While our explorations may not require nearly the mettle of a bunch of bearded, red-headed, horned-helmet-wearing brutes setting out across The North Sea in an open boat; navigating a house on wheels over barren, weather beaten roads up to the very top of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula did require a certain measure of… CONTINUE READING >>
While our explorations may not require nearly the mettle of a bunch of bearded, red-headed, horned-helmet-wearing brutes setting out across The North Sea in an open boat; navigating a house on wheels over barren, weather beaten roads up to the very top of Newfoundland‘s Great Northern Peninsula did require a certain measure of moxie.
View of the Viking landing site from the Visitor Center.
The wild ride left us arriving a little late at the landing site of those ancient intrepid Norse explorers, but ultimately that worked in our favor. The L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site was about to close, which virtually gave us the place all to ourselves.
But we had to hurry so as not to miss the costumed reenactors, so we gave the Visitor Center a quick run through, snapping away with our trusty camera for later perusal, and headed down to the reconstructed Viking Village.
We made it just in time to catch them before they called it a day. They showed us the highlights of the long house, where the band of Vikings lived, pointing out the kitchen, chieftain’s quarters, and sleeping area.
The entire building and contents have been painstakingly reproduced, using archeological sites in Iceland and Greenland as guides.
Watch:Meet the real live Vikings of L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site
This ties into the belief that the sailors who landed here came from those islands.
According to the Norse Sagas, passed down from centuries ago, Eric The Red, and later his son Lief, told tales of lands to the west that they had discovered in their journeys, including one they called Vinland.
For years modern archaeologist speculated on the location of this fabled land, most hypothesized that the Vikings had been to Baffin Island and in northern Labrador, but believed those to be the other lands mentioned in the stories, Helluland and Markland.
Because of the name Vinland, they speculated that it must be somewhat to the south, where vines could grow. More recently some theorize that the “vin” in Vinland might be better translated as meadow or pasture.
When, in 1960, Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad found the remains of a Norse settlement on the shore of Epaves Bay on the northern tip of Newfoundland, it fit the meadow theory precisely.
If this wasn’t Vinland, at least it proved that the Vikings had been to North America.
One of the keys to unlocking the mystery of the Vikings landing here some five hundred years before Columbus was the discovery of iron nails and buckles.
The native Eskimo people did not use iron at that time, so clearly someone else had been here. This was proved beyond a doubt when the remains of a forge and furnace used to smelt and work the iron were uncovered.
Our Viking guide demonstrated the technique, and showed us how the metal was extracted from the peat along the banks of the creeks. The iron content was obvious, the water runs a rusty red color.
Thanking our Norse guides so they could clock out for the day, we walked over to the unrestored foundations of several other buildings.
This was thought to be more of a supply and trading outpost than a permanent settlement, but remnants of
at least nine large dwellings and many other smaller ones have been found, proving the site was active for some time.
But our time had run out, plus we were about as hungry as a Viking, so we stopped at the nearby The Norseman Restaurant.
However, we seriously doubt Lief and his crew ever ate anything remotely as nice as our dinner, and they certainly never had an iceberg vodka martini or beer.
Yes, up here they make vodka and beer out of melted icebergs.
Speaking of icebergs, as we left the Viking village we got our first ever real life look at an iceberg, in fact there were several of them floating around in Hay Cove.
We got a great view even though it was nearly bed time, good thing the summer sun stays up until all hours of the night this far north.
Our late night look at the bergs had us itching to get a closer encounter, so the next morning we hightailed it down to St. Anthony and jumped aboard a boat for a whale and iceberg tour.
Things seemed fine as we left the harbor, but before we got to where the whales were hanging out, the weather took a nasty turn.
Our three hour tour had us humming “If not for the courage of the fearless crew, The Minnow would be lost…” as we crammed into the wheelhouse of the tiny ship (that was being tossed) along with two dozen other passengers.
One humpback flipper was spotted for a fleeting moment, but photos were impossible in the driving rain.
The Skipper knew a lost cause when he saw one and set sail for the safer waters of a sheltered cove.
The storm relented just in time for us to go out on the deck and get right next to a floating chunk of polar ice.
Soaked and chilled, we felt a little like icebergs ourselves, but we were too thrilled to care.
Watch:We go hunting for icebergs – and like all good hunters – we eat our prey!
Back on shore, we stopped in to learn about Dr. Wilfred Grenfell at the Grenfell Interpretation Centre just up from the dock.
In 1892, Dr. Grenfell came from London to Labrador on a charity mission to help the fishermen. What he found was a woeful lack of medical services, not only for the fishermen, but also the native population.
He began to address the needs by traveling to remote areas to provide treatment, often making his house calls by dogsled.
Over the next forty-five years the good doctor raised funds and supervised construction of hospitals and clinics in both Newfoundland and Labrador, all the while continuing his hands-on care.
Grenfell’s hospitalThe rotunda of the “new” hospital. Jordi Bonet’s murals depict those who have carried on Grenfell’s mission.
He chose St. Anthony as the site of his headquarters and built his main hospital, an orphanage, and also his home in the town.
This helped to make the fishing village into the hub of northern Newfoundland, meeting the medical needs of the entire region.
In fact the original hospital now stands in the shadow of a new state-of-the-art modern facility that serves as the culmination of doctor Grenfell’s vision.
With the skies clearing, we walked up the hill to The Grenfell House, which now serves as a museum.
The entire home was open to walk through, so we really got a feel for life in the early nineteen hundreds, as well as a look at many of the doctor’s instruments.
With so much more of Newfoundland left to see, the time had come to set back out onto that lonesome road known up here as The Viking Trail.
By the time we pulled into the Tuckamore Lodge in the tiny town of Main Brook the rain had made a return, but not enough to keep us from checking out the incredible surroundings.
The Tuckamore is tucked tightly between a picturesque pond off The Salmon River and an arm of Hare Bay in The North Atlantic.
The innkeeper, Barb Genge, showed us around and then we joined several other guests in the main room.
As we got to know everyone we found that most were returning visitors, some have been coming up to the lodge for many years. It has become like a family summer home.
After a great meal and lots of conversation, we were ready to hit the hay. Strolling back to our room, a group just coming in waved and said that it was a good thing we were safely in and off the road because there were moose all over the highway.
Nice try, like we were going to fall for that old myth.
There is something quintessentially southern about the Louisiana bayou country known as Acadiana, so it seemed strange that we would go north of the U. S. border to discover its roots and origins.
The Cajuns’ ancestry traces directly back to Canada’s Maritime Provinces, so there was no better place to begin our investigation than in Nova Scotia at the Grand-Pré National Historic Site. It was along this coast on The Bay of Fundy that the first French settlers to come to the new world arrived in 1605, before… CONTINUE READING >>
Thanks to Road Scholar for providing this lifelong learning adventure through the Canadian Maritimes! As always, all opinions are our own.
Cajun musicians in Louisiana
Since our first trip to South Louisiana, over two decades ago, we have been enamored with Cajun culture.
We have returned numerous times to enjoy the food, music, landscape, and people of this unique region. They work hard, play hard, and stay deeply connected with family, friends, the land and their history.
There is something quintessentially southern about the Louisiana bayou country known as Acadiana, so it seemed strange that we would go north of the U. S. border to discover its roots and origins.
The Cajuns’ ancestry traces directly back to Canada‘s Maritime Provinces, so there was no better place to begin our investigation than in Nova Scotia at the Grand-Pré National Historic Site. It was along this coast on The Bay of Fundy that the first French settlers to come to the new world arrived in 1605, before any arrived from England.
Through the 1600s the colony became known as Acadia, or Acadie in French, and grew to cover all of Nova Scotia, as well as parts of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
The name is thought to stem from one of the earliest maps of North America, when explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano labeled the entire Atlantic coast from Virginia northward as Arcadia.
The theory is that the R was dropped at some point, or possibly the name is from Samuel de Champlain, who founded Quebec City and New France in 1608, and called the coastal French territories La Cadie.
As we entered the Visitor Center we noticed a display demonstrating how these colonists reclaimed the salt water marshes, rather than clearing the forests. By building an ingenious series of dykes and canals they converted the once useless swamps into fertile farmland.
More than anything it was that skill that set the Acadians apart from the other French settlers that soon followed and populated Quebec.
Though they were joined by language and ancestral homeland, they remained distinctly different, and do to this day.
The Center overlooks a vast plain of this reclaimed land, and as we walked the impeccably maintained grounds of the Grand-Pré National Historic Site, we came to understand the significance of this area and the events that took place here.
It’s no wonder Henry Wadsworth Longfellow chose this as the setting for his epic poem Evangeline.
The story, while fictitious, describes the plight of the Acadians in intense, personal terms, through the eyes of lovers, Evangeline and Gabriel, who were torn apart by circumstances beyond their control.
The poem came to be regarded as a classic, and because of it Grand-Pré has become central to Acadian and Cajun legend and lore.
Both the author, and his heroine Evangeline, are honored with statues at the Historic Site.
The tale takes place at the culmination of years of conflict between the English and Acadians after British control of the colony began in 1710.
Many of the Acadians were not content to accept foreign rule, most simply desired to remain neutral in the ongoing hostilities between Britain and the rest of New France.
Some others engaged in guerrilla warfare against the English.
By the mid-1700s all were required to sign an oath of allegiance as England began to dominate, and demand loyalty to the crown from the vanquished Acadians.
But many refused, arguing that they wished to stay out of the struggle for control of The New World.
Some fled into the wilderness areas of Cape Breton and New Brunswick, while others escaped to Quebec, but thousands were forced to leave Acadia in what became known as Le Grand Dérangement, the Great Upheaval, or Great Expulsion.
The Monument at Port-la-Joye depicting the deportations.
The deportations took place over several years, and from a number of locations, but Longfellow likely chose Grand-Pré as the site to be immortalized since it was the first place where thousands of Acadians had their possessions confiscated, their homes and farms burned, and were shipped south to the American colonies.
The refugees were not welcome there either, so they were sent away and scattered across the globe, winding up in Europe, Haiti, The Falklands, Saint Pierre and Mequelon, and Guyana.
Later more Acadians were deported from all across Acadie and sent directly to Europe, with as many as half dying on the voyages.
We had the chance to visit and learn about several of these other sites in our travels throughout The Maritimes, including Port-la-Joye on Prince Edward Island, the Fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, and Fort Beauséjour near Grand-Pré.
After years of exile in foreign lands, some Acadians managed to assimilate into their new surroundings, some found their way back to Canada, and many ended up migrating to Louisiana.
That is where the story of Evangeline continued, as the lovers arrived there separately, unbeknownst to each other. They spend the rest of their lives searching across America for one another, with their paths coming agonizingly close, but never crossing until too late.
Lighthouse on Port-la-Joye, Prince Edward Island. Port-la-Joye was the capital of the island when it was under French control and called Île Saint-Jean.
The Tantramar Marshes takes its name from the Acadian French word tintamarre, meaning din or racket, in reference to the noisy flocks of birds living in the reclaimed swamp land that is now a National Wildlife Area and bird sanctuary.
Even though it was written one hundred years later, Longfellow’s masterpiece served to enlighten the world to the tragedy of Le Grand Dérangement, but perhaps more than anything it helped connect the Cajuns to their Acadian roots.
A fascinating bridge that spans a continent from south to north.
We’re giving away a 4-day, 3-night stay at the CoCo Key Hotel & Water Resort in Orlando, Florida!Enter to win and you and (up to) THREE of your friends could enjoy:
A standard room for up to four people, free resort access, free… See full details and enter to win!
CONGRATULATIONS TO CHAD C. FROM FLORIDA!
CHAD SAYS:
“My family and I plan to use this as a much needed stay-cation. Thank you!”
Enter to win and
You and (up to) THREE of your friends could enjoy: A standard room for up to four people
Free Resort access
Free Water Park access
Escape to family-friendly CoCo Key Hotel & Water Resort – Orlando. CoCo Key is located near Orlando’s premium shopping and major attractions. Featuring Orlando’s ONLY 54,000 sq. ft. canopy-covered outdoor water park with 14 slides, 4 heated pools, a 6,500 sq. ft. arcarde, and on-site dining outlets!
(our upcoming Holiday giveaway is an iPad Mini – shh! – don’t tell! Be sneaky & follow us to be in the know)
OFFICIAL RULES All contest entries must be submitted between September 23, 2013, 12:01 AM EST and November 15, 2013, 11:59 pm EST
– Entries are limited to once daily.
– Entrants will receive 5 bonus entries per Facebook friend they refer. To receive these bonus entries, the refer-a-friend feature on the entry page must be used.
– Winner will be selected in a random drawing from all qualified entries.
– Winner will be notified via email on November 16, 2013.
– To claim prize, winner must respond via email by November 23, 2013, 10PM EST
– Winner will be announced on GypsyNester.com on or before November 24, 2013 unless initial winner is not qualified and a new drawing must take place. – One grand prize winner will receive a 4-day, 3-night stay CoCo Key Hotel & Water Resort in a standard room for up to four people with free resort and water park access (7400 International Drive, Orlando, Florida 32819). – Total value of the prize is over $500.00, there are no other prizes.
– The prize is nontransferable and is subject to Water Park availability. There may be no cash or substitutions.
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Winner will receive a certificate with an official seal that must be redeemed by September 17, 2014. No extensions or replacements will be honored.
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Winner must make advance reservations by calling 407-351-2626 and mention the certificate at time of reservation.
– Winner must turn in the certificate at the time of winner’s check-in to CoCo Key Hotel & Water Resort
– You must be over the age of 21 to enter.
– You must be a resident of the United States to enter.
– By entering, each contestant agrees to be bound by these rules.
– Failure of the original winner to meet official rules or claim prize within the specified time period will result in automatic forfeiture of any prize and prize will be awarded to an alternate winner. Alternate winner will be chosen in a new drawing in accordance to these same rules.
Have you ever found the PERFECT Birthday Card? The absolute ONLY one that will make the receiver’s day?
We had been carting this card around with us for quite some time – months. That’s what we do, when we find the ideal card for one of our family or friends we buy it, no matter how long it may be until the occasion that it celebrates. This one was perfect for our oldest, The notoriously carrot-hating Piglet.
Flash forward to a sunny, wildly windy day in Lafayette, Louisiana, a parade of dogs and a birthday card for our eldest to be mailed. What a pretty picture. And it was, until I noticed that the card was no longer in my coat pocket… CONTINUE READING >>
Have you ever found the PERFECT Birthday Card? The absolute ONLY one that will make the receiver’s day?
We had been carting this card around with us for quite some time – months.
That’s what we do, when we find the ideal card for one of our family or friends we buy it, no matter how long it may be until the occasion that it celebrates.
This one was perfect for our oldest, The notoriously carrot-hating Piglet.
Flash forward to a sunny, wildly windy day in Lafayette, Louisiana, a parade of dogs and a birthday card for our eldest to be mailed. What a pretty picture. And it was, until I noticed that the card was no longer in my coat pocket.
That morning we had written a semi-naughty little note inside (referring to The Piglet‘s agonizing over turning twenty-seven – we couldn’t let THAT go by without a sarcastic little jibe!), enclosed a check and stamped and addressed the envelope.
I carried the card in my pocket figuring that we’d see a mailbox somewhere along the parade route. But the ridiculously cute dogs in the Krewe de Chiens Mardi Gras Parade must have distracted me. I never noticed a mailbox.
What I did notice, a little while later, was that the card was gone. It had been poking out of my pocket all day. I kept shoving it back in, but it obviously made one final poke before I could administer another shove. I panicked. How were we going to find another perfect card in time for The Piglet’s birthday?
I surveyed the immediate area, nothing. Time to retrace my steps. We hadn’t gone too far from the last place I remembered shoving the rascal back down, plus the envelope was bright blue, so I felt good about my prospects of finding the escapee.
But I retraced like a kindergartner drawing a Thanksgiving hand turkey and found nothing. The wind was whipping around and could have easily picked up the card and carried it off, but I thought the crowd or bushes or gutter or something would have stopped it. No such luck.
So I doubled back and covered our entire path for the day, still no sign of it. Time to switch into optimist mode, most certainly not my natural state. Perhaps someone picked it up and dropped it into a mailbox.
It was already stamped, so it wouldn’t take much effort, I reasoned, but I didn’t really buy it. Between the wind, the foot traffic and the dog poop – it most likely looked like just another piece of trash amongst the Mardi Gras beads and revelry.
Veronica, on the other hand is God’s own optimist. She decided it would make an interesting social experiment. She called up The Piglet and told her the story.
Now The Piglet was excited to see if the card would show up to her apartment on Manhattan. Suddenly this was way more exciting than just any old birthday card.
About a week later we got a text message, “It came!!!!!!”
Wow, someone did mail it! My faith in humanity was bolstered.
We were curious as to what kind of shape the wayward card was in, so we asked The Piglet for a picture. It was torn up, crinkled and stepped on. To think that someone took the time to mail that battered mess truly warmed our hearts. We wish we knew who it was.
So – to the caring Cajun at the dog parade in Lafayette who had a heart big enough to send kindness our way, thanks.
Up until this year’s Asian adventure our entire understanding of Buddha consisted of cheesy gold statues of a smiling, pot-bellied guy we’d seen in some restaurants. We weren’t exactly enlightened.
Perhaps we could clear up our conceptions a bit with a visit to The Tian Tan Buddha. He sits atop a hill on the outskirts of Hong Kong.
He stands one hundred and twelve feet high, and weighs in at… CONTINUE READING > >
Up until this year’s Asian adventure our entire understanding of Buddha consisted of cheesy gold statues of a smiling, pot-bellied guy we’d seen in some restaurants. We weren’t exactly enlightened.
Perhaps we could clear up our conceptions a bit with a visit to The Tian Tan Buddha. He sits atop a hill on the outskirts of Hong Kong.
Normally a train, and then a ski-lift-type gondola suspended across three and a half miles of mountains, valleys, and lakes would take us up to Ngong Ping.
But when we got off the train the cable car was out of commission, so we had to take a bus. No doubt less spectacular, but still quite an experience on the narrow, winding mountain roads.
After a ride that gave us a pretty good idea of how a pinball feels, we arrived and entered through the main gate.
The ornate archway led to a path flanked by The Twelve Divine Generals, representing protective deities that correspond to the animals in the Chinese zodiac.
At the end of the walkway we reached a circular area perfectly aligned with stairs leading up Muyu Mountain to The Tian Tan Buddha.
He loomed as we climbed the 240 steps up, and at the top we could see for miles.
We also got a close up view of The Buddha, and The Offering of the Six Devas, six smaller statues making an offering of flowers, a lamp, incense, ointment, fruit, and music.
The offerings represent the virtues of charity, morality, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom.
From The Devas’ point of view we could certainly see why this is commonly called Big Buddha. He is really, really big, but since buddhas come sitting, standing, or reclining, it is difficult to judge just which one is the largest, still The Tian Tan is one of the biggest in the world.
He stands, oops, I mean sits, one hundred and twelve feet high, and weighs in at a slender 280 tons of bronze.
Believe it or not, we do mean slender. The Tian Tan looks nothing like those paunchy plastic cash register buddhas, he’s quite svelte. That’s because this is a depiction of the Gautama Buddha.
The little guy that we were familiar with is an entirely different fellow. Those little statues are of Hotei, the laughing buddha (small b), also called Budai, and have become associated with good luck and prosperity.
As we learned about these differences we became more and more aware of our glaring lack of knowledge, so in the hope of gaining some enlightenment we felt we should see the adjacent Po Lin (Precious Lotus) Monastery.
The monastery was founded by three monks back when this was a secluded hilltop, in 1906, and was known as The Big Hut.
It is much more than a hut these days, with several large halls housing dozens of statues.
On our way to the Da Xiong Bao Dian (Great Hall of Treasure), the first thing we encountered was a cloud of thick smoke.
Fortunately there wasn’t a fire, it was incense.
Worshipers were burning massive amounts of the stuff, some holding the sticks, and others placing them in racks or sand.
It was our understanding that this is meant to purify the surroundings, and bring forth an assembly of buddhas to hear the prayers.
We could not discern the significance of the various sizes of the incense sticks though. They ranged from the normal little hippie-style sticks we are used to seeing, to veritable baseball bats of aromatic fumigation.
These, and many other items of religious swag, were on sale in stands lining one side of the courtyard. While we are far from experts on the trappings of worship for any religion, we could only speculate that bigger must be better.
Inside the hall there are three Buddhas – Gautama, Dipamkarara, and Maitreya representing the past, present and the future.
Buddhism teaches that there have been many Buddhas, and there are more to come. Gautama is the most recent, and Dīpankara is one of the Buddhas that came before him, while Maitreya will be the next Buddha to come in the future.
Outside, another monk swung what looked to be a small telephone pole at a 1,000 kilogram bronze bell. That is over a ton of bell!
In Buddhism, bells have an important role, their ringing is said to drive away evil spirits and represent an offering to all the buddhas in order to accumulate positive karma.
Bells also represent wisdom, so ringing the bell is the sound of wisdom that can clarify confusion.
Confused or not, we didn’t need to ask for whom the bell tolled, because the bus back to Hong Kong tolled for us.
