SFS: Quebec Labrador Foundation

6 July 2010

Last Friday, Blanc Sablon celebrated Canada Day with a parade and activities at the town hall (in photo). We sat outside our house after lunch and watched the cars and trucks parade by into town before heading back in to watch the end of the Netherlands-Brazil game. Mid afternoon, we went down to the hall for some presentations and barbeque and got to meet more people from town. They gave Canadian themed toys to every kid and tote bags to the adults, and presented awards for community service and other achievements. We headed home for dinner and then back to the hall for more celebration. It was fun to see people of all ages at the dance and we definitely had a good time.



On Saturday, although it was foggy and cold, we decided to hike up a hill up behind town (photo). While there were no trails, the lack of trees made it easy to take whatever route we wanted to the top. Of course, there was no view, but it was beautiful all the same and it was nice to get outside. On the way back to the house, we stopped by the town hall to see if we could help the Canada Day committee clean up at all. They had already done the job, but we were still able to collect trash along the side of the road on the walk home. That was pretty much our Saturday; the fog and cold kept us inside for the rest of the day.

We took another walk on Sunday; this time, we hiked up Mount Parent. It was only a ten minute walk or so away from town and then from there we could go up the ATV tracks to the top. The kids around here love their ATVs and dirtbikes and can go all over without trees. It's not uncommon to look out the windows and just see heads zoom by. Thanks to the fog, there wasn't much of a view at all, but we could see Greenly Island and Ile-aux-Bois out in the ocean. Greenly was the site of the crash of the first attempt at an east to west transatlantic flight. The crew of the Bremen took off in Ireland and intended to land in New York,but lost their way in the fog and luckily survived their ditch landing on Greenly. Also, Stefan, Curtis, and I will be running a kids camp later on in July and will take the kids out camping on the island for a night. In celebration of the fourth of July, Tom, Charley, and Will made homemade burgers and fries for dinner, and we invited some of our friends from town over for a little fire on the beach. All in all, it wasn't the most typical fourth of July, but one that we will definitely remember.

Monday began with finalizing plans for the Newfoundland trip. We reviewed our itinerary and made reservations for lodging and ferries. After lunch, we went down to St. Teresa's to visit Tom, Charley, Roz, and Will at their soccer camp. They had broken the kids up by age and were working on some relay drills and scrimmages with the older group. After three days straight of literally not seeing the sun, the 55 degree weather felt absolutely balmy, and we did as much work as we could out on the deck.

Today, Tuesday, we spent the morning packing up the observer kits, getting all of our own gear together, and running a few last minute errands. Stefan and I said our goodbyes to Charley, Will, Tom, and Roz since they will be long gone to Harrington Harbour to continue with their soccer camp by the time we return to Blanc Sablon on the 16th. Trish picked us up in the rental van and we met her daughter Caitlin, who is coming on the trip with us, at the ferry terminal. After landing in St. Barbe, we took the same route back down the western coast of Newfoundland as I did when coming up. Right now, we're in a town called Rocky Harbour in Gros Morne National Park, and our research and meetings with fishermen begin tomorrow.