Middle finger

Like many Michiganders, Newfoundlanders use their hand to describe where they live. For Newfoundlanders, it is their left hand, palm downward with the fingers splayed. The thumb is the Avalon Peninsula with St. John's near the tip of the thumb. The pointer finger is the Bonavista Peninsula with Bonavista at the very tip. The middle finger has Bonvista Bay on one side and Notre Dame Bay on the other. A handful of little islands are at the end of this finger; some are connected to the main island of Newfoundland with causeways; some of the islands require a ferry ride to visit. Twillingate is on Twillingate Island and is the big attraction - it is known as "iceberg alley" and this year has seen a bumper crop of icebergs.

As luck would have it, Twillingate is celebrating their 34th annual Twillingate Fish, Fun & Folk Festival July 21st - 27th. We had planned on visiting Twillingate to see the icebergs in the harbors and inlets, their much photographed lighthouse at Long Point, and to take one of the many hiking trails in the area. When we looked at the program for festival events today, we saw that, at 1pm, there was a  listing for, "Guided Tours of Twillingate Walking Trails, Tour Guide Fred Bridger."  We arrived at the appointed place to see if this would meet our needs and met Fred Bridger.  He described the trail he was planning on hiking and we and three other women piled into our cars and drove to the trailhead, a little south of town at Little Harbour. 

Up-close picture of the Long Point Lighthouse. To me, it looks a little like a milk bottle. 

Lighthouse from the viewing platform across the parking lot.

Looking out the the Atlantic Ocean from the Twillingate Lighthouse.

From the observation platform at the lighthouse we saw this iceberg in the Twillingate harbour. When we had driven through town we got a closer look and it was large.

The trailhead of the Little Harbour Trail.

Our hiking group: Frederick, Fred, Ellen, Catherine and Joya.

About a 1/4 mile down the trail we came to this root cellar.  

A natural arch from above, on the trail. We all scrambled down those rocks in the foreground for a different view.

Standing at the base of the arch.

To the right, under the arch, was this basalt dike.

Back up on top, climbing toward the end of the headland.

Climbing to the top of the headland.

Looking down on Little Harbour from the trail.

Looking back to the natural arch.  You can just see the sunlight on the other side of the arch.

The tip of the headland.

Near the tip of the headland we came upon a little field of bakeapples or cloud berries. They are a real treat for the Newfoundlanders and sell for about $50/gallon. Fred is demonstrating how to peel and prepare them for eating. He said he would come back tomorrow to pick them. They are not quite ripe, they turn a deeper orange when they are ripe and soften, but Fred said that now is a good time to pick them before they get too soft.  He will pick them and then let them ripen some more before eating.

Fred asking the group if we would like to take the short-cut or the trail to the beach.  We opted for the beach.

See the iceberg peeking out from one of the coves? It is probably grounded there, said Fred.

Here we are sitting on the beach "sand" at Jona Beach.  When I laughed about calling these beach rocks "sand", Fred just said that's what Newfoundlanders call them - some grains of sand are bigger than others.

Another section of the trail that Fred calls a prehistoric forest. It turns out, someone told us, that Fred Bridger is the expert on the hiking trails of Twillingate. Fred told us that at the time of the moratorium, when fishing for cod was prohibited by the government, the government provided the idle fishers the opportunity to earn money from community projects, kind of like the WPA and the CCC during the Depression. Fred and his partner proposed developing a series of trails around Twillingate to attract visitors. No wonder Fred knew all about these trails. Another interesting fact about Fred is that he is the youngest of triplets. He and another of his brothers are identical twins and then there is a third brother.

Right at the end of the causeway that joins Twillingate Island to New Land Island is this dock with the skeleton of a whale.