Beothuk People

Newfoundland and Labrador were the last parts of North American to be peopled. 

It took me a long time and many questions to figure out the order of human spread in this part of the world. In the end it was the excellent interpretive site at Port au Choix that put all the pieces together.

Here goes: 

While Canada's west coast show signs of human habitation going back about 12,000 years ago, the oldest indications in Labrador are about 9,000 years ago, when the Maritime Archaic peoples arrived in southern Labrador and slowly spread northwards. they didn't cross over to Newfoundland for 4,000 years but were gone entirely within a few hundred years.

About that time, 3000 years ago more or less, the "Paleo-Eskimos" arrived from the north and replaced the Maritime Archaic. They were well adapted to arctic conditions, coming originally from Alaska and then from Greenland and arctic Canada and eventually into Labrador and Newfoundland. Again, they were gone about 1,000 years later, leaving Newfoundland first, and Labrador a few hundred years later. Just like the Maritime Archaic people, they died out completely a few hundred years ago. 

These coastal-living Dorset peoples were replaced later by the Thule, who emerged in the 11th century or so, and who lived in Labrador but not in Newfoundland. The present day Inuit, direct descendants of the Thule people, still live in northern Labrador.

From the south - Quebec and the other maritime provinces - came the Innu, who still occupy land in Labrador. 

Port au Choix, incidentally is a large, barren peninsula jutting into the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Northern peninsula of Newfoundland. More than 100 years ago, people started to find evidence of ancient human habitation and the archaeological site is now extensive. There is evidence of Maritime Archaic, although the sea level has risen about 13 feet since then, so there may be so much more below the waves. There is also a lot of evidence of the Dorset, and of the more recent Beothuk peoples.

Martin contemplating previous existences
 at the vast Port au Choix archaeological site.
(and more great trails!)

now flower-covered, these indentations speak
of long ago homes for long ago people

Currently, the only First Nations living in Newfoundland are the Algonquin-speaking Mi'kmaq, hunter-gatherers, who arrived from Quebec and the other maritime provinces in the 16th or 17th century on a temporary basis and lived in general harmony with the Beothuk. Now that the Beothuk are gone, Mi'kmaq live here permanently.

It's the Beothuk who I think are the most interesting, because they only lived in Newfoundland, and were the only First Nations that did so exclusively. 

They appeared in the 15th century, just about the time of European contact. Their language was also Algonquin-based. Red ochre was used on their skin, as well as on their conical houses, uniquely designed canoes, and all their other gear. This is probably how the term "red Indian" came into use in Europe, as the red skin would have stood out to Europeans who did not comprehend why or what or how. Nor who asked questions.   

The Beothuk were never numerous - there were maybe only a thousand at the time of first contact and that didn't increase much. They lived on the coasts, and avoided interaction with the Europeans, except for odd trading missions. For the first 200 years, they used to come into the empty fishing stations in the winters, after the European fishers had returned to their countries. They would take apart or burn upturned boats to remove the iron nails, which were useful for making fish hooks or spear tips, but they never used guns. 

After Europeans settled more widely in Newfoundland, they crowded the Beothuk out, and took over their access to food sources. Forced to move into the province's interior, their traditional skills and diets could not align with the terrain. 

Final, misguided attempts to interact ended in disaster. In 1819, a woman and her baby were captured after her husband was killed. They were brought to St John's, where the baby died. Demasduit learned some English and taught the settlers some of the Beothuk language and it was hoped she would be a bridge between the two peoples, but when she was released back to her people she died of tuberculosis. 

Her niece, Shanawdithit, was the last full-blooded Beothuk person. Found starving in the forest with her mother and sister, she outlived her family (TB again) and lived in St. John's as a servant. She supplied drawings that depicted her culture and are now invaluable to scholars. 

one of Shanawdithit's drawings

She too, died of TB in June, 1829, in her late 20s. she looks very like her aunt.

There are several Beothuk sites that have been found and excavated - a few of which we have been lucky enough to visit. They seemed to live mostly on the north side of Newfoundland, all around Lewisporte, Twillingate, Change Islands, Fogo Island and that peninsula.

Boyd's Cove, on the way to Twillingate, was the best: extensive, beautiful and with a very quiet, good museum there. We were the only ones there and it was not all that well sign-posted. It deserves better. 

The site itself was only found in the 1980s and sits nestled in the perfect spot - on a flat meadow raised above the sea and protected by trees, near a sizable river that would have provided fresh water as well as fish and other nutrition and access to the sea. You can still see the hollows above which their houses would have been built. 

Thankfully there is retroactive interest in the Beothuk peoples, and references to their name and history are often found throughout Newfoundland, sometimes a little opportunistically when attached to businesses selling stuff!

 

the river by the site

you can see the elevated meadow
behind the trees, just above the beach

several house sites can still be seen

after the excavations were completed,
everything was allowed to return to \
as it was when it was found 

  

The Wizard of Wireless

 In 2017, we went walking along some of the Cornish coastal path. In a quiet spot called Poldhu, we passed a remarkable installation. It was here that Guglielmo Marconi sent out the first transatlantic wireless signal through the air, changing telecommunications for all time.

Italian-born Guglielmo Marconi

And where was that message sent to and received?

Well, would it surprise you to hear that it was Newfoundland?

In 1901 Marconi received the first message at Signal Hill, St. John’s, and twenty years later the first transatlantic telephone messages were made from here as well.

He had established the Marconi Wireless Company in 1897, but faced doubts as to range of wireless communications. In 1900 he decided to send messages across the Atlantic to prove his theories and methods.

Poldhu, Cornwall was the first station built, powerful enough to send the message. The receiving station was originally meant to be in Cape Cod, USA, but a horrific storm took out the American station. He then chose a station location slightly closer to the UK. 

At first he used balloons to keep the antenna aloft, but that proved impossible in Newfoundland winds, so then he used kites. Even then he could only use them a short period each day. But on December 12 he heard three pips, indicating a series of 3 "S"s, sent from more than 2,100 km away.

Ground waves had the problem of earth's curve to deal with, but his theory that sky waves could be used was radical, and correct. These waves bounced off the ionosphere and returned back to earth.

“…I knew then that I had been absolutely right in my calculations. The electric waves which were being sent from Poldhu had traversed the Atlantic, serenely ignoring the curvature of the earth which so many doubters considered would be a fatal obstacle, and they were now affecting my receiver in Newfoundland.”

Marconi, the “Wizard of Wireless”  became a star, confounding all scientific opinion as to what was possible, to the point where scientific knowledge had to be revised.

The first message was sent from an abandoned quarantine hospital at the top of Signal Hill in St. John's, now long since gone. The current Cabot tower was erected (1898-1900) to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and the 500th anniversary of John Cabot's landing in Bonavista, and it was from this tower, in 1933, that a message was sent to Marconi to officially open the Marconi Wireless station. That station, on the second flower of the Tower, is now a bit of a museum to all things Marconi. And it's a stunning view.

Cabot Tower atop Signal Hill

Water Water Everywhere

 If anyone tells you there is a water shortage concern in Newfoundland, do not be taken in.

We have never seen a place with so much water!

There are rivers (called brooks) as well as real brooks, and streams and rivulets and becks and creeks galore.

There are enormous lakes (called ponds - it seems anything that is not ocean is a "pond" ) and actual ponds and bogs and marsh and lagoons and puddles by the tens of thousands. 

The place is awash with waterfalls (called waterfalls), and rapids, and chutes and trickles. 

We often stepped on what looked like a perfectly dry path or patch of grass only to hear it squelch underfoot.

And let's not forget this is an Island surrounded by wild Atlantic ocean!

It is no wonder the mosquito and blackfly popular is mammoth - they have all this lovely water to spend time with. But a drought? Never!

   

On the Road

There are both pros and cons to driving in Newfoundland.

Pro - There is rarely anyone else on the road - traffic is maybe 3 cars on Highway 1.

rare wind turbines on a
familiar empty highway

Con - The traffic noted above is usually because roadworks have slowed and bunched up the few travelers together.

Pro - The roads are constantly being worked on, with crews in every part of the province

common indication to keep you
on your driving toes

Con - The roads need to be worked on, as potholes are frequent and fierce, gravel roads go from very good to OMG!!!. There are patches on patches and one can look awfully drunk weaving from side to side trying to find the clearest and safest bit of road to drive on. The winter weather is mostly to blame, but the snowplows probably add their share of divots. You know when you are heading for trouble when you see a permanently installed "potholes ahead" sign.

a stretch of potholed gravel turns
100km to 30km pretty quickly

Pro -  There are signs that point you in the right direction

Con - Once you know you are going in the right direction, signage seems to disappear. Very few offer a sense of how far it is to one place or another.

Pro - Even in the middle of nowhere, there will be a local hiking briskly along the highways as his/her constitutional it seems.

Con - Well, that kind of hiking along highways is not for me.

Pro - All the poles seem to be reinforced with a box of wood full of rocks. 

Con - These poles need buttressing against the wind, which can sometimes test a driver's grip on the wheel when a broadside gust hits.

Our wonderful rental Chevy Trax worked superbly - no tires were blown, no dents from flying gravel dented body or windows - and mostly importantly - we did not run out of gas 100km away from anywhere!  

       

Eastward Ho

We are wending our way eastward, back towards St. John's, but not too quickly.

Along the way we saw the falls at Grand Falls Windsor.

grandish falls

There we saw our first lilacs in full bloom, I had to stop and inhale them, as we missed them at home, having left before they were in peak scent.

Hiked a bit in Terra Nova National Park - 

Then a couple of days in Sandy Cove where we had a simple old-skool cabin like the ones we stayed in as kids in the 1960s. It was a nice base for hiking some of the Damnable Trails (liked the name of this network so much I bought the tee-shirt) and had an excellent dinner at the Happy Adventure Inn. It is heartening to know there is a town that is actually called Happy Adventure, even though the name seems to have come from ruthless pirate Peter Easton, who hid out from the British in this harbour and considered his escape a happy adventure. 

a telltale bell on a Damn the Bell
(Damnable) Trail

We tootled around the area, exploring the charming village of Salvage (pronounced salvayge).

Monday laundry

inner harbour

picturesque graveyard

Seeing a boat trip was on offer, and seeing how calm the water was, we stepped aboard, saw eagles and huge herring, but best of all we ended up floating through a colony of puffins! They flap their wings so fast to get anywhere, and zoomed around, crossing our boat on occasion. Dear things they are - we were thrilled to see so many of them.

surrounded by puffins!

young eagle

did Peter Easton hide out in this cave?
of was it one of the dozen others?

sky meets the sea off the Bonvista

Back on to the Avalon, we stayed a couple of nights in one of the best B&Bs we've stayed in anywhere, not just Newfoundland, the 1855-built George Inn. Lovely view and guess what, it's right across the street from the Dildo Brewery! Panko-covered lobster tails and beer marinated duck legs are added to the ubiquitous fish and chips.

George Inn in Dildo

Dildo Brewpub dinner

colourful Dildo harbour

duck legs....

.....and local beer.....

....finishing with a mint

American late night host Jimmy Kimmel latched on to the humour of a place called Dildo, made a thing of it on his show and has now become the honourary mayor. He declared Dildo's sister city to be Hollywood, and there is a Hollywood-esque sign high up on the hill overlooking Dildo harbour in homage.

Dildo "Hollywood" sign

There are so many peninsulas in Newfoundland and we have only circumnavigated a few, so we added two more.

At Placentia there is Castle Hill, which was a formidable French fortification, until wars in Europe went against the French and they had to leave this part of Newfoundland. Unfair I say, after having built such an effective protection for their fishery on Placentia's amazing beach. That fantastic beach must have been full of drying cod in the day. 

At the southern end of that peninsula, should one take the 13 km detour and brave the fog that increases in thicker and thicker waves along the road, and shroud even more so on the 2 km walk from the parking lot, one is rewarded with the stench of thousands of gannets home for the holidays, which means breeding on steep cliffs that plunge into the Atlantic.

gannets, the albatross of the north

plunging over the cliff in thick fog 

sitting as far to the precipice as Jenny dared,
given the high winds and sheer drop 

It's just as well one can not see very far in the fog, for the path goes quite near these alarming cliffs and there are no fences. 

The true reward is at the end, on a very precarious rock that leans out over the sea and looks right across at a bulbous rock full of gannets and murres and other seabirds. Hard not to be impressed with the sight, as long as one does not lean to far for a look....

professional photo to show what it looks like on a sunny day
we were perched on that point opposite the bird-filled rock

Every peninsula has a name - that of a "trail" representing something noteworthy about that trail. The Viking Trail leads to L'Anse aux Meadows, the Discovery Trail leads to Bonavista where John Cabot landed, and the Irish Loop in Avalon references the Island's 400 years of Irish heritage. The accents of Newfoundlanders change within a few miles, as they are all place-based.

What I mean by that is whenever we see Newfoundlanders - working in a restaurant or at their B&B or running a business or talking tourists round - we always ask "Where are you from?" The answer is always "Here".

Newfoundlanders don't move away from where they grew up and where their families grew up. Land passes through inheritance more than purchase. Some might have to go off to find work, but they always seem to come back, and not to another part of the province, but only back to their own village.

So the accents in this part of Newfoundland have a distinctly Irish lilt. St. Mary's was a lovely place to spend a night, and we watched the fog dissolve as it rolls past. We saw fields full of lupins, and there is a lovely pastoral air here.

The fog that dissolves in St. Mary's is, so they say, manufactured in St. Vincent's, and it's hard to dispute the opinion from our impression.

The beach there is the most stunning - wicked wind gusts, thundering white waves and jade green waters, made more stunning with gannets plunging into the ocean for fish and - wait for it - humpback whales cavorting just off shore - we could see them! Although the fog prohibited a great view, and our glasses kept getting drenched with foggy spray, it was pretty amazing.