Port au Choix - 300 km - 1 days

August 11^th was spent in Port au Choix and the morning of the 12^th was spent at the nearby Torrent River Fishway.

Port Au Choix

Monday morning we visited one end of the The French Treaty Shore which:

came into existence with the ratification of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713). This provided that the French could fish in season on the Newfoundland coast between Cape Bonavista and Point Riche - an area that had been frequented by fishermen from Brittany since the early 16th century, and which they called “le petit nord”.

The other end is Cape Bonavista.

The most prominent ruins from this era are the French bread ovens, which originally would have looked like this recreation:

and now are used to bake rolls for the tourists.

A prominent feature of the Port au Choix National Historic Site is the Point Riche Lighthouse which still is the guiding light into the harbour at Port au Choix:

This area is home to many caribou:

and, of course, some of the National Parks iconic red chairs:

Phillip’s Garden

On Tuesday afternoon, we took the Dorset Trail to Phillip’s Garden

which was first inhabited long before the French arrived (in fact more than six thousand years before the Treay of Utrecht):

With over 800 years of inhabitation, this is one of North America’s most intensively occupied Dorset (Tuniit) archaeological sites:

This is how it has been preserved:

Nearby are some sculptures dedicated to the sealing way of life of the Dorset:

These were our tracks for Monday, Aug 11

*click on the map for more details

Torrent River Fishway

On Tuesday morning we went for a tour of the Torrent River Fishway

which is an artificial fish ladder (zigging from left to right) that enables salmon and trout to bypass the 10 m falls (seen on the right) to get to good spawning grounds:

Here is what it looks like from the top:

*click on the panoramic image to enlarge it

Here is a discussion on how the ladder works:

along with the history:

The success of the ladder is verified by counting the number of fish passing through the “viewing” gallery part of the ladder:

That’s it for Port au Choix

Next we are off to Gros Morne National Park.

In case you had missed it, we came from St. Anthony.

When we are travelling, our current location is always available and updated every 10 minutes