The Vikings landed on the West coast of Canada in L'anse Aux Meadows in 1000 AD - This was the first European contact with N. America, nearly 500 years before Cabot or Columbus would return to claim having found the New World.
We decided that the opportunity to view such a historic site could not be missed - 440 km's north of Cornerbrook lay our destination. Such a drive through Gros Morne up the coast to Liefs Hold in Bay of Strong Currents in Vineland would give us a much better over-all feel for Newfoundland, it's people and it's history.
Newfoundland has an amazing rugged feel; a rocky coastline, stunted wind swept trees with Tuckamoore brush filling all the space in between. There are lobster traps and small fishing cabins at every corner, point and free piece of land, piles of wood punctuate the odd potatoe fields that dot the sides of the highway in this thinly populated land. What we see in the hinterland of N. America, the holiday inns, the Denny's etc, does not exist out here, we are thrown back to a time when deep friers and juke boxes ruled the truck stops. It's a strange feeling, but the percieved struggle to survive out here on the 'Rock' endears the quaintness of the homes and buildings.
We felt very much at home, us 3 from Vancouver Island, though Newfoundland has not had the rapid propulsion into the 21st century that we on the West Coast have, we felt comfortable being on another island.
Newfoundland is slowing revealing herself to us, as we travel and dig deeper, meet more locals, I feel we are nearing the heart of this place and simply put - I like it.
Dre
Looks like a wild place to ride and visit!
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