Old Stone Bridge, Bowring Park

A good weekend to get out and snowshoe.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Ready to Assemble

Lots of fiddly little pieces to
keep straight

I need to twist some sinew into threads and then lash the stone, wood, bone, and antler pieces together to finish the Dorset Palaeoeskimo set of reconstructed tools for Port au Choix.  Since these will be used in demos, I'll probably use a bit of natural hide glue to firm up the bonds, but everything is fitting so firmly that I think that's optional.   I'm hoping that final stage of assembly will get done tomorrow and I can ship the order by mid-week.  Maybe it should have been done by now, but we had the perfect amount of snow late last week for a snowshoe trip to Bowring Park last Friday afternoon.   

Honestly - how could I stay in the workshop when this trail is a 5 minute drive away?

A couple knives and some endscrapers have been added to the set. 

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

It's winter here

The view towards the St. John's narrows from Deadman's Bay, last weekend.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Big Fluffy Flakes

Here's hoping that the first weekend of the New Year will be the first snowshoeing weekend of the New Year!

 Photo Credit: Tim Rast

A Wintry Weekend

First snow in Quidi Vidi

We had our first brush with winter here in St. John's over the weekend.  Last winter we had a pretty amazing run of snowy Friday nights and clear blue skied weekends that were perfect for getting out and snowshoeing and generally enjoying the season.  This weekend seemed to pick up right where last winter left off.  Lori and I got out an about around town and headed into the woods to pick up a Christmas tree. 

Quidi Vidi

On Sunday, we went out Christmas tree hunting.

Usually, we try to escape Christmas and go to a cabin or somewhere warm, but this year we're embracing it.

Cutting a harpoon shaft, err... Christmas tree

I think this is how Dexter got his start.

More Quidi Vidi.  I suppose I should mention that we didn't harvest our tree in Quidi Vidi - this was a different trip.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Snowshoeing White Hills

We had yet another perfect weekend for snowshoeing.  We had 20 or 30 cm of fluffy fresh snow fall during the week and then ideal weekend weather for getting out and playing in it.  This time we hit the trails in the White Hills on the northeast edge of St. John's.  There is a fairly extensive network of roads, footpaths, bike trails and power line right-of-ways that criss-cross over the hills.  We spent a couple hours exploring and saw some great country.  When I reviewed our path afterwards I realized that aside from the road, we didn't actually follow any designated trails.  There is certainly more ground to explore in this direction on another trip.

We cut across country for a couple kilometres, but eventually met up with a road and took that back to the cars, which were parked at the federal fisheries complex.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Snowshoeing #DarkNL

Snowshoeing the East Coast Trail
is a little tricky with a metre of
powdery snow on the ground.

Newfoundland is still in the midst of coping with a major winter storm, pre-preemptive closures, rolling blackouts and and unexpected Island-wide power failures.  The Premier and Newfoundland Power officials are warning us that this could be the new normal.  If and when the power grid becomes stable, we may be asked to conserve power for another month or two, and the dim light at the end of the tunnel that the Premier is offering us is a new power generation station in Labrador allegedly coming online in 2017.

Snow-B-Que!

Which means its going to be a great time for star-gazing, mid-winter barbeques, and winter sports.  We've got the grill set up again on the back deck, which we shovel out now before we work on the car and the front of the house.  On Sunday morning, Lori and I headed out to Cape Spear with a couple friends to snowshoe the Black Head Path. We only made it a kilometre or so along the trail before the deep powder turned us back, but it was still a great time and the Fish and Chips and pints at The Duke helped a lot.

The start of the hike had blue skies and huge waves.

The snow on the barrens leading to the foot of Black Head was easy to cross, but the drift in the trees were another story.  

We didn't make it anywhere near the top of Black Head, but we were well prepared for the mid-way break.  If this is going to be the new normal, I want snowshoe poles and a hip flask for Scotch, too.

The grey clouds and a dusting of snow had started by the time we made our way back to the car.  The waves were still impressive.

Cape Spear, Newfoundland and Labrador.  The Easternmost point in North America.

Cape Spear Light House.

Sausage, Tea, Coffee and booze to raise our spirits after an aborted attempt to cross Black Head.

A couple hours struggling through deep snow feels like a couple hours on a stair master.

There are so many great trails, I'm torn between returning to this trail and trying to finish it, or moving on to a new spot next time.

 Photo Credits: Lori White and Tim Rast

A bit of snow on the ground

Snow in front of the house

 We've had some cold and snowy weather in St. John's over the past couple
of weeks. The storm last night only left 15-20 cm of snow in the city, but its a damp heavy snow. It feels like winter has caught up to us now.

The city is halfway through a major sewer upgrade along our street and there has been a construction zone in front of our house for most of the fall.  We've had a combination of related and unrelated plumbing problems in our basement since last spring and have been waiting for the upgrade to get to our house so that we could put the basement back together and finally be done with it all.  Of course, the contractors stopped one house short of us, so we get to be the first house hooked up in the spring, but we can't really make the basement livable again until that work is done.  It feels like it could be a long winter.

Our street has been put back together just in time for winter.  

The backyard is peaceful, though.  I hope to use the downstairs deck through the winter. It looks like it should be easy to keep clear.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Snowshoeing the East Coast Trail

Silver Head Mine Path

Lori and I used some Christmas money to buy snow-shoes this year and we finally hit on the perfect weekend to test them out on the East Coast Trail.  The weather cooperated with fresh snow falling on Friday and Saturday nights, but with crisp blue skies during the day on both Saturday and Sunday. Breaking through new snow on even the best marked path makes you feel like a proper explorer.

The Blackhead Path - Cape Spear to Blackhead

View of the Cape Spear Lighthouse
from along the Blackhead Path

On Saturday, I drove out to Cape Spear and hiked along the Blackhead Path to the top of Blackhead, back towards St. John's.  The road to Cape Spear starts at the bottom of our street, so I really don't have an excuse to not visit more often.  I parked at the main lot and walked back along the barrens towards the small parking lot along the road where the trail head is marked and the path to Blackhead technically begins.  The trail goes through coastal barrens, woods, and up to the top of Blackhead.  It continues on to the community of Blackhead and ultimately Fort Amherst in St. John's, but I turned around at the summit.  The hike was a little less than 3 hours at a pretty leisurely pace (I took over 200 photos).  There was some thigh high drifting at the top of Blackhead, but for the most part it was a pretty comfortable hike.

The view back towards Cape Spear from Blackhead. 

Returning to Cape Spear

On a clear day, you can easily see Signal Hill from Cape Spear and Blackhead.

Cape Spear

Silver Head Mine Path - Middle Cove to Torbay

Mouth of Motion River/North Pond River 

On Sunday, we headed to Middle Cove and hiked the Silver Head Mine Path north towards Torbay.  People had hiked and snowshoed the trail on Saturday, but we had a few centimetres of new fresh powder all to ourselves.  The path starts at Middle Cove beach, quickly ascends a steep wooded cliff with a vertical drop into the Atlantic and continues along the cliff edge towards Torbay.  There are two areas of running water along the trail - the first we met was Houlihan's River, which was small enough to jump over, but a few hundred metres from the path end at Torbay there is a larger river, called either Motion River or North Pond River.  We turned around at this river and made our way back to Middle Cove.  The hike took around two hours.

Heading back towards Middle Cove. (Click to Enlarge)

Looking down into Middle Cove

The mouth of Houlihans River.  The trail skirts through the woods along the the top of the cliff in the background.

There was no way to get across the river in snowshoes, so we turned around at this point.  Its was definitely worth the trip.

Motion River/North Pond Rive enters the Atlantic in this cove.

Photo Credits:
1-10,12,13: Tim Rast
11: Lori White

Snow Day

Lots of drifting snow

St. John's had a snow day today.  We had a bit of a blizzard over the last 24 hours and the city had about a months worth of snow dumped on it all at once.  Usually it takes a few storms and lots of shoveling for the snow pile in front of our house to reach the living room window, but with just the sidewalk cleared and the car still encased we have already shoveled snow to that height.  

We had a dusting of snow before this, but winter arrived all at once in the city.

Out the front door

Most of the Avalon Peninsula was without power at one time or another.  We lost power for most of the work day, and since it was too miserable to shovel, I took the day off.  Monday, I'll be in the shed working on some snow goggles for a museum display in Ontario.  Finger crossed, I'll have the first Archaeological Plans and Profiles interview to share with you then as well.

Our street is down to one lane.  We'll finish shoveling the car out tomorrow.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

This Blog is having a Snow Day!

Here's a picture of some Microblades.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Labrador-style Snow Knife

Whalebone snow knife reproduction.  This is a piece that I made few years ago for The Rooms.  Its based on Thule Inuit snow knives from Labrador.  I can't recall the exact dimensions, but I think it was around 16-18 inches long.  Its flat on one face and slightly convex on the other - kind of like a plane's wing in cross-section.

This is one of the knives in the collection at The Rooms that I used as a reference piece.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast