NEWFOUNDLAND – PORT AU CHOIX & A SURPRISE.
Day 120 – The wind was super strong last night, a bit scary. We are so glad we decided not to travel today, either by ferry or RV. The wind continued, along with heavy dark clouds, for most of the day. It was only 47 degrees at 7 a.m. this morning, and with the wind it felt much colder. We turned the heat on in the RV – in August! Rob ventured out once in the morning, briefly, to try to get pictures of the Eider Ducks. He came back with a picture of a Tern, and he’d gotten pretty cold just in that amount of time.
Common Tern, Oceanside RV Park, Port au Choix, NF
We stayed inside until around 2 p.m. when the sun made an appearance & the wind began to decrease. We’d wanted to visit the French Rooms Cultural Center in Port au Choix, something we didn’t have time to do last time we were here in May. The Center was interesting. We started our tour with a 25-minute film which documented the moving of the Rumbolt family house by water to Port au Choix in 1965. Really amazing, dragging this two-story house through the Bay, it being pulled by long-liner fishing boats, then hauled ashore and pulled up a hill to its new home by a tractor. The Rumbolt family were a fisherman & his wife and their 10 children. They’d lived in the very small fishing town of New Ferolle. The government was resettling sparsely populated outports into more densely populated regions. The Rumbolt’s house burned down & they requested a resettlement. They hadn’t enough money to even feed their family, sometimes making only $16 a week from fishing. There were no other job opportunities. They received government assistance in purchasing an old house & moving the house to Port au Choix, considered to be “the fishing capitol of Western NF.” During the difficult voyage of the house, it was damaged. (As more families were moved to Port au Choix, a barge was built to make the process easier & safer.) It was three years before the family was finally settled in with their home repaired & water available for them at their home. The husband was able to fish in a better economic environment & several of the older children got jobs at the fish processing plant.
A little about resettlement from the French Rooms Cultural Center brochure: “Shortly after Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, Premier Joseph Smallwood’s government set in motion a plan to centralize the province’s population as they did not have the funds to deliver public services such as roads and health care. Three resettlement programs were introduced between 1954 and 1975 which resulted in 300 abandoned communities and the relocation of 28,000 people. During this period, people from a number of smaller outlying communities were encouraged to move to Port au Choix.”
The Center also contained artifacts from when the French came here to fish in the 1700’s through the time period in the early 1900’s when the French were allowed to settle here. Also on display was the story of the Basque’s settlement here before the 1700’s, and the Maritime Archiac Indians before them. First whaling, then cod fishing, and now shrimp fishing prevailed. Halibut & capelin are also caught, There were displays about the fishing history & the hardship of the resettlement period. There was a gift shop. We bought the girls a Big Fat Seal hand-knitted, filled with catnip, toy. We bought ourselves small sample containers of Bake Apple Jam, Partridgeberry Tea, and a jar of fresh (still warm) Partridgeberry Jam. We also bought some fresh Shrimp from the Bay. After visiting the Center, we drove around the wharf and the docks. We were amazed by how different things looked from the last time we were here in May. Then it was snowy, icy, and starkly beautiful. Now it is a bustling fishing port.
Click on any picture to see a slideshow.
Next, we headed out to the Lighthouse. We remembered when we were here before, looking for Caribou which supposedly roamed the fields around the Lighthouse. We didn’t see any. This time, as we approached the Lighthouse, there was a line of traffic stopped. We were like, what is this? A special event at the Lighthouse? Why the crowd? Is this just a Saturday of tourists? No. Surprise. A small herd of Caribou were ambling down the road, stopping traffic. Everyone was excited, out of their cars, pictures being taken. The Caribou could’ve cared less, just kept on munching the long grasses, then moving on to a new spot. Awesome.
We headed back to the RV, needing to get that Shrimp in the freezer. All we did was set the bag with the jam, tea, and cat toy on the table, and the girls went crazy. I guess we should’ve bought four big fat seals. But they shared well. We made a big pot of Chili for future dinners, then relaxed & watched our neighbors. At least seven more campers arrived and set up, one of them was a HUGE, at least 45 foot motor home, as big or bigger than a full-sized tourist bus, but only two people were in it. It’s been another good visit to Port au Choix. Tomorrow we move on since the wind will be back in the teens again.
Oceanside RV Park: owned & operated by the United Towns Lions Club; 18 Fisher Street, Port au Choix, NF A0K 4C0; (709) 861-8261 or (709) 861-7785 or Lions Club (709) 861-3163; kelly3279@hotmail.com or utlions@eastlink.ca. Check-out time is 11 a.m. There are 26 serviced (electric & water) campsites and 10 unserviced campsites (no hook-ups). All are located right by the beach & the water. There is a dumping station. $30 per night for serviced sites; $15 per night for unserviced sites, Canadian currency. We would definitely stay here again, for one night or for many nights.
Great photos of the caribou! And love seeing your kittehs with that catnip seal, too. xo
Thanks Daney! We were really surprised to see the Caribou.