Eastern most person in North America
For a brief moment today, there was no one on the entire continent of North America east of me. With it being Canada Day and all, I read that the museum’s etc were open at Cape Spear, North America’s eastern most point. So i decided to drive out there - figuring if nothing else, it would be interesting to see Cape Spear when the temperature was above freezing…
The drive out to Cape Spear was uneventful - but changed since my first drive there in early January (and apparently not captured on this blog!). The first time I drove there, the road was lined with snow and partially covered in ice. Now it was cleared, potholed and lined with lush green bushes and trees. Purple lupin and yellow dandelions also dotted the open grassy patches. There is something … captivating about the wild beauty of the north. Immaculate lawns are nice, but there is a definite beauty to the unmowed green grass with flowers - even if some of those flowers are weeds!
Cape Spear itself was quite busy (unsurprisingly) with lots of families there all taking in the historic landmark. The weather couldn’t make up it’s mind though - fog lazily curled over the sea, rain threatened from the west and sun shone between clouds from the east… And the wind blew ceaselessly, but unlike January’s wind, this wind was warm and sticky.
Given the buildings were open today, I made a beeline up a wooden walkway (largely obscured by snow in January, now pleasantly surrounded by grass and dandelions…) to the new ordinary-looking lighthouse and two white wooden buildings at its base.
The building to the right was the heritage museum. I stuck my head in and saw a few pictures of naval charts and old photographs as well as a little model display of how the old lighthouse building had grown over the years as the light keeper’s family had grown. But then, in the 1916 the light house was converted to oil and then electricity in 1920. ore to be found about the history at the Parks Canada website…
It took me all of 2 minutes to exhaust the museum and go to the other half of the building which had been converted to a shop which was doing brisk business with all the aimlessly wondering tourists and locals. I found a mug that declared it had come from the Eastern most point in North America and thought what the heck and bought it…
I then exited and crossed to the other building opposite which housed an extensive collection of water colours and oil paintings of various lighthouses around the island of Newfoundland Apparently the artist (and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t note his name) painted all the lighthouses on ‘The Rock’ and then donated them to the Coast Guard Aumni Association. They were colourful and artisitic as well as technically rendered somewhat perfectly…
Behind the art gallery, lots of people kept walking up to the new lighthouse, your standard tapering cylinder. I wandered on up to the building on top of the hill with its distinctive red and white domed top - the original (and restored) Cape Spear Lighthouse. Today, it was also open and I was able to go inside and see a nicely preserved from presumably when the Cantwell family lived there back in the 1800s/early 1900s. Every time I sees snapshots from the past, I just can’t get over how small human beings were just 100 years ago before our food become so plentiful as it is now (albeit, a fact being debated right now…).
Upon exiting the original lighthouse, I walked a little ways past and took some pictures of both the old and new lighthouses juxtaposed, as well as of the fog rolling over the steep rocky coastline to the south. A lone fishing boat faded in and out along the edge of a fog bank just off the coast.
I then meandered on the grass and gravel tracks down past the old barracks with the Very Large Canon barrel (with scratched graffiti) pointing out to the sea. Eventually I found myself at the fence point where a cross has been placed with the names of people who didn’t believe that to go onto the rocks below meant possible death as the waves pounds down and then sucks everything back out to sea…
However, unlike January, there turned out to be another smaller trail below the rocks and another fence (no longer blocked off by treacherous snow and ice I guess…), so I walked down and wedged myself in the corner of that fence.
And at that moment, there was not one single person on the entire continent of North America east of me. I was the eastern most person all of Canada and the US… Pretty quirky feeling!
Rush over, I took the ‘low path’ back to my car and let other people take over the title of being the eastern most people in North America…
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