Fogo

2010.08.21

In the morning, we drove over to the pretty village of Twillingate on Twillingate Island. One can simply drive there because of causeways and bridges.

In the afternoon, we took the ferry to Fogo Island.

While there are a lot of funny names here in Newfoundland for places, like the village of Seldom on Fogo Island or Random Island we had driven by the day before, Fogo has nothing to do with fog. It comes from the Portuguese "fuego" for "fire" because they had seen Beothuk (the natives) campfires there. In the 16th century, the Portuguese as well as others made seasonal trips to Newfoundland waters just for the fishing.

Fogo, the town, is a throwback in time. Not much new has been built in a while. The young adults go away to work somewhere else and come back to get married in town. This, being Saturday, just happened to be a wedding day for a guy who lives and works in Alberta. A local restaurant (and gas station) had a take-out Wedding Day special on Buffalo wings. The reception was at the Lions Club hall which happens to have a few camping sites near by for a money making project. We stayed there. We talked to a local lady walking her dog to get the scoop. When we told her where we were from, she said "Why would you come to Fogo?"

Up from the Lions Club property is a trail up to Brimstone Head, a huge rock overlooking the ocean. The Flat Earth Society believes it to be one of the corners of the Earth. A sign at the bottom of some wooden stairs in one of the steep sections of the trail reads "WARNING: You are nearing the edge of the flat Earth. One false step could be your last. Number of people lost to date "0".

Odometer reads 67,503.