Monday, August 31, 2015

2015-07-16 Twillingate

2015-07-16 Twillingate

We arrived at Twillingate from Musgrave Harbor and were able to get  a spot in  Peyton’s RV Campground. We had a very weak Wifi signal due to the trees blocking us. Twillingate is located on the far Northern Kittywake Coast. It too is a fishing town and all commerce relies on that except for tourism. Yep, us tourist help the economy every day. 


















Lighthouse Museum

Our first outing was to the lighthouse and observation platform where you can watch whales (so we were told), icebergs (none in sight) and items on display were all concerning was how to build a boat and all  the old tools that it required. The whale exhibit consisted of a computer video  of the whaling effort in the area.
















                                                           Masonic lodge

I was satisfied that the lodge is pretty much the same as any lodge in America. I was not able to distinguish any differences. It is an old lodge dating back to the 1700’s and is still active but only in the Winter. In the Summer months they use it as a tourist attraction while  they take their vacations.
                                              









Matthew Churchill


Split Peas Musicians


Split Peas is a group of elderly women(except one) who put on a performance of several songs. Some you may know and some you don’t. It’s a slapstick type where all cut up and have fun putting it on. They get the audience involved where possible. They practice all Winter, perform  during June-September  and have at it  for 23 years. Two played the acordian, two guitar two sang only and one, the youngest (Kim, I think) was the ham and active doer. She used several instruments to include shakers, clappers and the “Ugly Stick. The Ugly Stick is a pole with in a boot/shoe  with short arms made with  bottle caps. One bounces it on the floor and beats it with an ugly stick and tries to stay in sync with the music.
The performance was conducted in a “Orange” building. Uniquely, it is a place where an old organization very similar to the Masonic Organization were held.  I was able to visit part of their upstairs lodge and saw some similiaries to the Masons Organization yet there were subtle differences. The membership had once been around 400 but time and loss of interest reduced it down to around 15 or so. So, the performers  helped maintain the building with their income and volunteering. One room had been leased to an Artist whose work in pencil was some of the best I’ve ever seen.














Twillingate Museum

 The museum is located in  the former Anglican Church Rectory. It depicts life at the turn of the century. While it was interesting to see how the people in the area lived most of what was on display was very similar to what we see in the museums in the US. There were some nautical items of interest and they are shown below also.




















Durrell Museum


The museum houses community artifacts from the late 1800s and early 1900s. They also have a mounted Polar bear that floated in on an iceberg and was wandering around town before someone killed him. It’s a great place to view icebergs, but alas, there were none to be seen.























   NWI Dinner Theater

The theater is located in the John Hamlyn Community Center. It is a dinner and performance put on by local talent with their Newfoundland culture. The group prepares and serves the dinner as well as performs. Their genre is Newfoundland culture and their singing and skits are about their home country.  They elicited laughter throughout the entire performance. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

For dinner, Anita chose Lobster. It was her first whole lobster, ever. Fortunately, the chef split open the back and cracked the claws for her. I had part of it and the 6 huge mussels that were served with it.












Rock Formations

As a last tour, we heard about some natural rock formations that would be interesting to see. Unfortunately, a couple required a bit more hiking than we could do but we got three, A human face, a gorilla face and a bear. See if you can distinguish which is which.  
                                                     


A face

Gorilla (first rock)

Bear