Gros Morne Redux

I revisited Gros Morne in late August when the weather was much better. For easy reading I'm filing the post here so people can read it in context.

After doing some shopping and banking in Corner Brook the night before, I left my B&B this morning and immediately drove to Gros Morne. Here's a nice shot across Bonne Bay and, once again, the Tablelands stick out like a sore thumb:


Next I pulled into Rocky Harbor for the tickets and some lunch and snapped this shot of the town and the bay outside the restaurant.After the brief stop I went straight to Western Brook Pond -- a landlocked fjord. It's a 30-45 minute hike to the dock from the parking lot. The weather was spectacular but also, characteristically, very windy. Although I shudder to think of the wind chills that are generated here in the winter, in the summer the wind eliminates all blood-sucking insectoids from the air. Here's a near identical shot of the dock and the entrance to the pond -- much better!

So, how did they get two boats in here? The first boat was brought in the middle of winter when the surrounding bog was frozen solid. The next boat was split into pieces and flown in by helicopter to avoid damaging the habitat. Once again I was worried about my sea sickness and the first 15 minutes of the trip was choppy as the first section of the pond was the most exposed to wind. A few tourists out front were soaked by some errant waves. Fortunately, the water is from a superoligotrophic lake. The water here is so pure and free of nutrients that very little life can be supported. With minimal algae and other plant growth the lake is remarkably clear. The deeper levels of the lake are high in oxygen so fish can survive here but otherwise the lake is pretty dead. The discovery of the lakes oligotrophic nature has a eureka! element to it: scientists found it strange that their water pumps would consistently overfill their storage tanks. They realized that the shut-off mechanism was supposed to activate when the water level was high enough to complete the circuit. Of course, the water here is so pure that no current could flow through it and so the pumps couldn't shut off.

The Western Brook Pond Tour was highly recommended by my guide book and I heartily agree. The high cliffs gouged out by an ancient glacier were very scenic.
This elevated valley marks the point where a tributary glacier joined the main glacier:
This was the end of the Pond. On the left hand side you can see a small dock -- this is the starting point for backcountry hikers where they can hike to Gros Morne (the mountain) in 5 days. They head up and out of the Pond and, with no marked trails, orienteering skills were mandatory (that or a GPS system).
Afterwards I drove back to Saint Anthony. The next day I went to the Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve where some of the rarest flowers in the world can be found (a botanist would have a "field day" in that place). Unfortunately, I had missed the best time to see the flowers bloom -- mid-June was apparently the best time to have gone. The photos weren't particularly interesting so I think I'll wait until next June for a repeat visit.

Day 15: Gros Morne to St. Anthony

Touchdown! After 15 days and over 3000 miles I finally made it in one piece.

Well, as predicted, the morning was bright and sunny as you can see in this photo (you might recognize the distinctive colour of the Tablelands in the background). Blast it! Oh well, I'll just rebook the Western Brook Pond Boat Tour during a future trip to Corner Brook. I headed out and made a brief stop at Lobster Cove to take some pictures of Bonne Bay and Rocky Harbour.

It's really hard to see in this photo but Rocky Harbour town runs along the opposite shore.

After a few hours I stopped at Port-Au-Choix to check out the heritage site dedicated to the aboringinals who used to settle in Nfld. It was interesting how the settlement patterns of the various people coincided with climate changes. First the Archaic Indians settled and then when the climate cooled the paleoeskimos moved in and the cycle would repeat with the climate. They excavated a burial site in the area and found many stone-age artifacts. They were quite skilled with making stone tools -- apparently they found scalpel sized blades in addition to the usual arrowheads and harpoon tips.

Next it was on to a very little known attraction -- thrombolites. Apparently, Flowers Cove is one of only two sites in the world (the other being a remote Australian west coast location) where these "living rocks" grow. These microorganisms apparently cause calcium carbonate to precipitate out and ultimately create rock. They're sort of (but not exactly) like fossils and being 600 million years old it would make them among the oldest fossils/organisms on the planet. You'd think something like this would have a nicely developed tourist site for it, but no: if it wasn't for the guidebook I would have driven right past it. There was a 3x2 foot sign on the side of the highway indicating the turn off. But no other signage after that. I wandered down a trail, doubled back because I thought I was going the wrong way, and then finally persevered before finding a very simple information board describing the thrombolites. I snapped a few photos but to be honest...I had a hard time telling the thrombolites apart from the other rocks on the shore!

The cluster of cracked rocks in the middle of the photo are the thrombolites.

From there it was on to St. Anthony. While the day started out sunny, it became cloudy and foggy, but an hour outside of St. Anthony it became bright and sunny again. Hopefully a good omen!