoundland along the western shore, over 360 miles. This would be 7 hours of driving if you could go the posted speed, but that would be stupid and dangerous in a country with 100,000 moose. We saw 20 in one day, all within 20 feet of the highway, including two who trotted down the middle of the road for a bit. Taller than horses, and just as massive, they are a huge hazard. We ferried across the Strait of Belle Isle to journey up to Red Bay, Labrador, 90 miles north of Newfoundland. The icebergs from Greenland, drift from the North Atlantic Ocean through this Strait into the Gulf of St. Lawrence before melting. We are so far north and approaching the summer solstice that the sun does not set until 9:00 PM with no visible stars until the gorgeous sunsets end around 11 PM. The sky begins to lighten again at 4 AM. Get out those sleep masks!

Four icebergs called “Growlers” (icebergs as big as houses) and lots of “Bergie Bits” (iceberg detritus) greeted our ferry at the arrival dock, but we counted 21 growlers within view at one time while crossing the Strait of Belle Isle between Newfoundland and Labrador.  32 degree water, frequent thick fog, and cold winds kept these giants intact since breaking loose from Greenland over 2 years ago. Sometimes they carry unlucky polar bears who swim ashore in Labrador and Newfoundland. The landscape here is rugged, with lots of exposed rounded granite hills decorated with patches of snow above tree line at 1000 feet, with some heather, tundra-like plants, and the stunted, twisted forms of fir and spruce trees below….and lots of water. Lakes, creeks, bays and harbors are especially lovely during the aspenglow evenings, and especially with a little fog and an iceberg at many harbor entrances.

Most of the villages have populations under 300 with no government services or wifi. You can travel many miles between expensive gas stations/convenience stores which must meet locals’ needs. We have been asking the Labs how they survive financially, especially as the tourist season only starts on June 21st when Canadian schools close for summer holidays, and ends mid-August. Most available jobs (like fishing and tourism) are seasonal, so people work hard for 6 weeks, then….what? We learned that most people live the rest of the year off ‘The Dole’, government unemployment insurance, based on 6 weeks of seasonal work. Labs (like the fine retrieving hunting dogs from here) are family oriented and friendly. They live simply in small homes surrounded by HUGE stacks of firewood, boast that there is no crime and no one locks their homes or cars…except paranoid visitors like us, from “away”. We advised them to lock their doors while in the U.S.

We just wish there was a stronger impulse here in Labrador to create. With that much unstructured time available, why isn’t there established cottage industry? Painting, carving, pottery, music, textile arts, and preserving berries and other foraged foods, to name a few possibilities, but they are not evident here. Winter must feel brutally long with short, dark days, snow every day from December to April, and wicked winds. Then when the winds abate and the sun comes out, the black flies swarm. Locals admit they stay inside for the entire month of the swarm each summer. No wonder it is harder to meet the locals, hear any local music or even find a pub open right now…everybody’s hiding. Without a village pub, how else can we get to know you? The only music we have heard is pop or modern country music, nothing indigenous to Labrador. Very disappointing.

As welcoming as the residents are in Labrador, we don’t foresee returning here as the paved roads become gravel in only 60 miles, at Red Bay. Along the paved route though, there is lots of hiking, with iceberg views, the Pinware Provincial Park’s private and wind-protected campsites by the Strait and the River, and a wonderful National Park Museum, on review to become a UNESCO Heritage Site. It features the sub-marine archeological finds of the local Basque Whaling industry from 1500 to 1600. Each year Spain would send 30 galleon sailing ships here for the hunt, returning full of barrels of whale oil. Overfishing, and the requisition of the galleons for military use killed the industry. The Greenland Right Whale, more commonly known as the “Bowhead” for its prominent knob used to break ice for air holes, is making a comeback with over 5000 in existence now. They remain protected; only indigenous tribes are given permits to fish them for three short seasons each year, near Red Bay. To see more of Labrador, one must either catch a plane, wait a few months and catch a snowmobile ride, or drive a gravel road with local ferry support for 20 hours to get on a paved road again at Labrador City. We didn’t find Canada’s offer of a free satellite phone for use on this long, barren stretch, to be sufficiently motivating. As much as we would love to see some caribou herds, we like the ferry back to Newfoundland better…..

We loved this humorous message on a billboard on the Island, partly because we appreciated that it wasn’t in Gaelic. The more common sentiment, “C’EAD MILE FAILTE: A HUNDRED THOUSAND WELCOMES” reflects the warmth and down to earth culture on Cape Breton Island. As Gaelic is not a latin-based language, we needed every assistance possible as we never pronounced the Gaelic correctly on the first try. We often shared tables with lifelong residents who helped us patiently with pronunciation. We especially enjoyed eating dinner with the proud parents of these two lasses below who spontaneously danced for the crowd.

We visited the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s in the Highlands to learn about music, dance, and language classes. Steven learned that the Richardsons are a Gaelic clan and can wear the Buchanan tartan. Jeez, wouldn’t you know his  clan tartan was the most unattractive bright yellow plaid. Fortunately, he can also wear the Ogilbie blue and green tartan, featured above. I just wish he would don a kilt, so I can lift it up, and take a salacious peek!

The most important word we needed to know in Gaelic was “Ceilidh” (pronounced “KAY-lee”), meaning “Kitchen Party”.  Based on the tradition of music jams in residents’ kitchens welcoming all instruments and participants, now there are events open to the public and held in churches, pubs, and community centers several times a week in winter, and several times a day in summer. We got to six of these during two weeks on Cape Breton Island, planning our travel route and schedule to capture the best Ceilidhs on the Island. Mabou (pronounced MAB-uh) kept drawing us back, especially to the Red Shoe, a pub/bistro/Gaelic music venue founded by the famous Rankin sisters. We even joined a work crew for several hours in Mabou scouring the local community building, enjoying the residents, and their kindness, and earning an invitation to their community dinner and concert in four weeks. Some say small towns are nosy and gossipy, but we also came to understand it also means butting in to help people because small communities take care of their own. We got to know one very old, tiny man impaired with alcohol at every venue we went to, who would approach the musicians, but accidentally kick over their beer. The residents responded by asking him to sit with them. Very kind. It turns out he attends EVERY music event, and is in over one hundred you.tube videos, and people on the other side of the Island, all know him by name.

Humorously, some stages add a stove and kitchen curtains to the stage to honor the roots of this tradition. Most venues make space for dancers to move together for jigs, reels and square dances. We loved seeing all ages on the dance floor, often individuals stepping up to solo perform just moving with the joyous Gaelic spirit!

The music is very moving even if you don’t dance, and likely you will be pulled onto the floor for at least one dance by the friendly locals. We also found out how LOUD a bagpipe is indoors, as part of a fiddle, guitar, and piano quartet!

Even the famous fiddler, Rodney MacDonald (Premier of the Province of Nova Scotia 2006-2009..like a State Governor in the U.S.) was airborne dancing (below) with the fastest footwork on the Island…sometimes while playing a mean fiddle; he is so welcoming, a great Ambassador for Cape Breton Island as Rodney is also CEO of the Gaelic College. Some people make you feel like such a slacker, as we also found him housepainting at his RV and Cottages property, The Ceilidh Cottages, when he allowed us to come there to do laundry in an emergency.

What emergency you may ask? Lety found a dead seal on the beach, managed to eat buckets of decayed tissue, and then returned to the RoadTrek to vomit in three separate places. Nothing smells as hideous as dead seal puke. Really. Three washes did not remove the stench from our blanket, towel and seat cover. We tried to leave Lety outside after the first hurl, but in 5 minutes, the black flies bit her leaving over 30 painful hematomas on her belly! Anywhere on the Island during May, away from a stiff wind, brings a nasty onslaught of black flies…but only in May we are told, because of the forested, fern, and moss filled Island after a long winter of rain and snow. Lush, but it kept us from biking the Cabot Trail through the Highlands as we couldn’t stand the idea of a fly attack on a long, slow bike ascent, if  the wind stopped. Torture, I am sure as there would be no escape. Wimps? For sure, when it comes to biting bugs…

We are truly happy for the gusty, cool conditions, and the very kind residents who encourage us to sleep 20 feet from the water near their homes and businesses to avoid the worst of the bugs. Even the Mounties near Bras D’or Lake below, were so understanding; told us it was just a warning, but we might want to comply with Canadian law by making our rear license plate visible, and to get our expired California tags updated. Gulp! I somehow don’t think our California Highway Patrol would be so understanding to errant tourists.

Cape Breton Island is inviting in its warm welcome to small village life, talented Gaelic musicians, and endless highland and water views. There is no enticing big city, only boring and provincial Sydney, which offers Gaelic culture mostly on the days the cruise ships dock.

However near Sydney at Glace Bay, is a fabulous museum experience: The Ocean Deeps Colliery, a guided underground tour by former miners. Our guide, Abbie, was in the mines for 54 years, beginning at age 16 with his father and grandfather. The bituminous coal veins moves out from the shoreline 90 miles to Newfoundland, much of the first 6 miles interlaced with tunnels, up to 3500 feet under the ocean surface. The corporations took advantage of the miners, requiring them to buy their own equipment and blasting powder, and refusing to pay them for the 3 hour/day transport system to their “rooms” in the dark, their time building tunnels and blasting, only paying for each cart filled with coal. Then the corporation charged them for mud floor houses with one cold faucet, and their purchases at the company store. Few families had more than pennies leftover, even with several family members working 6 days a week. Every time the corporations lowered their payment for coal recovery, miners’ unions were formed, then crushed. Until the support of the United Mine Workers, USA intervened to stop physical assaults on miners and their family members, scab employees, and starvation caused by denying credit at the company store during strikes. However, the United Mineworkers at some point turned their backs on the Cape Breton miners, calling them Bolsheviks. When families were dying of starvation and freezing temperatures, Canada legislated the equivalent of a minimum wage. As fracking becomes an issue in the Atlantic Maritimes in Canada, we hope that these small communities are more effective at organizing to protect themselves from this jeopardy than were their ancestors on Cape Breton Island.