The French Shore
Offshore between Eddies Cove West and Barr'd Harbour is St. John Island. Now deserted, it is the subject of tales of buried treasure. The stories tell of fortunes left behind by the pirates who once harassed Labrador-bound ships along this part of the coast.
Anglers will enjoy this area as it affords some of the best salmon fishing on the island, particularly at Castors River.
Many communities here were once part of the French Shore, so named because France held shore-based fishing rights along Newfoundland's west coast until 1904. This part of the Viking Trail will be a centre of celebrations in 2004 as we mark the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the French on these shores. Castor, which is French for beaver, is just one of many place names that show French influence. In Plum Point, Darby's Island and Brig Bay you'll find many relics of the French occupation. Old buildings, grave sites, tombstones and traditions are all that remain of the former French culture.
At St. Barbe you can take a ferry to southern Labrador. (See the Labrador region for a description of Labrador Coastal Drive, including the Basque whaling station at Red Bay.) The ferry makes two round trips a day between May and December. Cars cross on a first come, first served basis. For further information, call 866-535-2567, or drop into any Visitor Information Centre along the Viking Trail.
The next community, Anchor Point, is the oldest English settlement on the French Shore, dating from 1750. The local merchant family, the Genges, spent more than a century fending off French attempts to oust them from the area until French fishing rights ended in 1904. When the French had fishing rights here, permanent settlement along the coast was forbidden. The community is one of many areas along this part of the coast to see icebergs, and is a good place to sample local shellfish delicacies.
Nearby is an interesting historic attraction, the Deep Cove Winter Housing Site. Residents of Anchor Point used to move here in winter - between the 1680s and the 1940s - to get away from the torrid winter weather on the coast. Today, this adaptation has been recognized as a site of national historic significance.
In Deadmans Cove, as in many Newfoundland communities, people learned to overcome many obstacles to make their living from the sea. Here they developed an innovative solution to the age-old problem of heavy ice sweeping away the wharves: they dismantled their wharves each fall and rebuilt them the following spring.
Viking Country
Past Nameless Cove and on to Eddies Cove the highway swings east away from the coast and inland across the top of the great Northern Peninsula to Viking country. Turn off Route 430 onto Route 436 and you're headed for L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, where the Vikings established the first European settlement in North America about 1,000 years ago.
The story begins in 986 when Bjarni Herjolfsson, a Viking trader, was blown off course on a voyage from Iceland to Greenland. When he finally made port in Greenland, he reported seeing three new lands to the west, believed to be Newfoundland, southern Labrador and northern Labrador. He and his crew were the first Europeans to see North America.
About 15 years later Leif Eiriksson, son of Eirik the Red who had grown up hearing the story of unexplored lands to the west, decided to search for them. On his voyage, made around the year 1000 A.D., he was accompanied by 35 men and did indeed discover new land. He stayed at Vinland - Land of Meadows, as he named it - for a year, eventually returning to Greenland. His brother Thorvald also came to Vinland and settled in Leif's house, but was killed by natives. This is the first known interaction between the Skraelings, as the Vikings named them, and Europeans. Local legend says French settlers discovered Thorvald's helmet on nearby Quirpon Island in the early seventeenth century, but it was eventually lost. Thorfinn Karlsefni, another Viking, later led an expedition here, and during this period of colonization the first child of European descent, Snorri, was born in the New World.
In 1960, Norwegian historian Helge Ingstad, who had been searching for the Vinland of the Norse sagas for years, visited northern Newfoundland and met L'Anse aux Meadows fisherman George Decker who showed him what residents thought was an ancient aboriginal camp. Helge and his wife, Anne Stine Ingstad, excavated the site and found the remnants of Viking sod huts. Subsequent excavations by the Ingstads and Parks Canada uncovered artifacts that proved conclusively the Vikings had established a settlement in North America five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot and other 15th century explorers.
During the 1920s, Newfoundland author W.A. Munn in his book The Wineland Voyages first suggested the L'Anse aux Meadows area might be the Vinland of the Norse Sagas.
L'Anse aux Meadows was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. A recreation of sod houses lets the visitor experience life as it must have been, and an Interpretation Centre tells the story of these hearty adventurers who braved the North Atlantic in their small boats. The centre's translation of Norse sagas makes fascinating reading. Standing where the first Europeans set foot in North America is something you have to personally experience to understand the implications that momentous event had, for two continents.
About two kilometres away you'll find Norstead, a recreation of an 11th century Viking port. Constructed in 2000 for the 1000th anniversary of the Viking arrival in Newfoundland, Norstead features a chieftain's hall and other buildings, a Viking boat, and some unusual features, such as a Viking church and an ax-throwing arena. Various children's and education programs are available.
On the return trip, branch off Route 436 onto unpaved Route 437 to Pistolet Bay Provincial Park at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula. This park offers excellent canoeing in a nearby lake system. The park also has a comfort station with hot showers and coin-operated laundry facilities. The road beyond Raleigh is paved to Cape Onion.