2015-07-09 Dildo

2015-07-09 Dildo

Although the name Dildo may sound offensive, that is exactly the name of the fishing village. The name could have come from French, Spanish or Beothuk, but we all agreed that it probably came from the little bracket in a row boat that holds the oar, that's a dildo!  We started out with the Dildo Museum and received a fantastic tour given by Ashley George and Benjamin Williams.  Patrick Newhook was there also.  They started with some history of the Aborignal Dorset and Grosswater Eskimos and later the Beothuk Indians.  Ashley, Ben and Patrick were local citizens. Ashley was in her second year at the university and  Ben had already graduated. They were very knowledgable about the history of the town and the Indians. Thank you Ashley and Ben for such a great tour.

The town was a whaling village and was noted for their ability to catch Beluga Whales.  They were also fishermen.  The men would herd the whales into the harbor and block them in while they speared and caught them. There weren’t any there while we were. We missed them by a couple of weeks. The name of the town is for real. No inunindos or puns. They are proud of their town and rightly so.

At one time, a giant squid washed in on the beach.  For a later celebration, they built a replica, overall 20 ft. long, and had it mounted on the pier.

Another event was when a huge seaplane landed in the bay and needed refueling. They had gotten lost on their way to Gander. The folks had to drive to gander for Aviation fuel and could only carry around  50 gallons each trip.

We wanted to go up the coast and visit the ship Building factory in Winterton  and the first telecommunications facility in North America in Hearts Desire, after the first wire was laid underwater between Newfoundland and Europe.  More on that in our next blog.  Anyway, we asked if we could leave the motor home in their parking lot while we drove up there. They said, "sure". We were late returning so we just spent the night there in their parking lot.  Several of  the local townfolks came by to say hello and indicated they hadn't seen a motor home that big. We were the news of the day. The next morning the owner of the Interpretation center came by looking for his worker bees and also said we could stay anytime.

                                       Fisherman's Union Building, across from the Museum

                                                      The mailman's sled

We saw these "step stoves" in several museums, They are unique to Newfoundland and very efficient.  The front step is a warmer, then the woodbox with burners over that, but the big difference between other wood burners is the oven on top, with another flat warming surface over it.

                                                 A disc from the spine of a whale.

                   Ashley is holding a piece of baleen, the filters in a whale's mouth instead of teeth.  It filters the water out and keeps the foodstuff in the whales mouth.

                                                   A display of some uses of birch wood.

                                            Whale's tooth.