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We are off to Newfoundland so tag-along with us.

Touring Harbour Breton

Thursday, June 23, 2011
When we woke up we were sure glad to see we were still in Harbour Breton and not somewhere out in the middle of Fortune Bay. We sure had a wild night and found out why all of the campsites have a berm around them.  The wind picked up something fierce, we thought Elbroko was going to blow out to sea.  At one point Doug thought maybe he should hook Hemi up to anchor us down better. It was still quite windy in the morning, but oh well off we go. We headed out to explore Harbour Breton.  It won’t take long, you can pretty much see the whole town from the top of the hill.  The sun is actually shining again today!  It is about 10 degrees.  Many of the Harbour Breton residents actually came from surrounding outport communities during a period of resettlement in the 1960’s and 70’s.  The government offered resident’s of the small outport communities $1,000 and moving expenses to relocate to Harbour Breton.  In some cases the houses were actually floated across the bay.  We hiked out to Rocky Point Lighthouse.
I wandered around in an abandoned cemetery, which was very interesting reading some of headstones.  Many people died so young, in their 20’s, and 30’s, some lost at sea, some in the wars.   It was very sad to see there were a lot of babies, some unnamed. 
There were no roads to connect this community with the rest of Newfoundland until 1972, they had minimal healthcare, so I would imagine that problem deliveries were mostly fatal. Many of the headstones were merely wooden crosses that had only a name.  

We wandered around town just trying to take it all in. Lobster season had just ended so lots of pots were piled everywhere. 

I hiked up Gunn Hill which was once used in the 1800’s to practice their cannon fire against pirateers.  I’m not quite sure why I continue to want to hike up these steep trails.  I must have been a mountain goat in a previous life. What a rewarding view!
 


 


















I could see a salmon farm in the distance, which we found out later that evening harvests approx 50,000 salmon per pen, and this particular farm had 16 pens.  That’s a lot of salmon!  The fellow we were talking to goes out every 4 hours to feed them. That would be one of the reasons for the large fish plant that employs a good number of residents. 
After supper we went down to the beach to watch the sunset and had a lot of excitement.  The capelin were running!  Oh my what a scene.  Thousands of capelin were coming into shore to spawn.  The locals were there with nets and pails and bags and whatever to gather them up. 
The water was just rippling with all the fish.  You could even see them in the waves.  It was so cool.  Everyone made sure we had whatever we wanted to take home with us.
When the locals all left the seagulls had a heyday with the fish that were not scooped up. 
A beautiful sunset on a great day 

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