Escape Pod Rambles: L’Anse Amour, Red Bay and the Basque Whalers

Sept 2, 2024

Woke to a dreary morning along the coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence as we watched the ferry goes across in much calmer seas.

Forteau, Labrador. Supposedly the name Labrador comes from the Portuguese word lavrador which translates to land owner. Joāo Fernandes, a landowner from the Azores, was the first white person to see land in 1501, and it was named Lavrador in his honor, but then it was found that the land was already named Greenland so the name Labrador was transferred to this area.

Drove to L’Anse Amour and the site of the oldest known First Nations funerary monument in North America. This 7000 year old, carefully built mound of stones held the body of a young Maritime Archaic boy whose body was covered in red ochre and had evidence of fires lit on either side of the mound. Stone and bone spearheads, a walrus tusk, a bone whistle, and the earliest known toggling harpoon in the world were buried with him.

Then on to the Point Amour Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in Atlantic Canada and the second tallest in the nation.

Labrador tea drying on the lighthouse keepers windowsill

The lighthouse tower extended quiet a ways below ground and that space was used for food storage

Gargoyles as downspouts

The winds here can blow 200kmh but the walls are 6 feet thick

These cobblestone looking formations are the calcite skeletons of sponge-like animals call Archaeocyathids. This reef formed about 530 million years ago, proving that the area was once a warm shallow sea by the equator.

And the fog rolled in as we ate lunch

But it was no longer flat

Major/only road along the coast but the bridge is laid with wood

Stopped in Red Bay National Historic site where the ranger spoke in such a heavy accent that I didn’t understand her when she said she was going to mess with Matthew when he came in with our passes, I just laughed with her. Matthew renters and she tells him he has the wrong kind of passes. He protests, I begin to protest and she cracks up, saying I forgot that she said she was going to mess with him. At that point I just agreed with her. She arranged for her husband to take us and another guest, actually a young woman ranger from Gros Morne, to Saddle Island in his small boat. The fog was thick and I wasn’t sure he could see the dock to land, but he did. We were greeted by this weasel as we disembarked.

Probably an Atlantic Rock Crab and a Snow Crab carapace

Looking back to where we had come from

Saddle Island was used by 16th century Basque whalers to process the whales killed during their hunts in the Belle Isle Straits. The remains of a Basque whaling boat, believed to be the SanJuan that ran aground in a storm in 1565 with 800-1000 barrels of whale oil, was discovered off shore.

The site of the Basque cooperages which assembled the barrels for the whale oil.

The Bernier which ran aground in 1965

The remains of the tryworkswhere whale blubber was rendered into oil

The burial grounds where the 62 burial sites were found with the remains of over 140 men and boys

Lichen on wood

The fog is clearing

The San Juan was dug up and studied, and then re-buried in the bay to preserve it. Original artifacts and casts of the ship were displayed back at the museum on the mainland. This is a woven mat, perhaps part of a basket

Part of a rigid heddle used to weave straps

Clothing found in the graves

Reproduction of that clothing, down to the patterns and colors

Looking out at Saddle Island from the museum

We drove to Tracy Hill, across the bay, to camp for the night. After making dinner we decided to tackle the trail up the hill since it was only 1.6kms one way and the weather was clearing up beautifully.