Bill & Ed's Excellent Adventure...Day 40...Sunday, July 24, 2011...Hiking the Tablelands

Wow...no morning wake up from raindrops...how strange.
Ed and I are up early and making coffee on a sunny (and dry!) day. Around 9:30, we head out to the "Tablelands" for a guided tour. The Tablelands are unique in all the world. It's a spot where the North American and African "plates" collided millions of years ago. This collision squeezed material from the earth's "mantle" (below the crust) up and out like toothpaste from a tube. As a result, certain rocks and minerals that are not normally found on the earth's surface are exposed here. They are high in toxic materials, like chromium, so there's not a lot of plant life in the area...except for a few pines and enterprising carnivores like the Pitcher plant and the Butterwort.
It's a very interesting tour...lots of interesting information and a good three-mile hike. Our hike completed, Ed and I opt for lunch at the Seaview restaurant in Trout Pond Harbor...big mistake. They are overwhelmed by a tour bus full of diners...the service slow, the food mediocre, and the prices high. Ed and I had planned a second hike, but we're not done with lunch until after 2:00.
We have some time to relax in camp...I finish up my book on the history of the Brooklyn Bridge (started last summer) and plunge into volume 3 of the great Morris biography of Teddy Roosevelt.
Dinner is pretty simple...some pasta and bottled sauce enlivened with some ground beef...simple but hearty fare. Ed starts a campfire, and I relax with another glass of CatDaddy.
It looks like there might b rain tonight, but who cares...my tent has performed admirably so far. Or so I think as I slide into my sleeping bag around 9:30. I am blissfully unaware that disaster is only six hours away.


Ed's Sidebar, Day 35:

Misc...St.John's is the oldest Anglo city in N. America, and the farthest east. One arctic swim farther east, and we could be on Greenland time. As it is, Newfoundland has its own time zone. Vinland was the original Viking name for Newfoundland.

St. John's is a nice city despite being, and I quote the guidebook: 'the foggiest, snowiest, wettest, windiest, and cloudiest of all major Canadian cities.' We are Here, I think, placing a fingertip to the offending map location.

We got screeched in at St. John's. A rum slammer with rituals to match makes us honorary citizens of Newfoundland now. The Screechers' greeting:

'Is you a screecher?'
'--Deed I is, me old cock. Long may your big jib draw.'

If I am in Newfoundland without a cell signal, and my daughter is in California with all her gadgets, is it still a small world?


Ed's Sidebar, Day 36:

Departing St. John's we head into, what else?--the twilight fog of noon through hill country with its boulder fields and glacial ponds. The sun breaks through by day's end. Life is good.

By night we see our frosty breath again. There is talk of icebergs. 'Guaranteed,' the locals say, speaking of St. Anthony and its cape. It is almost August everywhere but here.


Ed's Sidebar, Day 37:

Weather report for today: rain followed by cold wind, followed by sunny and warm, followed by--a blizzard? No, just more rain.

A breeze in the birch reminds me of home. Though there are no birch at home. A thin sun attempting the haze reminds me of home. Though this could not be called a sunset. The granite beneath my feet reminds me of home. Though this may never be a beach. Then a couple from Newfoundland strolls by. The way they smile...


Ed's Sidebar, Day 38: the road to Gros Morne...

I've been to cocktail parties where I felt like the green spider that was in my hair yesterday. Moving knee to knee through the throng of hairs, his legs were still kicking when I plucked him from the warm hors-d'oevres tray of my scalp.

Once more we could be back in the 18th century, with this wilderness all around. The difference is this asphalt pavement, and a rock of grafitti which says, 'Lesbians were here." Of course there was no asphalt back then.


Ed's Sidebar, Day 39: at Gros Morne National Park...

Campers speak of icebergs with a reverence reserved for clerics in search of God. Have you seen one, everyone wants to know? Where are they? Nobody knows, but--they're everywhere.

We hiked the Tablelands Trail with our guide. Tonight I'm sure I'll dream of continental collisions and how you can't buy insurance against them. My agent will be shaking his head sadly at the moment I am attacked by the Carnivorous Plants of Gros Morne. A giant pitcher plant maybe, or the low-crawling butter wort will have me in its grasp. 'Pre-existing condition,' my agent will say, shaking his head sadly.


Ed's Sidebar, Day 40:

If you want to know the meaning of 'relentless', go to the Maritimes. Go to Newfoundland with Labrador ahead. Go north with north ahead. We haven't been dry since Sydney, NS, our one dry night in a hotel. It has rained for almost 40 days and 40 nights. We are short on carpenter tools. It is against the law to build an ark in Newfoundland. Everyone would be building arks.

Carnivorous plants, two for a dollar. Ladyslippers and harebells, dime each, cheaper by the tray. Daily special, dwarf birch, buck apiece. No limit on specialty juniper trees--these grow sideways for arctic conditions--order yours now. We are in God's dollar store. Nature is still plentiful and cheap in Newfoundland.

Sunset on the pine tops after a storm. Quiet in the woods. One bird somewhere sings. The sound of ocean waves through the trees. One bird sings. Quiet. Waves. One bird.

We had dinner of curried moose last night. And caribou sausage for breakfast. Not that things are more desperate than usual, but tomorrow we may be forced by the Arctic to eat our last surviving sled dog.