Dots and dashes

2010.08.17

We first drove over to a visitor center near Argentia, NL. (Argentia is the other ferry terminal, more distant, destination from Nova Scotia.) The goal was to use their Wi-fi and collect the emails we haven't had access to for a couple days.

At the visitor center we learned about the US Navy base built there well *before* US officially declared war on Germany in World War-II. It was ships from this base that escorted the convoys that carried materiel to Britain. The Rueben James, famous in song, sailed out of Argentia.

Then we went on to the town of Cupids. It is the town, first permanently settled by the British in 1610, that can be said to be the birthplace of British Canada. Take that Plymouth, Mass!

The people of Cupids have and continue to celebrate their 400th anniversary. They were making two way streets one way, blocking others, and running buses to transport people from outlying parking lots. Tonight they will have fireworks! We took a look around, but decided the hustle and bustle was too much for us and moved on. And, as we learned from the French Canadians the city of Quebec is celebrating their 400th as well.

Our last touring stop was the village of Heart's Content. It was funny how the Garmin GPS put the spoken accent on the first syllable of "content" and made it sound like the stuff inside the heart.

Anyway, it was at Heart's Content that the West end of the trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1866. The harbor, besides being heart shaped, is deep enough to handle the large ship "Great Eastern" which laid a single cable all the way over to Valentia, Ireland.

From that time until 1965 the cable station here in Heart's Content was in operation. While equipment improved with time, received messages from Europe were relayed on another cable to Port aux Basques and then again to Nova Scotia, and so on. And of course the same in the other direction.

We are camping tonight at the commercial Outer Pond R.V. Park near Winterton, NL.

Odometer reads 66,983.