The Walker on the Cape – in Newfoundland

Several of my posts have been about St Pierre and Miquelon, the French islands south of Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula in Canada. My last post mentioning them was on January 19, 2012 in my post about selecting travel destinations, click here to see it. As I explained in that post, I had wished to visit these islands since childhood, the last remaining French territory in North America, and finally visited them in 2008. I had stamps from these islands in my collection and was intrigued by them – because as it says on the top stamp on the left below, it was France in North America.



The posts on St Pierre and Miquelon can be found by clicking on the index on my blog on the right under that name. On August 22, 2010 I wrote a Blog Intermission post entitled An Island – une île, with a poem and photos of various islands, click here to see it. I had included the photo of the Grand Bank lighthouse taken later on an afternoon and which is now at the top of this post. Below is the same lighthouse taken around noon the same day.

In May 2012 I received an email from a Mr. Mike Martin asking if he could use the photo of the Grand Bank lighthouse – the one at the top of this post – for the cover of his upcoming book, a mystery set in Grand Bank, Newfoundland. I answered him that he could and to send me a copy of his book when it was published. In early July Mike Martin sent me another email saying that his book had been published and would I like a copy. Yes, indeed I replied. Here is the book below "The Walker on the Cape" – and my photograph on the cover, with the special effect, looks a lot better than my original picture.

click on the collage to enlarge it then click on each picture to biggify it and read about it

The Walker on the Cape

I had also asked him to autograph the book for me, and he did. I have not read the book yet but am looking forward to it as I enjoy a good mystery and one set in Newfoundland will be a first for me.

Along the years I had looked at ways to go and visit St Pierre et Miquelon from Atlanta, but I had to go to Paris and visit my mother – St Pierre was not on the way and it was expensive to take a flight from Halifax or Montreal. When I retired though I tried again to see how we could visit the islands. We had enough frequent flyers miles to get a round-trip flight to St. John’s, Newfoundland.



From there it looked like if we rented a car and drove down the Burin Peninsula to Fortune in southern Newfoundland, we could take a ferry to St. Pierre. So this is what we did. Below is a vintage postcard of St Pierre and Miquelon islands. On the extreme right you can see Terre-Neuve (New Land, the French name for Newfoundland) and Fortune above it.



I frankly did not know much about Newfoundland. I read a bit about it and found out it is quite a large island. It has an area of 108,860 square kilometers or 42,031 square miles. It is a little less than the area contained in Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands combined. You can see St Pierre et Miquelon in the bottom center of the map with Grand Bank across on the right.



We arrived late in the evening in St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland, and stayed the night. The next morning we drove toward the Burin Peninsula. I was very surprised by the landscape. I frankly had never seen anything like it. There was one road, called the Trans-Canada Highway, with hardly any cars on it. It is one of the longest highways in the world as it goes from Newfoundland, across Canada, and ends in Victoria, Vancouver Island in British Columbia. I’d love to drive on this “Route Transcanadienne” all 8,030 kms or 4,990 miles of it. Everything looked so green – no trees, just shrubs and many little lakes or ponds were on both sides of the highway. We drove carefully as we had been told that numerous moose were on the roadsides and could cross unexpectedly. You can see the road on the top left of the photo below.



The distance between St John’s and Fortune is 363 kms – 226 miles or 5 hours, but we had a Bed and Breakfast reservation in a town on the way, called Marystown. We stopped for lunch at a gas station restaurant – actually the first one we had seen (and the last one until Marystown.) I still remember that I had cod with cod’s tongue and cod’s cheeks. It was very tasty. I was not taking many photos at the time as I had just purchased my new digital camera. I loved the scenery of rolling heaths and bogs.



Newfoundlanders call their island “The Rock” because it is a giant rock. There is little topsoil so the trees are very short and stunted by their exposure to the strong elements and winds. Here we are below taking a break from driving.



Vikings came here in the 11th century – Viking Leif Eriksson called the land “Vinland” then John Cabot called it “new found isle” in 1497. Portuguese and French called it Terra Nova or Terre Neuve and Newfoundland.



Newfoundland was British until 1949 and then became the 10th province of the Canadian Confederation. Since 2001 the province is officially called Newfoundland and Labrador, but most people call is Newfoundland only.



This island has been inhabited for thousands of years and traces of people go back to 9,000 years ago. In 1960, Norwegian explorers discovered the only authenticated Norse settlement in North America dating to about the year 999.

Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows (courtesy Toronto Sun)

Native Americans from this island were the Beothuk (now extinct) and the Mi’kmaq. One interesting note about the Mi’kmaqs – when I was a child in Paris and played “Indians and cowboys” with my little friends I called myself a “Micmac” Indian. I don’t know where in 1945 I could have ever heard the name if at all. My friend’s brother told me I invented the name, that there were no such Indians in the USA. I said that maybe they were in Texas. He said I should be a Sioux or Apache because these were true Indians. We had fights about it and I always wanted to stay a Micmac. So, when I read about Newfoundland and found out that the Mi’kmaqs were indeed a First Nation from Newfoundland, I was thrilled – who knew…

Queen Elizabeth is greeted by Mi'kmaq First Nations Grand Chief Ben Sylliboy and his daughter Christina Sylliboy, in 2010 (Courtesy Reuters)

On our second day in Newfoundland we drove to Fortune and bought our ticket for a round-trip passage to St. Pierre. We looked around but it is not a large town – they had some interesting fire hydrants though.

It was early so we drove back to Grand Bank - 7 kms or 4.3 miles away. The French used Grand Bank as a fishing station as early as 1650. Fishing was the major industry for centuries until the death of the cod fishing industry in the 1990s (because of over fishing.) Fishing was done in the inshore and near offshore of the Grand Banks, which are shallow plateaus.

Grand Banks Fishermen by Barbara Furhovde, Canadian, contemporary

We parked the car and walked around. This was in August but we did not see hardly any tourist. I just realized that I am standing near the painting of the man, left on the wall on the photo taken near the parking area, top center of collage below.

Historic Grand Bank has some lovely houses painted vivid colors. I would have liked to stay at the Bed and Breakfast facing the harbor (below, behind my husband – top left) a Queen Anne revival style home built in 1917 by Captain John Thornhill, a famous fisherman.




But it was getting close to lunch and the "Sharon’s Nook Tea Room" looked inviting. We ate a delicious lunch there and a great dessert. There even was a book signing of Mike Martin’s Walker on the Cape at this tea room today.



After lunch we walked around some more and stopped in front of a colorfully painted building.



Then we walked back toward the Thornhill house in front of the port and lighthouse and our car. It was a short drive back to Fortune – we were still early and sat with the other few tourists to wait for our ferry to St Pierre. Then our Atlantic Jet ferry arrived (carrying foot passengers only.)



There have been about 500,000 tourists visiting Newfoundland last year, which is a large increase but still not a large number when you consider that 81.4 million tourists visited France last year as well. I heard that you either love or hate Newfoundland. I loved it and hope to return there someday. I can’t describe the feeling I had when visiting Newfoundland – it is like being in an unblemished land, unsullied by humanity – a different atmosphere, miles from malls, traffic and people – a mystical quality in the air – a primeval purity if you will.

Destination: St Pierre et Miquelon (final part)

Tour of Miquelon Island



After lunch we resumed our tour and drove to the island of Miquelon (see my post of 30 August 09) which is the island on the top part of the map above. The name Miquelon comes originally from the Spanish Basque language and was noted on a 1579 map. This island is a part of France and I explained the history of St Pierre et Miquelon in my post of 21-August-09, part one. There are about 700 people living on Miquelon, most are descendants of Normands, Bretons, Basques and Acadians. The history and culture of Miquelon is very similar to the one of Acadie. The story of the Acadians from the Maritimes area of Canada is a very painful one which I won’t attempt to recount here. You may read it here. The British either placed the French Acadians in jail for many years or expelled them if they did not pledge allegiance to the British Crown. Several years after the “Grand Dérangement” (Great Expulsion) from Acadie in 1755 a few hundred of them went to Miquelon and stayed there. Most of the Acadians were shipped back to St Malo and Brest in France later on. Some settled in France some were shipped back to St Pierre et Miquelon again but many went to Louisiana where they are called “Cajuns.”

Flags of France and St Pierre et Miquelon

As I explained in an earlier post when I was playing cowboys and Indians as a little girl in Paris I called myself a “Micmac” Indian – a name I thought I had invented. So I was very surprised to see an information billboard talking about the First Nation of Mi’kmaqs in Miquelon.

Click on pictures to enlarge them

Records indicate that there was a Mi’kmaq presence in St Pierre et Miquelon centuries ago. They traded with the French and got along well with them. In the 17th century they cooperated with France to fight the British and even brought back 20 British prisoners to Miquelon where they received a good ransom for the lot. In 1767 France sent two Jesuit priests to minister to the French population. Parish records contain various acts involving Mi’kmaq baptisms, marriages and burials. This went on for at least a 100 years (until there were Catholic priests in Newfoundland.) We visited the Miquelon church, pale blue on the outside and in the shape of a boat inside, with beautiful stained glass windows.

Janot drove us around the island in his van and close to a granite hill called Cap Blanc where Miquelon’s light house is located.

Photo courtesy of Andre Lafargue

Some horses are also left roaming on Miquelon, semi-free for the summer.


The sea is omnipresent – sometime calm and sometimes furiously assaulting the coast. There have been over 600 ship wrecks around these islands. Langlade (Petite Miquelon) and Miquelon (Grande Miquelon) are the right places to go if you are a nature lover in search of beauty and peace. As for sailing its water – you better be pretty good at it.

Our tour of Langlade and Miquelon was coming to an end, so Janot drove us back to his zodiac for the return trip to St Pierre.


Now I’ll talk about something my French speaking readers may not be aware of (if they live outside the USA.) Last year while I was researching information about Miquelon island on the Net I found a site called “Miquelon.org” and thinking it was about the island I started reading it. It is not a tourism site but called “The Fighting French” and it says: “Miquelon.org is a watchdog group dedicated to documenting Anti-French activity in politics, news and entertainment.“ (If you click on the Miquelon.org site you can watch a clip with example of French bashing jokes.)

I am French (dual French/US citizen) and went to school in England for awhile so I was aware of the Anglo-Saxon francophobia and knew that some segments of the US had inherited and embraced it but still did not know that there are web sites addressing it. For example many TV entertainers like Jay Leno uses french bashing jokes often to the delight of their audience. Many of the jokes I read tend to portray French people as weasels and cowards. My father lost a limb in World War II and many in my family were in the Resistance. My mother faced certain death if she had been found by the Gestapo saving as many Jewish girls as she did. Usually I just listen to all this and step back so I won’t get myself involved in negative thoughts but I still would like to mention a few facts.



France fought 3 wars within 3 generations. During World War I the US lost in France 117,465 men or 0.13% of the US population, France lost 1,697,800 or 4.29% of the French population (see Wipikedia) – for the American population of 1914 that would have been like almost 4 million casualties! By 1939 there were not many healthy French men left since a full generation had been wiped out. French soldiers were in the first Gulf War and are still dying right now in Afghanistan. France has 2,900 troops in the NATO-led international coalition battling Taliban guerrillas. This morning, Friday 4 September 2009, one French soldier was killed and nine others wounded when a booby trap exploded against their armored personnel carrier as they carried out a reconnaissance in the Showki region, north of the Afghan capital Kabul. The Francophobes forget the decisive battle of Yorktown in 1781 where Americans troops fought alongside a larger amount of French soldiers. French casualties were about 500 men in the Yorktown campaign (twice as many French casualties as the US.)

Painting of the Siege of Yorktown, Musée de Versailles (painted for French King Louis XVI)

I read this from “Our America History”: “The most decisive naval battle of the American Revolution was fought under French commanders with French ships and French sailors and marines”. The American War of Independence almost bankrupt France. Rear Admiral de Grasse came with an armada of ships. His command ship was the Ville de Paris, which was a gift of the people of France to America. It was the largest war ship in the 18th century. If France had not been there during that war America might have been British for a lot longer – wasn’t it until the 1980s that Canada ended their last legal link with Britain?

The ship La Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

I have heard people say “French people don’t like us.” I have gone to France with my English speaking husband many times and we did not speak in French yet we never encountered unpleasantness (but I did here in the US.) French people may distrust the US Government (at least the last one) but not the US people.

French jokes have become so ingrained in the American culture that no one will challenge them. After Colin Powell made a speech about the certainty of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq Fox News reported: “… Only an imbecile or perhaps a Frenchman could be insensitive to Colin Powell’s arguments.” Just think what the Irish would have said if the word Frenchman had been replaced by Irishman, or Israeli or Japanese! If the US public would denounce these openly French bashing jokes politicians like John McCain, entertainers and newspapers would have to apologize. It is easy to say “just ignore it” but the problem is that in a country were few people travel overseas this type of racism, repeated so often starts to shape their perceptions, and it is unjust and deplorable.

I had forgotten about Miquelon.org but researching for my post this week I found it again and this is why I thought to write about all this. I just would add that the people I know here in the United States do not have anti-French sentiments; it is just a vocal minority of uninformed people who believe in bad stereotypes.



Well – we arrived in St Pierre for our last night before ferrying back to Newfoundland. I was very sad to leave these French islands nestled so far away in North America. They are fragile and vulnerable in a way but genuinely French. I shall talk about beautiful Newfoundland in future posts.

View from our window of the sunset over Iles aux Marins