CANADA ST LAWRENCE NORTH SHORE

Previous Page | Index | Next Page

There wasn't much else happening around the port for the moment and so I resolved to go for a walk, despite the fact that with this rolling fog billowing in, I couldn't see very much.

What I could see though is some kind of evidence that fishing did, and perhaps still does, to some extent, play an important part in the economic life of the island. There were several little creeks such as this one and they were all lined with what looks like fishing cabins.

I'd also been having a good butcher's at the electricity poles on the island. Like most places where there is a question of peaty acid soils, even treated timber doesn't last as long as it should and we kep on seeing different ways of preserving the integrity of the poles.

This metal bracket supporting the pole and keeping it upright in case the base rots away and snaps off is method that I haven't encountered before and so I can add this to the list.

One object that I had noticed out of my bedroom window was a cairn perched on top of a nearby eminence. That was something that I'd marked down to visit.

Mind you, reaching the cairn was not as easy as it looked. It turned into something of a marathon hike and now I can understand much better how Holmes and Watson must have felt after struggling through Grimpen Mire.

It turns out that the cairn was erected by the Harrington Harbour Youth Group in 1935, back in the days when places like Harrington Harbour had youths, and was erected to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Cartier's exploration of the Harrington Archipelago, the collective name given to all of the (hundreds of) islands around here.

Of course, you are all wondering what the view is like from the top of the cairn. And so am I because with the thick fog that was being blown by this biting, bitterly cold wind, right across the top of the hill where I was standing, I could hardly see anything of note.

There were however the odd occasions when I noticed that the sun was having a little go at trying to burst through, and so maybe there might be hope for something to develop after lunch. We might yet be lucky.

I had noticed this morning that my landlady was doing her washing and I remember smiling to myself wondering how she was intending to dry it.

No doubt at all about how this other islander was intending to dry her washing. This is what I call optimism. I sometimes have similar weather conditions to this and my washing can hand outside for a week and more and still not be dry.

I hope that no-one is in a rush to wear those clothes.

I mentioned that there were a few little creeks and inlets on the island, and that they, especially on the north shore, had quite a few of what I reckoned were probably fishing cabins on the banks.

This is another little creek and you can have a better idea of what I mean from here. One or two of them, and even one or two of the houses right by the creeks have landing stages and jetties so that you don't have to carry your fish too far.

You probably noticed the bridge in the background of the previous photograph - or, at least, you would have done had there not been this thick fog all about the place.

I went up onto the bridge so that I could have a good look at the inland-end of the creek but with this being the northern side of the island and the sun having difficulty of penetrating here, especially into the gulleys, you can see that it's all still quite snowbound down there.

Standing on the bridge and looking in the other direction, you can in theory have a good view of the Gulf, and you can certainly have a good idea of how picturesque the village might look, if only we were to have the sun.

But while I ws taking this photo, I heard a little "plop" and "splash" from behind me, and closer inspection revealed what had happened. A little lump of ice had calved itself off from the ice that we saw in the previous photo and there it was, happily floating off out to sea.

That's a miniature microcosm of just how icebergs are really created when they calf themselves from glaciers.

There's another little creek just a little further along this pathway and so I wandered off for a look at that.

But never mind the creek for a minute - how about the bridge that crosses it? That's a rickety kind of structure that merits closer inspection, and all that I can say is that I can understand why they don't allow motor vehicles on the island.

Still, can you imagine something 10 times as big as that with a traditional North American steam train puffing its way across it, just like the scene where the baddies heave the fireman out of the cab of the train in Breakheart Pass?

Another one of my aims and ambitions on this voyage was to encounter an iceberg. And while this particular one wouldn't quite manage to sink the Titanic, or even the Mecatina II if it comes to that, it's an iceberg all the same and it's probably the best that I'm going to be able to manage on this journey.

And have you noticed all of the wood stacked up by the houses? It intrigued me too, seeing as there aren't any trees of any significance on the island. I made a few enquiries about this and I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

But after this I decided to head back to my digs and do some work. I can't do very much more in this fog. It's not particularly a good idea to wander off the beaten track when can't see where I'm going in a place like this where I'm a stranger.

But on my way back, my attention was diverted to something that was moving about just offshore by the harbour, just in front of the ice floes. Because of the thick fog, it was hard to say what it was doing and for all I know, it might have been rather a large whale swimming about.

I did rather curse my luck though. The closest that I'm ever likely to get to a full-size whale and I can't see whether it is one or not.

Something tells me that this part of the adventure is not working out in my favour.

back to top

next page