1/08/2024 – Back Home 9

We spent today exploring Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “Gros Morne” means the “Great Sombre”, “Great Lonely One”. With the deep fog rolling along steel-grey fjords, severe and plunging crevasses, relentless winds, it is definitely a “moody” place, but, for us, a glorious one.

The Tablelands in the South of the park are one of two places on earth where the earth’s mantle is visible. The other is an island between Tasmania and Antarctica! Although volcanic rocks create super-fertile soil, the mantle is barren. It contains many metals, apparently, and its super-hard formations erode through leaching calcium, creating surfaces like crocodile skin (called “serpentines” for that reason). Surrounded by lush green marshland, cold cloud forests, the Tableland area is inorganic: buff, green, black rocks with no visible lichen, let alone grasses. Carnivorous plants, especially the purple pitcher plant do “well” here (everything is relative). The hardy shrubs can take 50 years to grow to six inches high. The only animal life we spotted were a few pond skaters. There were no birds. We even asked each other what the pitcher plants found to catch!

The Tablelands are part of the Bay of Islands Ophiolite formation that comprises mantle, continental shield and ocean floor crust. All are incomprehensively old, around 1.2 billion years, which is (they say) twice as old as anything else in the Americans. The whole formation is the end of the Appalachian range, formed when America wrenched itself away from Pangea and the Atlantic ocean came into being. In human terms, Gros Morne’s Tablelands provided “proof” of the theory of Plate Tectonics in the 1960/70s.

We headed an hour North to Western Brook Pond, actually a land-locked fjord, where we joined a boat tour. It takes 2 hours for what is essentially a sturdy fishing ship to traverse the length of the fjord and return, past three significant waterfalls, truly vast cliffs. Only the three Park boats are allowed on the lake, which, like much of the rest of the park, is relatively barren – very clean, cold and deep, but with little to sustain abundant life.

I have reached the “fluffy” stage with growing my hair back.After two hours on the boat I came back looking complete mad scientist.Speaking of entertaining images, several people have asked about local culture, in particular, whether we’ve been to a ceilidh, or been “screeched in”.We have not, on purpose.Neither of us want a staged tourist moment.We enjoy spontaneous entertainments.On our return ferry, a chap with an accordion simply struck up in one of the seating areas, serenading us with folk songs and numbers by the Pogues.The crew on Western Brook Pond tour delivered 100 minutes of excellent commentary, and 20 minutes of Newfoundland folk/country songs.The charming chef/owner of the Chinese restaurant in Springdale pops back to the kitchen when you arrive, to don a jaunty motley chef’s hat and gives you a flamboyant welcome.