I think I like mosquitoes better than blackflies. Mosquitoes announce themselves so you aren’t caught unaware. They pay attention to bug dope and tend to keep their distance when that is the choice perfume of the day. They are fairly large and not so numerous usually. Now the only thing that blackflies have going for them is they are easy to squash, not so fast as mosquitoes. And squash is the work we have after packing up in one huge hurry this morning. The windows of the truck are blood splattered and smeared with little dead black bodies, hundreds of them in fact. Ugh! Makes us laugh, cause what else are you going to do? They don’t just shoo out of the truck, let me tell you! All that aside, we drive to the lighthouse at about eight in the morning … no leisurely breakfast for us, no siree! The Point Amour Lighthouse, built from 1854 to 1858, is a provincial historic site, is the second tallest in Canada at 109 feet, took four years to construct, had a diaphone fog horn that blew a haunting seven seconds every minute and was also the site of a Marconi wireless telegraph station. This Point is also the location of a burial mound that contained a Maritime Archaic Indian buried approximately 7500 years ago, and I have not made a mistake with the number of zeros just in case you wonder! Amazing I’d say! We also see two whales and a dozen dolphins, and then go on a lovely beach comb for a terrific Labrador morning (despite the black flies who were either dead or couldn’t keep up with the wind on the beach)
A fairly painless wait at the ferry and a rather quick crossing at 95 minutes and we are back at the trailer in Newfoundland. This concludes our whirlwind tour of Labrador and unofficially, the black fly capital of Canada.
We are now off to Port au Choix. Did I say sightseeing was work?
Port au Choix is a couple hours south of the ferry terminal and we arrive in lots of time to visit. This site preserves the most significant Maritime Archaic Indian site in North America. Here, nature has preserved a time capsule of rare importance. While prehistoric coastlines have long since slipped beneath the encroaching ocean, the raised shoreline and alkaline soil conditions at Port au Choix have combined to preserve rich vestiges of four ancient cultures: the Groswater and Dorset Paleoeskimos, the Maritime Archaic Indian and the ancestors of the Beothuk, referred to as the ‘Recent Indian’. A mere 5000 years of history revealed by archaeological digs. The landscape is not awe inspiring as you will see from this picture taken very near the interpretation centre.
We are fortunate in the rotating strike situation as the sites we have visited are open … thanks! Campsite tonight is River of Ponds, its been quite the couple of days with blackflies, ferries, historic sites, and wonderful landscapes, not quite typical even by our standards!
