Thursday, August 29th – in Maine
Currently I’m on the coast of Maine, at the library in Blue Hill half an hour from Ellsworth and south of Acadia Nat’l Park. Having crossed the Canadian border into Houlton, Maine on August 22nd, I’m slowly working my way towards Portland, ME. Calais, Eastport and Lubec ME were sweet towns up north – or is that Downeast? More on that later.
On August 23rd I crossed from Lubec back into New Brunswick to explore the Roosevelt/Campobello International Park for a bit of history and some hiking. Franklin D. Roosevelt spent most of his summers on Campobello Island from the time he was 1 year old (1883) until he contracted polio in 1921. The buildings have been beautifully restored and are open for tours, wandering or contemplation in a rocking chair on one of the porches. The National Park Service offers Tea a Eleanor in one of the historic homes which was informative and engaging.
Below: The “cottage” has 18 bedrooms, six bathrooms and seven fireplaces along with a kitchen and pantry. The restoration is quite detailed, down to re-creating the original wall paper!
Campobello is an island and there was further exploring for me to do so I spent the night and two days.There’s much to see, do and learn here in Maine and the New England area. However, I’m not ‘vacationing’ now as I was in Canada. With the exception of a few stops I’m trying to stay focused on daily hiking, finding good lattes and cheap overnights while trying to capture in writing the travels in Newfoundland before September is upon me with new and exciting events. So, going back in time to Newfoundland:
Sunday, July 28th – in Newfoundland
Twillingate, one of the oldest ports on Newfoundland is noted for whale watching and iceberg sightings as well as history, picturesque streets and rugged coastline.
From Goodyear Cove Campground Marilyn and I travel independently to meet up later just beyond the town of Twillingate. Along the way I make a stop at the Beothuk Interpretive Center in Boyd’s Cove.The Beothuk were a group of indigenous people who lived in Newfoundland. It is thought that their population never exceeded 500 to 700 at any one time. The Interpretive Center is built on land where archaeologists discovered remains of an ancient summer village. Evidence was found indicating the site was used as early as AD1000. However most of the materials collected range from AD1650 – 1720.
A bronze statue, The Spirit of Beothuk, was erected along the lovely woods walk from the Center to the site of the village.
The Beothuk is now an extinct group of people. Their demise ultimately came thru starvation and disease with the arrival of European settlers. The last known Beothuk died in 1829. An historical novel by Michael Crummey titled River Thieves is very accessible reading based on true events of their time and demise.
An app, iOverlander has a wealth in information for those that travel like me, on the cheap! That is where tonight’s boondocking place was found. I head for the tiny hamlet of Crow Head near Twillingate. Just beyond Crow Head is an abandoned RV Park – Sea Breeze Park on Google Maps. Although the road in had some deep ruts to manoeuver, Lulu managed to get in without incident and wasn’t that lucky because it’s a GEM of a location to hang out for a few days – for free!
That’s me! Posing in the sunset!
As I take a walk-about I hear someone call out my name. It’s Carol and Chris from Ontario! They are fellow travelers I met back in Port au Choix on the west side! We bring out the chairs and have fun sharing where we’ve been, what we’ve experienced and all that’s transpired on our travels. It is wonderful to have happenstance reunions with such lovely people we’ve met along the way.
We join them for a fun evening at the Twillingate Dinner Theatre for music, Newfoundland jokes, skits, singing and great food.
The theatre group also hosts a 50/50 raffle. At intermission the emcee does a fabulous job explaining how and why they have this raffle. Tickets are sold all season, six nights a week from May thru September. The winning ticket is not chosen until after the season ends. Fifty percent of the proceeds goes to a lucky individual who is expected to travel to Twillingate in December to help distribute the food and gifts the other 50 percent bought for individuals in the community who are in need. He was very convincing. And I am convinced I’ll be heading to Twillingate mid-December to collect AND distribute! It was a fun evening in all ways.
Below: From our campsites we see occasional sailboats, fishing vessels, a whale blow or two, no icebergs. The scene on the right is a photo of a photograph. This area and St. John’s is known as Ice Berg Alley. The season to view them is typically late May thru early June. I would love to see one of these silent behemoths.
Having enjoyed 3 nights camping here, we move on. I choose to skip going inland to explore Gander (which I plan to visit on the way back) and take the Road to the Beaches.