The Three Fs - #2 Fauna

We came to Newfoundland in spring to see puffins, and see them we did.

unattached ones sitting on rocks

attached ones protecting their single egg
in a grassy burrow nest

flying off to find food for the chicks

can't lie - this photo is not mine

Other wildlife was a bonus and what a great bonus! We saw 7 moose

most of our moose were seen on or by the road

we can see you too

4 caribou

one of these distant fellows had a
large rack of antlers, but it's hard to see here

this young guy
(who looks like he is just coming into his coat)
walked right past our car!

5 beaver

eating freshly laid lawn

someone likes to eat alone

2 foxes (one red trotting along the highway with something mammalian in its mouth, and one arctic in mid-moult)

the arctic fox

Our whale sightings were few, but we did see one humpback and a couple of minke, and I saw the spouts of fin whales in the distance as we crossed to Labrador on the ferry.

We saw toads

And about 3 millions birds

in the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve,
with a few intrepid kayakers 

including gannets

,

 murres, 

kittiwakes 

grouse

and my personal favourite, the white throated sparrow. The melodic song of this bird was heard on our first day in St. John's and followed us everywhere in the province.   

The Three Fs - Flora

The plant life of Newfoundland is quite diverse. 

Trees are primarily pine, birch or black spruce. Especially black spruce. Newfoundland's boreal forest is changing. This useful tree is starting to disappear in many places, which might be a natural forest rejuvenation. When this tree goes, the forest opens up and new species move in and the cycle repeats. Its not necessarily a bad thing.

We are used to seeing driftwood and a ton of life on our BC beaches, and, in comparison, Newfoundland's beaches are actually pretty empty. However, if you look closely, there is bounty, and beauty.

Now that it is June, and well into June, we are seeing wildflowers upon wildflowers. In the forest: 

lots of juniper about

I don't this one, but it's pretty

wild strawberris

crackerberry

ladies slipper

blue bead lily

And high up on the mountains:

a drizzle of water
brings out the green

Some are even deadly to insects and animals, including the provincial flower, the pitcher plant, which drowns its victims in it deep "pitchers" of sticky liquid:

pitchers ready for a
flying meal to come by

pitcher plant
beginning to blossom

this is another pretty plant
that is toxic to animals

There are lilacs in gardens and fields of wild pink and blue lupins. And wherever you go in the world, there are dandelions!

Landscape

Jenny's grandparents had an oil painting above their sofa in their house in Telegraph Cove, BC.  

When Jenny's aunt died in January 2022, her cousin passed on a number of family things. I suppose having written some historic non-fiction that included the lives of my grandmother and great-grandmother, and being a keen amateur genealogist, she is generally considered the family historian. 

One of the items he gave her was the painting that had been in the Wastell's Telegraph Cove house, along with a photograph of a young woman standing in front of her easel with this painting on it, half finished.

It was at that stage that she found out her grandmother's mother was that young woman, and this painting had been painted where she lived in Newfoundland, before she emigrated to BC in the late 1880s!

One of the fun projects of this trip has been trying to find out if this landscape is of a real place, and if so where. 

Topsail, where Emma Winsor Butler Gibbson McCoskrie lived before coming to BC? Decidedly no. 

Topsail beach

Port de Grave, where she was born? Possibly, but none of the people we met there recognized the fairly distinctive headland in the painting's background and nor did we.

Port de Grave penninsula

Perhaps Bell Island where her father had received a government lease to prospect for and harvest guano in the 1870s. I am not sure as we did not get to Bell Island.

Or perhaps it is just a typical Newfoundland coastal scene from her imagination. She has certainly captured the spirit, as we saw water and rocks like these everywhere.

Strong Water

We had a couple of days before having to return our rental car, so spent them in and around Aquaforte.

It's a great name - Aquaforte - isn't it? It means Strong Water. Our home in Labrador was in the town of Forteau, another word that means Strong Water. I guess the equivalent in BC would be Skookumchuck in the Chinook language.  

Visiting Aquaforte was not a random choice, and we were lucky to find a place to stay, as Aquaforte is pretty small. The reason we chose it was family tree-related. Yes, at the end of the trip we are tapping into the beginning, researching Jenny's family tree.

In my research I found that my great-great grandmother (the matriarch in the photo on this blog's front page, there, on the upper right) was born a Winsor. No D - although many subsequent people spelled it that way, and some ancient relations had it spelled Winser. Census-takers and other officials were not all that good at ensuring names heard were spelled correctly, and most people in Newfoundland were illiterate until the mid-1800s and even later, so names are often spelled wrong.

Anyway, my g-g-grandmother was born Sarah Ann Winsor, and I found her marriage certificate, which indicated she was born in Aquaforte. Her parents moved there from Denbury, Devon, in England where they had resided for centuries. I have traced the Denbury Winsors back to the 16th century thus far!

Interesting story. Sarah Ann's father Jacob was a ship's captain, as was his brother Peter. They seem to have been on the same ship on its way back to England with a boatload of cod when they were intercepted by Napoleon's navy. This would have been in 1810 or so. They would have been carrying the British flag, which made them a target to the French.

They were both imprisoned until 1813, when the war was ended and they were released to go home. In about 1820 it looks like Peter decided to bring his family to Newfoundland, and his brother Jacob did the same thing a few years later. together with their wives and 20 children between them (ten each!) They settled in Aquaforte, which had been a seasonal fishing station since 1670, so the brothers might have known of it beforehand. They might even have been one of or even the first permanent settlers there.

By the way, Aquaforte became a prominent Norwegian-owned whaling station in 1902, and it's postal code is the lowest alphabetically AND numerically in the country - A0A 1A0.

Anyway, long story short (too late), Jacob's 9th child was Sarah Ann Winsor, who married John William Azarias Butler from Port de Grave, Newfoundland and had 7 children. In 1891, the family had all moved to Victoria, BC., and ultimately - several decades later - produced Jenny. 

Jacob Winsor and his wife Anna (Jennings) are buried in Aquaforte's tiny church on the hill, and that is why we are here in Aquaforte.

walking up the old grassy track
to the tiny church 

picturesque and dilapidated

searching for the right Winsors 

There he is - Jacob (1784-1858),
with his wife Anna (1796-1876)
and one of their sons,
Captain Daniel Henry (1818-1898)

hello ancestors!

Our B&B was the old whaling station owner's house, high on the hill and overlooking the harbour. 

Each of the rooms has a hand-made sign with its name. When I commented on the one bearing the name "Windsor" as being connected to my family history, it turns out the owner's wife was born a Windsor (Newfoundland people never move far from where their family roots are) and there are still Windsors all over the place. 

We compared family tree branches, and it turns out she is the great-great-granddaughter of Peter Winsor, brother to my great-great-grandfather Jacob, so we are 5th cousins!