Capelin Rolling, Ferryland, and the Canada Day Long Weekend

Over the Canada Day long weekend, Luke's parents came to visit! It was their first time in Newfoundland so we got to show them a few of our favourite things, as well as check out some new sights.

Our Something Saturdays for this weekend included seeing capelin rolling in at Beachy Cove, and visiting the Colony of Avalon in Ferryland. We also went to the Captain's Table restaurant in Mobile, that we hadn't been to before. Plus, it was Luke's first Canada Day in Canada! 

On our hike to Torbay Point

The capelin rolling in was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend, and coincidental that this happened the same time that Luke's parents came to visit! Capelin are small fish that come into the beaches of Newfoundland in the end of June or beginning or July every year to spawn. They come by the millions and locals just have to walk a few feet in the ocean to scoop them up in a bucket or a net. When we first showed up at the beach, the capelin were hanging back from the shore a bit, but one man brought "beef pickle" in a bucket, and once he put that in the water, the fish went crazy and came right up onto the beach. 

The beach was also divided by streams so in order to get from one side of the beach to the other, we had to make pathways with big rocks and balance our way across. Here are some photos of our capelin adventure.

But since it's hard to grasp the situation solely from pictures, here's a video that Elizabeth took of the capelin rolling in. It's unbelievable.

Visiting the Colony of Avalon in Ferryland was also part of our Something Saturday activities (although it wasn't on Saturday). The Colony of Avalon is an archaeological dig of an English settlement from the 1600s. The land was purchased by Sir George Calvert in 1620 and people made the voyage over to Ferryland in the following years, establishing one of the earliest permanent English settlements in the New World. The settlement was raided first by the Dutch in 1673 and then again by the French in 1696. After the French raid, where they looted and burned the entire community, the people living in Ferryland were imprisoned at Placentia, or sent back to England.

At the Colony of Avalon, there is a great guided tour of the dig and we walked through where the village once was. The original cobblestone is still intact and the archaeologists have excavated various buildings throughout the settlement. We also watched a bread making demonstration and saw a mock-up of a 17th century kitchen. 

Afterwards, we had a picnic on the beach and some of us enjoyed throwing rocks in the water. Here are some pictures from our visit.

One other highlight of the weekend was whale watching. We went whale and bird watching with O'Brien's boat tours from Bay Bulls after our trip to the Colony of Avalon in Ferryland. The whale watching was amazing and we saw two whales  breaching (jumping out of the water), as well as slapping their pectoral fins. The guide even said that he's been out thousands of times and has never seen two whales breaching at the same time! It was amazing. During the boat tour we also got up close to the puffins, murs, and gulls in the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve.

Other than the new things we did, we also visited some of our favourite spots in the area, including:
- The Johnson GEO Centre
- The Rooms
- Signal Hill hike
- Cape Spear
- Torbay Point hike along the East Coast Trail
- Quidi Vidi walk
- George Street
- the Basilica
- Pouch Cove
- Restaurants: Cathedral St Bistro, Classic Cafe, Bianca's, and Gracie Joe's

Overall the weekend was very busy, but was lots of fun, and we ended up having some great weather! Here are some more pictures from our adventures (most of the photos were taken by Elizabeth or her dad):