Way far away, with whales watching

Still too windy for the Regatta today, though I think most of the province suspects (as I do) that a Friday Regatta would be an incredible thing and didn’t really hope for a clear Thursday. We spent near all of today at Cape Spear, the easternmost point on the entire continent of North America, and one of my favourite places on earth, though when I am on Newfoundland I somehow find myself saying that over and over again.

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When you are in Cape Spear, Ireland closer than a host of other Canadian cities (not to imply that Cape Spear is a city, far from it. Now that the Lighthouse is automated, I think the population is zero.

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The sock. As far east as you can go on the continent without fear of a rogue wave taking you into the sea.

Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary… hell, Vancouver is 5078 km away, but the green coast of Ireland is only 3000 km away over the sea…in fact, Cape Spear is closer to Greenland than to my home in Toronto 2112 km away.

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This proximity to Ireland explains much of the place, especially the geography and – were you here to listen, the accent of the people. It’s a remarkable thing.

Newfoundland is hard edges and blowing wind and grey skies and a big fierceness that is moving to the core of you. Everything here is large and striving and it can kill you if you are a stupid city girl for even a moment, and it’s heartbreakingly, achingly beautiful.

Here, my Newfoundlander husband tries clearly to kill our children.. or at least that’s how it seemed to me while every internal organ I had cramped up… but I don’t even like them to stand too close to the edge of the subway platforms, never mind the cliffs of doom.

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Joe’s right to let them do these things. Wild hikes, leaning over cliffs, searching for whales….

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… even finding whales… a whole pod right off the cape, blowing and breaching in the intermittent sun. While I trail behind, trying hard to let them have an afternoon like his whole childhood, and trying to figure out how he lived.

Cape Spear is still an operating lighthouse, a newer automated tower sitting to the left of the old one,

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but the original lighthouse is still there, restored to the way that it was when the only people who lived on Cape Spear were the lighthouse keeper and his family, and they lived in this building together, keeping a light on for ships aiming for St. John’s harbour. My friends… it is, like all of Newfoundland… a very knitty place.

There are sweaters draped over chairs and in chests, hanging by hooks near wool pants with garter stitch suspenders.

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mittens drying by windows,

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socks in the lighthouse keepers boots,

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There were knitting needles spied in baskets in the lighthouse sitting room…

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big baskets of roving and cards by the window.

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Even what Joe thought might be okum, roving of wool – not the typical cotton you would find elsewhere… you can’t grow cotton in Newfoundland, waiting to be soaked with wax or tar to chink holes in buildings and ships.

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There was even the famous Cape Spear Coverlet, which I have long dreamed of seeing.

There it lay

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in all it’s glory, and it was worth every minute.

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It must have been knit on needles no larger than 2.5mm – maybe 3mm if you wanted to be generous, out of cotton thread that must have been really dear at the time. The dude there to answer questions said that each little shell would have taken at least 45 minutes, and I think he’s about right. I don’t feel like guessing how many of them are there. It’s a testament to the length of the Newfoundland winters… right there.

There’s another…

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and there’s something that makes teens laugh if you take them there.

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Sperm WHALE. For the record. (It was used to fuel the light. Git yer minds out of the gutter.)

It was another grand and glorious day, and we loved the whole thing and wish you were here to see it. (More or less. I wouldn’t cook for the lot of yee.)

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Tomorrow, all of Newfoundland agrees, has to be Regatta day, and since Quidi Vidi Lake is in the backyard, we’re sure to have a grand day. Truly.

(PS. Seriously. My hair in that first shot? The smallest it’s been in days. Scared straight.)

(PPS: I forgot to tell you. Through a twist of fate that involved rain (there’s a shock) I ended up at the Avalon Mall yesterday and wandered into a Coles. They had a bunch of my books so I signed the lot of them. If you were hoping for a signed copy and you live on the rock… there you go.)

186 thoughts on “Way far away, with whales watching

  1. Thank you so much for the wonderful pictures of your trip! I feel like I have been on an adventure too.

  2. Love the coverlet – you did figure out the pattern for us – didn’t you?
    Enjoy tomorrow – love the pictures!!

  3. I have a love for Newfoundland folk music (in which, once again, you can very clearly hear the proximity to Ireland). I had no idea the place itself was so beautiful! (Maybe I’ll get there when I’m next in Canada!) Thank you for sharing!

  4. I’ve just returned with my family from our vacation on the other side of Canada (Vancouver and Vancouver Island); it was wonderful and I am missing it almost constantly. We didn’t have a regatta, but the 150 year celebrations for British Columbia were in full swing…and we had better weather!

  5. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful scenery. It can’t be said enough. Hope you continue to thoroughly enjoy your time there.

  6. Thank goodness you saw the whales- more than makes up for the no whales at year 1 of sock camp. I have a question that I am a bit awkward to ask (especially being married to a Canadian). You refer to Joe as a Newfoundlander. Is referring to someone as a Newfie (sic) an insult, or is it contextual?
    Happy Regatta!

  7. I hope the Regatta goes ahead for you tomorrow. A friday Regatta is a fine thing indeed. Wish I was there to play some games of chance with you guys. Boy I miss Newfoundland. Have a great vacation.

  8. Thanks for sharing parts of your trip with us – and for reminding those of us suffering summer’s heat, that there are places where it’s cool.

  9. Thank you for all the pictures and the wonderful descriptions. It’s the closest I’ll get to a vacation this year….

  10. The coverlet is astonishingly beautiful. I sat there with my mouth open and my heart full of lust, coveting a coverlet. Does anyone know if a pattern exists for this wonder?

  11. I want to go to Newfoundland. It looks like such a wild, beautiful place. Thank you for sharing your trip.

  12. I’ve always wanted to go to Newfoundland. My husband has been there, and he can’t stop singing its praise. I’ve been showing him your reports from there, and he’s lovin’ ’em.

  13. I am SO going over to Ravelry to search for coverlet patterns. Seriously, stop it. I have enough things there now to last me until I’m 117. And that’s not including the crochet stuff. And the cross-stitch. And the needlepoint. Crap. Must knit faster…

  14. It looks like you all are having a wonderful trip. Remember to unclench your innards and remember you’ve kept your girls alive this long – a little cliff loitering won’t do any harm.

  15. It looks lovely and I’m really enjoying the travelogue but isn’t it meant to be summer over there? If you fancy dangling your daughters over some terrifying cliffs somewhere warmer you know we have some really jagged rocks here…

  16. It doesn’t take many guesses to tell who picked this vacation to knitting heaven!!!
    It is truly a beautiful place.
    Thanks so much for sharing it with us armchair travellers.
    I spent some years growing up on the south coast of Oregon in Coos Bay, so this travelogue is indeed a treat for me!!!
    Hoping the rest of your vacation is rain-free, or at least just drizzly.
    Have fun!!!

  17. Grand pictures!! (especially of the one with the wind in your hair! (I have naturally-tangled hair inspired by humidity too))
    Excellent tour!
    We did get to be there some to see it. Thanks for taking us!

  18. Wonderful Pictures…the knitty atmosphere in the lighthouse was a joy to behold. Thanks for sharing.

  19. From Vancouver: Thanks for showing me the “other” side of our country. I WILL get out there one day.
    An entire blanket on 2.5mm needles!!! 45mins on each shell!! It’s GORGEOUS but I think I’d nip into that rum first. 🙂

  20. it’s so cool, seeing in a knitting blog places i know from great big sea songs. thanks for sharing, and showing. 🙂 newfoundland’s definitely on the Places-to-Go list.

  21. Whoa. That blanket is just astonishing. Knitters are the most astonishing of people…not merely because they do such things, but because they do such things and then toss them onto a bed and expect them to be USED.
    I love that about our art. My husband wore a pair of socks I made for him from hand-painted wool/mohair blend to the office today…the yarn is soft and warm and somewhat delicate, and yet my first thought wasn’t “Ack, not THOSE, not for EVERYDAY! Wear the wool-wool ones – or better yet, the WalMart $6-a-barrel cotton ones!!”, it was “Yay, he’s wearing the hand-painted ones! I still love those colors…”
    And that he came home saying, “I love wearing these! They make my feet happy!” was better reward than a thousand art critics singing my praises.
    I do wish you’d stop with the Insane Yet Tempty stuff, though. Anybody else looking at the blanket and thinking, “Hmmmmm…2.5mm you say?”

  22. If I didn’t know where you were I would have said that first picture is in the coast of Ireland. Beautiful place. Looks like you are having a great time.

  23. I used to think Nova Scotia was the place I most wanted to go, but now I see that it’s really Newfoundland. Thank you for the incredible inspiration – it’s breathtaking.

  24. Oh, the whole place looks lovely! oooohh! And the coverlet! Please, if you ever have a moment of utter insanity, no, no, *benevolence* do try writing up that pattern. It is simply breathtaking. Who sez it would have to be a coverlet– I long for a sock border like that!
    ==Marjorie, from the Sock-Shaped State

  25. You’ll have to tell us more about the coverlet. Is it knit as individual shells and then joined or knit as one piece?

  26. Wow. I’m floored. It’s beautiful beyond words – all of it.
    Just a question – does Canada need people and are you working with the government in a sooper sneaky recruitment effort? (if yes, please let me know. I’d be interested :0)

  27. At least if they were to fall over the “cliffs of doom” they might encounter a giant or very handsome pirate to rescue them!
    Beautiful country!

  28. The bedspread looks wonderful, isn’t it the Pomatomus pattern from Cookie’s socks? Thought I’d mention it just in case anyone has a hankering for a similar bedspread (although you’d need to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic).

  29. I’ve just returned from a holiday in the Outer Hebrides, off the north-west coast of Scotland. Very similarly beautiful, bleak and stunning scenery to Newfoundland, evidently – but not as much knitting, more weaving to be found there (Harris tweed). What is it about knitters that we are drawn to this sort of landscape??! So glad you’re having a good holiday – looking forward to hearing about the regatta!

  30. Thanks for telling us all about where Joe grew up. What an amazing and stunningly beautiful place. All that ocean, all those cliffs, and they have tons of knitting too! The coverlet is amazing! I occasionally volunteer in a historical museum were I teach and demonstrate spinning and natural dyeing, and we have a pair of ladies gloves that blow my mind like that coverlet. The stitches are so tiny that the general consensus is that they had to have been knit on 0000 needles, and so perfect that we can’t find any mistakes. Before anyone thinks that they were machine made, we have documents to prove otherwise! Like your stunning coverlet, I can’t imagine how long they took to knit. I’ve never knit anything on size 0000 needles and have absolutely no plan to ever do so LOL! I also don’t have any plans to knit a coverlet like that, but if you can figure out the pattern and are willing to share it, I might make a shawl. I also love the socks and mittens, but the white sweater in the trunk is just beautiful. Something about the pattern just appeals to me. I can’t imagine being around all that knitting and not being able to touch it. It’s a fiber person’s nightmare to not be able to grope the woolens! Thanks for letting us all go vicariously along on your vacation. Now I can add Newfoundland to the list of places I’d love to visit in Canada.

  31. heh heh heh, sperm, heh heh heh (sorry, I can’t help it.)
    you have beautiful daughters, in case no one has ever mentioned it.
    hope they had some pepsi to go with that rum (the lighthouse keepers, not your daughters).
    I also like the coverlet design. wonder how many hours were spent in making it?
    and thanks for the travel tales; I am having a virtual vacation thru you.

  32. Thankyou so much for sharing your holiday and all the gorgeous pictures. After the day I’ve had with my kids (seriously – will they *never* stop talking?!?) I dearly needed some pretty to look at. I feel like I’ve had a mini-break! 🙂

  33. Thank you for all the lovely pictures (and all that knitting… gasp!)
    The thing that tickled me to reply? I think it was such a lovely gesture for you to sign a bunch of books… while you are on holidays, no less.

  34. I went to Uni (in Tasmania, Australia) with a Newfie, whose party trick was to imitate the sound of every one of the Newfoundland foghorns. His name was Tim and he’d start after the 4th beer. And keep going to the end of the party – I guess they have lots of foghorn there. I’ve always wanted to visit – my dad loved the place.

  35. Oh, Stephanie, THANK YOU for sharing this amazing place with us. I want to go there so badly! I myself am having a staycation this year (not going anywhere), so it is great to experience Newfoundland vicariously.
    I hope you have a beautiful, clear Friday for the Regatta!

  36. What a stunning landscape! I do love the knittiness of the lightkeeper’s house. Sure makes sense, passing the time, making useful and beautiful things.

  37. My husband and I have a list of places in North America that we want to visit. Newfoundland is one of them. I think you just moved it to the top of the list!! It looks like the kind of place where you can just soak up nature and beauty. A cup of coffee in the morning with a little knitting and, in the evening, a glass of wine with a little knitting. It sounds like a perfect vacation.

  38. Newfoundland looks gorgeous. Looks like you’re having fun… apart from worrying about the safety of your offspring, of course. 🙂

  39. We spent two weeks in Newfoundland in the summer of ’02, the kids were 6 & 9. Beautiful and terrifying about covers it. My daughter, 9 at the time, came back from a St. John’s evening stroll with my hubby and excitedly prattled on about the cliff they had walked across with chains to hold so you wouldn’t fall off. It was a memorable trip -thanks for taking me back.

  40. I think all such Northern coastal places (Newfoundland, British Isles, Iceland and here in Norway)are bound together through the dependance of what the ocean had to offer, and dependance of wool to keep warm when yuu went out on the waves to find it.

  41. Thank you so much for sharing the views. Those cliffs are really lovely. The coverlet is totally over the moon & I’d be there trying to figure out the pattern.
    Have a great regatta.

  42. Thank you for the armchair vacation. Loving the cliffs and the thought of the wind in my face. Especially with the 90 degree heat here in MD.

  43. Amazing. Newfoundland looks like the coast of Ireland near Slea Head. (It must be a mother thing cuz I had the same feelings when my son stood on the edge of a cliff in Ireland when he was four.) I knew Nova Scotia had Celtic origins but Newfoundland is now the place I want to see!

  44. beautiful photos. I have never been to your country, but would love to one day. that landscape is indeed very North-Atlantic, looks like any shore of Ireland, the Faroe Islands or Iceland. right now you have a lot of Icelandic guests at the celebrations in Manitoba, commemorating the arrival of the Icelandic settlers some 150 years ago.
    best to you from Iceland
    Frida

  45. So beautiful. Looking at these pictures gives me the oddest sensation – almost takes my breath away. I am not fond of cold, wet weather, but for those views I think I might be able to tolerate it!

  46. If you ever were to give up knitting, you could switch rather seamlessly to a travel blog. Very nice! (I might even be able to get up there by train, wouldn’t that be fun?!)
    Also, I love your hair in that first picture! What I wouldn’t give for hair like that… Sigh…

  47. Thank you for sharing your family vacation pictures. I can almost hear the waves crashing into the coast. It seems lovely.
    I must put Newfoundland on my list of places to see. ~ksp

  48. I’m ashamed: I’ve been worried about your sock on the edge of all these cliffs. What is she looses a needle down the cliff? Does someone have a tight hold on the working yarn? And all along, you were worried about the cliffs and the girls! (Hangs head)
    Thank you for the wonderful post and pictures about an area unknown to me. rtffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
    (last comment line by my Siamese cat. Off the keyboard, you big fur!)

  49. You are far outdoing those of us who have a hard time cranking out a few postcards!!!
    Thanks, it’s gor-gee-ous!!!

  50. I’ve been a lurker for a long time. However, I have to tell you how much I am enjoying your posts about your vacation to Newfoundland. Gorgeous scenery and interesting facts make me eager to read each and every one. Thank you so much. I live in a gorgeous place, too. Yellowstone is in my back yard. But what I wouldn’t give to see the sights you are seeing every day. Thank you, again, so very much. And I covet that cook, rainy weather!

  51. How very very beautiful! Thank you for sharing all this. The lighthouse (and the inner tour you gave us) is wonderful. Maybe I’ll get there someday. I’m certainly motivated now after seeing your photos. Do you think one could do that bedspread in fine wool (well of course one *could*) in this day and age? Are our night slong enough?

  52. Going next week to renew my passport so we can start planning our trip to Newfoundland. Hubby is enjoying your pictures as well. 🙂

  53. I’ve been showing your ongoing travelogue photos to my husband and saying “I wanna go, I wanna go,” and his response? “Sure. We’ll go next summer.” This is why I married him.
    Honestly, I’ve never seen a place I wanted to visit more. What a wonderful holiday for your family, with the bonus of KNITTING everywhere you go! Savor every moment of this, as I’m sure you are.

  54. I think you have another money-making idea on your hands…taking knitters on tours of Newfoundland. I’d be the first to sign up!
    The pictures are AMAZING!!!!
    Oh, and what a coincidence that you compare Newfoundland to Ireland. I was telling a non-knitter about your adventure, and I explained that the pictures looked a lot like what I imagine Ireland to look like.
    Guess I’m a little smarter than I thought!
    Can’t wait to see Regatta pictures!!!

  55. hmm….am i the only on that thinks the coverlet looks alot like the Cookie A. Pomatomus socks??
    Not exactly, but close.
    gorgeous pics! looks like a place id love to see:)

  56. I’ve been to Ireland and stood at the Cliffs of Moher, facing west, and your pictures remind me so much of that place. Both cliffs face each other, I suppose.
    I miss it dearly. Thanks for the memories.

  57. Hmm. I foresee a really cool family vacation coming up. Instead of going south, we’ll go north. I can’t wait. My children will think I’ve gone bonkers, but that’s pretty much normal around here.
    Wish you’d have gotten a shot of the whales. Beautiful creatures, they.

  58. I LOVE all the lighthouse knitting! It tells its own story, indeed. Obviously, there was a good source of wool in the area. And sperm oil for the lamps wasn’t too dear.
    The pictures are awesome. Though you are not looking too enthused about the cliff in that first one, for yourself either. Thanks for sharing, I feel like I’ve been travelling vicariously. Off to Northern Minnesota lake country today, not quite so wild and windy, though we have our own little Regatta in a week! (the biggest boat involved has a crew of 5, I think, but there are plenty of two-person Sunfish sailboats; it’s all foreign to me, I canoe!)
    Thanks again, I really have been enjoying the last few days.

  59. Thanks so much for taking us along on your incredible journey. I can almost feel the wind…..
    Diane

  60. In my whole life I never imagined that I would want to add Newfoundland to the daunting list of places to go before I die; apparently I do. Thanks for letting me in on the secret of its beauty….

  61. It’s a fine line between teaching them caution and stifling their curiosity, isn’t it? I remember as a kid climbing to the top of a particularly tall jungle gym, and every time I’d look for my dad to show him how high I’d climbed, and every time he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Years later he finally told me he’d walked around behind a wooden storefront so he wouldn’t see me and shout at me to get down before I killed myself.

  62. Your book signing brought to mind a scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s when Holly has Paul sign his book at the library and it gets them thrown out. I take it you had a more positive experience.
    Despite the rain your vacation spot looks fantastic.

  63. These gorgeous photos make me want to go to Newfoundland…and I’ve got to say, I’ve never had any particular interest in the place before…being an Ohioan and all. We don’t see/hear much about the beauties that Canada has to offer very often.

  64. Magestic – thanks for the best travel blog entry I’ve read in a while. Made me want to go back and read Ahab’s wife – a book about a girl who grows up on an island lighthouse.

  65. What a glorious vacation and thank you for sharing. This reminds me of all the wonderful trips I took with my dad as a young girl. I grew up on Nantucket, an island off the coast of Mass, but my father had a seafaring soul and dreamed of sailing the maritime provinces so we spent every fall traveling the coast of Maine to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. My childhood is filled with all these images and you are right these are amazing memories.
    Nantucket’s whole economy was based on Sperm oil at one point in history. And you are right it always gets snickers from the teens at the Whaling Museum.
    Enjoy your trip and keep the pictures coming. They are breathtaking (literally, huh?).

  66. Imagine sewing, and weaving in all of those ends! EEEEk! On such a fine yarn! Double EEEk! There has GOT to be a way to knit that thing as one piece! I am thinking something constructed like Cookie A’s Pomatomus. Okay, enough of my geeking for now! Enjoy your sunny Regatta Day!
    -k

  67. Wow. Just … an amazingly, wildly beautiful place, and the knitting!
    My hair, too, tends to resemble that of the fabulous Miss Ross; I empathize.

  68. 1. Loving Joe of the short hair!
    2. Would you ever live in Newfoundland?
    3. Seriously? Knitted suspenders?

  69. Thank you for the lighthouse pic. And wow — that coverlet. Long winter definitely to make that thing. Bet it’s nice and snuggly warm though!
    Ah, would you take some of us as houseguests next year if we agreed to be the cooks? I make a wide variety of international cuisine and I’m good at vegetarian entrees. We’d even through in some yarn as a bribe . . .

  70. Oh, the beauty of it! It makes my own backyard seem like a very urban place. Surely you’ve read “The Shipping News” – reading your descriptions makes me want to read it all over again.

  71. Newfoundland is a wonderful place. We spent 2 great weeks on the west coast last summer. Gros Morne is gorgeous, L’Anse aux Meadows (settled by Leif Erikson in 1000 A.D.) incredible, and we saw icebergs and whales galore. Went over to Labrador to Red Bay (Basque whaling site) and also saw the oldest burial mound found in North America. Very exciting for an old college archaeology major like myself.
    And you’re right, there is a lot of good knitting happening there. Simple, well made, beautiful stuff designed to keep you WARM.

  72. Your pictures are just gorgeous, and that coverlet is phenomenal!
    I hope you get your Friday Regatta! Thank you for sharing all of this breathtaking beauty with us!

  73. We have always wanted to go to the maritimes. Being smack in the middle Saskatchewan will do that to you, the wanting to see something other than prarie…
    I don’t think your hair is too big, it fits, all wild like!
    Enjoy the ragatta, I love tall ships 🙂

  74. Of course, I love the knitting content blogs, but I love it lots when you take us on these journeys. Thanks for this.

  75. The coverlet is amazing! I’ve seen a small version, knit for a baby, but nothing this large. For those of you who want to try out the pattern, it is in Mary Walker Phillips’ book, “Knitting Counterpanes”, published by Taunton Press in 1989. I have a copy of the 2nd printing, and the pattern is on page 141, “Wilma’s Pattern”.

  76. Some day I’ll get to Newfoundland. I already love Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick and Maine. Your pictures and descriptions are just wonderful, since it’s rainy & cool here, I can try to pretend that I’m there, too.

  77. Oooh, I love that coverlet. Is there an approximation of a pattern anywhere? You know, for those inexplicable knitterly moments when we believe we can knit anything, that we have the required attention span, conveniently ignoring the 23 single socks in a basket beside our bed. Somehow these moments hit me most strongly when I see a beautiful work of art like this. I MUST have something similar to knit! With tiny yarn, and tiny needles……sigh

  78. Wow, it looks so BEAUTIFUL there…I have always wanted to visit, and your posts are making the craving even more intense.
    By the way, I love that turtleneck folded in the trunk…may. have. to. copy.
    🙂

  79. Lovely. Makes me think of similar images from New England and Lake Michigan. Amazing how tough those lighthouse keepers were. And I keep meaning to comment that your pink sock is like a rosy little beacon amidst all that lush greenery and earthy rocks.

  80. So gorgeous. You’re really making me want to see it myself– I’ve wanted to go there since watching the Shipping News anyway!

  81. I am changing over to my Newfoundland playlist now in iTunes.
    I think I need some Fables tunes to get me through the morning!

  82. Love the craggy pictures and the gorgeous knitting! Have wanted to visit the Maritimes for some time now and was upset when my summer trip had to be cancelled. Would love to retire to some place on the ocean and have the view in your pictures every day.
    Leave it to the math geek to point out that, technically, Semisopochnoi Island in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, is the easternmost point in North America.
    Just waiting for the flame to be lit in the next hour to start my Beijing 2008 sweater. Bet you’re enjoying Newfoundland so much more than entering names into a database…

  83. That really amuses me that you went into a book store and just randomly signed your books, just because you were there. I can’t even imagine the surprise the next buyer will get when he/she opens it!

  84. I loved that you signed your books while in Coles. I bet those copies will be sold in no time as the clerk shares the story of your visit.

  85. I’m sure enjoying the geography lesson. You’re in a part of the world I know nothing about. It sure is beautiful there! I’ve also learned so much about Canada through your blog. It’s educational as well as fun! Who knew!

  86. Breaching whales, you say? Must have been humpbacks! (There might be sperm whales off that coast, but they rarely come out of the water). Glad you got to see some – so far, the Bay of Fundy is the only place I’ve seen whales in Canada, but maybe a visit to New Foundland is in the future.

  87. What a treat! I am absolutely enthralled with Newfoundland…a tribute to your writing…I feel as though I’m there with you guys. Thanks so much for taking us along……

  88. Thank you soooo much for taking us to a wonderful place that few of us will ever get to experience in person. Loving it.

  89. I’m wonderin’ – In the history of the Regatta – what is the longest it has ever been delayed? Because I’m guessing they get a LOT of wind and rain up there.

  90. Oh my gosh, that coverlet is amazing. I hope I can see it in person someday, too! And you’re so good, signing all your books. What a nice surprise! =)

  91. I’m enjoying what looks like lots of cool vicariously – we apparently broke a record for triple digit days yesterday. Oh joy.
    If I were there I’d cook for you all. Vegan even. Just to be cool.

  92. You know, this I believe is my favorite post of yours I have read. You made me feel through the photos and your thoughts as if I were there with you. Beautiful, beautiful … oh, so beautiful.
    Don’t know what else to say. Just, beautiful.
    😉 firefly

  93. You should come to the west coast of Scotland. I now live in Ayrshire, which is gorgeous, a lifelong ambition to live up here fulfilled, but if you go further north, into the Highlands you will find the same kind of landscapes and the same feeling of “if you cock up here, you will die.” It’s amazing. Rannoch Moor in winter is an experience I think you would appreciate. And of course, in Scotland, we do a lot of knitting 🙂 I swear there’s a wool shop in every town round here – admittedly, not posh stuff, disappointingly large quantities of acrylic, but they’re still yarn shops with Yarn People in them. Shetland isn’t that far away either…The coverlet? Wow. My mum has one that a late relative knitted, which was torn when my Mum retrieved it from my granny (who was going to throw it away!) That’s similar, knitted on tiny needles (I worked out around a 2.5 – 3mm ish) with an amazing pattern made up of different squares. It took Mum and I ages to figure out how it was done. I eventually tracked down one of the stitches in one of the Antique Pattern Library’s scans.Mum had a devil of a job fixing it mind, she had to darn it in the end, but we reckoned out ancestor wouldn’t mind. 🙂

  94. I know nothing of Newfoundland except from the stories about the wonderful people of St. John who extended extraordinary kindness to the people stranded there after 9/11. Thanks for giving me another view of this beautiful country.

  95. Breathtaking. Glorious. Thank you.
    Furze Hewitt, by the way, has an almost-the-same coverlet in her “Traditional Lace Knitting,” although with yarnovers in the fifth and sixth shell ridges rather than just the fifth and stopping there. It would be easy to change it to the one at the lighthouse, should you ever find yourself stranded on an emerald peninsula.

  96. It all sounds and looks fantastic. Ever hear of the band Great Big Sea? They’re Newfies…highly recommend them if you haven’t. Awesome music.

  97. Cape Spear is also my most favorite place in the world. When my husband and I were there a few weeks ago, it was the first time in my life (and in all of my visits to Cape Spear) that I had seen whales off the coast. I was beside myself with joy and we got some amazing photos!
    Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your photos. You are saying everything that I have been trying to tell people about Newfoundland for years now. Newfoundland grounds me, replenishes me, centers me – it will always be my home, even though I have lived away for 26 years. Thank you!

  98. This makes me ache for Scotland or Nova Scotia. It looks like my adopted home country.
    It would also be nice to live somewhere that my snowbird husband actaully needed think wool sweaters!

  99. HOW YOU MET JOE ?
    Well – I don’t know you met him – but if there are knitting fairies back in Newfoundland, there must have been something there.. bringing you together !!!!

  100. I may be (physically) sitting by the window watching the rain fall here in Quebec, but don’t be fooled for a minute- I’ve been following along after you as you roam through Newfoundland! How spectacular is it!?!?

  101. Stephanie,
    What a wonderful diary you are keeping! I actually have the pattern for the Cape Spear coverlet. Will I ever knit it? I doubt it, but if I do, you will be one of the first to hear. Isn’t it gorgeous?

  102. I’ll admit, I was with the teens in giggling over the last one… of course, I’m the librarian who giggles every time I get to the “Boobies” book on the shelf… They’re birds, really!

  103. It sounds like Joe had a magical childhood. Like my son in law’s in a way. My son in law grew up in a small town in rural Mississippi – the population is less than the size of his wife’s high school graduating class. He was allowed to wander the woods & fields on his own & everyone in town was like family (truth be told, a lot of them are his relatives). I know he would love that sense of connectedness – to a place that’s been in your family for generations & to folks you’ve known your whole life – & freedom to roam for his children. But I’m not sure that’s safe anywhere anymore (eg the 2 little girls in rural OK).

  104. A jaunt through Melville’s “Moby Dick” accounts the drama-steeped times when lamps were lit by whale oil. Although a classic, I will admit that “Moby Dick” is a very thick read in more ways than just it’s pagination. On the other hand, these whaling times are accounted with incredibly lovely imagery by Sena Jeter Naslund in “Ahab’s Wife”. I can’t reccommend a book more highly. There is even some knitting in the book.

  105. Children need “mothers and fathers”= two parents of opposite dispositions to flourish I’ve always said. In traditional heterosexual parent land it tends to be slightly over cautious mom and free as a bird dad. This blending is what gives them the experiences they need…roots and respect for nature and spirit and wonder to run around in nature.
    The travelogue IS quite wonderful. It makes me want to run right up there.
    Sail pictures, please?

  106. I know a total of 3 things about Newfoundland:
    1. There is a town called “Dildo”
    2. Newfies are really big cuddly dogs
    3. Great Big Sea calls the island “tropical,” which I suppose is correct compared to Greenland.
    After seeing the photos, I want to take hubby there. Finally, a place where he can wear his sweater.

  107. I too love that coverlet. If you google “shell counterpane from 1860” there’s a very similar pattern available as a free pdf download…

  108. I always say if you take a picture of coast on the Rock and a picture of Ireland’s coast, there won’t be many, if any, that could tell which was which.
    Glad you are learning to enjoy the simple but crazy things.

  109. Oops – the Parks Canada website seems to have an old, non-working e-mail address for Cape Spear.
    From the photos on the Finally! Fran Knitting! blog, the shells look fairly simple: the center section is four rows stockinette, alternating with four rows reverse stockinette, for 36-40 rows in all. (I’m not sure about the very start.) There’s a four-stitch garter border on each side, and it increases once each row (or twice every other row). The last row before binding off looks like yo, k2tog.
    It doesn’t seem technically difficult, but the gauge, the materials, and the fact that it has to be sewn together at the end mean that I’m not planning on making one of these any time soon. I’ll just admire it.

  110. Thanks so much Stephanie, I have really been enojoying tagging along on this family vacation! I have to admit that my heart lept at your blog title today. I was just sure if I kept scrolling down through your breathtaking photos there would certainly be at least one showing the magnificent whales… Hmm, maybe they are just too big and gray and remind you of a certain gansey…

  111. That coverlet looks a lot like one in Thomas Edison’s birthplace museum in Milan, Ohio. If you do a Google Image search for “edison thousand shell” the first photo includes part of the coverlet. It was supposedly knitted by his mother Nancy. Amazing knitting!

  112. From too hot southern Florida (96 today) I am loving your vacation. Oh to be naturally cool. Have a wonderful time

  113. I’m curious, when you go into a store and find your books. Do you just stand there and sign them or do you talk to the folks at the bookstore first? And what if your picture wasn’t on the book? Do they verify that you are, indeed, the author?
    Hmmm.

  114. You are so freaking cool I can’t stand it. You just walked into a store, signed your books, put them back on the shelf, and left? That’s so awesome. I mean, I’m sure there was some other shopping that went on in there, but how cool.

  115. That may be the smallest your hair has been, but you look great in that photo–and it’s a good photo, too.
    You’re making me want to go to Newfoundland now. You should convince their Department of Tourism you deserve a commission.

  116. Newfoundland sounds like the ends of the earth, and thanks to your beautiful writing I wish I was there! (Especially with the birds!)

  117. What an absolutely stunning place! Do you know if the pattern for that Cape Spear coverlet is available in some form?

  118. What is it with husbands allowing their children to peer over the edge of cliffs?! Mine always did and it drove me nuts!! And then he’d think it was funny to find an outcropping just out of my sight that he could jump down onto. Oh well, they all survived quite well.
    Newfoundland looks like a wonderful place to visit. I hope I can someday.

  119. Thanks for the pictures- they put me in mind of the book “Shipping News”, which I read a few months ago. It is a beautiful and terrible book, and when you describe the beauty and fierceness and unfamiliarity (to me) of it, I would love to visit there.

  120. I’m thinking about the bedspread and honestly, I’m a little scared. Like my knitty skills are nothing compared to that. She had nothing but the lessons of her family and friends before she left for the lighthouse, her wits, and a really really really large amount of free time. God it’s awesome. ^_^

  121. You were worried about the kids? I would have spent the whole time just knowing that Joe was going to re-break his leg on those rocks — and figuring out how to build a travois out of the materials at hand.

  122. 45 minutes for one of those little shells? That sure puts things in perspective! There couldn’t have been any tv there, for sure.
    Love all the pictures and the rocky cliffs are the best! 🙂

  123. As someone with big hair who grew up in humid Peoria, IL, then moved to Chicago, I could have told you, if it’s windy enough, even big hair blows straight.

  124. Oh, that is all so beautiful. Someday I will go, too. The coverlet was so fine. Wouldn’t I like to make such a fine thing for my bed.

  125. Even more beautiful and wonderfully interesting than yesterday!! I can almost smell the salt sea air. What a lovely place to land.

  126. The clouds! The clouds are fantastic in your photos. I am dumbfounded by that gorgeous coverlet, as well. Thanks for sharing!
    xoxo

  127. Have decided to move to St. John’s for the rest of my life. Everything you described gets right to the soul of me! But the winters?? Any insight?
    The coverlet is beyond beautiful. What a work of love.
    Thanks for taking your blog along on vacation. Very loyal are you!

  128. You are beyond loyal to your readers to take us on your wonderful vacation.
    Now I wish to spend the rest of my days in St. John’s, submitting to the wild and wonderful elements. Even the winters.
    The counterpane is beyond beautiful.

  129. The coverlet has me speechless -what an enormous amount of time on something so perfect and beautiful. I hope the regatta was splendid – thank you for the pictures.

  130. tis a grand piece of writing
    we have all been reading around here
    i like the simple garter stich
    mittens simple cozey are they not
    the hills and the mountains
    never leave us alone or
    the crashing of the waves
    tucked inside till we come home
    thank you all i have lots
    of links to follow books
    and patterns to follow
    you tell pretty good tales

  131. Did you tell them you were signing the books, or did you stealthly hide in the stacks with a ball point pen speedily scribbling your signature?

  132. My husband and I drove from Boston to Nova Scotia to go backpacking in Augut of 1985. I had moved from the wide open prairies of Oklahoma to wonderful, urban and many storied Boston the January before. I love Boston, but the crazy wild feeling I felt in beautiful, EMPTY Nova Scotia – of release and lightness – I’ll never forget, and can feel right now. I remember geting out of the car on a tiny little road and running down it and yelling, just because I could. The only things around for miles were sheep and flowers!! It was surprising I hadn’t realized how enclosed I was in Boston. Thanks for the beautiful photos – hope to make it to Newfoundland someday!

  133. I can’t say it any better than the other posters, just thanks for sharing this wonderful adventure. Newfoundland is amazing and so are you!

  134. I loved this post!!! Thanks so much for the lovely tour of the old lighthouse and all it’s inner wonders!!! I felt like I was visiting, too!

  135. What a wonderful place! Thanks for the view into the lighthouse. That coverlet is AMAZING!

  136. I’m in love with Newfoundland, who knew? It’s not just the fact that they let you knit (for the record? Disneyland doesn’t!) or the fact that it’s near Ireland…it just looks so lovely and simple. Work hard, watch your step (a LOT) live in glory.

  137. Don’t ask me why, but even as I was giggling at the witty commentary, and ooing and ahhing over your pictures, I found myself a little teary that the thought that while you were as far east as you can go, I am as far west as I have ever been. (Not that it’s germane to the discussion at hand. I have no idea why it occurs to me, or why I’m all teary. I might just be a little weird.)
    I do so love your pictures and travelogue, though. Keep ’em coming.

  138. these pictures, along with the ones of the Regatta, have me hoping to move a wee bit further north one day. Thanks for sharing.

  139. What a wonderful travelogue. I have been to western Newfoundland (Corner Brook, Gros Morne, where there is knitting also, but now I need to go back, to the east. What a special trip for you, to be sharing your husband’s “place”.
    I hope there’s a regatta one of these days …

  140. I know I just posted on the last thread, but I can’t help but declaring it again: Newfoundland is the most beautiful place on the planet (not that I’ve been a fair number of places, but I’m not sure I need to now…)
    “… moving to the core…” Oh, yes.

  141. I am loving the stories of Newfoundland! I travelled routinely to St. John’s over the course of a year, and spent a wonderful Regatta Day with my Newfoundlander friends. I started my work there shortly after 9-11, and the stories of how ordinary folk opened their homes and kitchens to the thousands of stranded travellers brought tears to my eyes.
    Fierce landscape, with a beauty that won’t let go. Wonderful people, who won’t let you fall.
    Enjoy, and thanks for reminding me that I need to return.

  142. Agh that is so beautiful. And I love rain.
    I’m listening to this very ethereal song from an Icelandic band and your beautiful chilling pictures of such isolation make for an awesome experience. If it weren’t for the fact that my mother is watching The People’s Court in the background. Can’t have everything.
    I am planning a vacation to Newfoundland.

  143. Absolutely amazing. Canada always appealed to me more as a holiday destination than the US (no offence!) and now I know why!
    All this talk of proximity to Ireland, and I just had to share… off the coast of South Kerry are two rocks, Sceilig Bheag (little Skellig) and Sceilig Mhicheal (Skellig Michael). Little one is absolutely covered in gannets. Really noisy as you go past in the boat (you can’t really land on it), and man, does it stink of bird poo! The bigger rock you can land on and climb up, lots of puffins (so cute!), and some beehive huts built there by hermit monks several hundred years ago. Amazing place to visit, way off the coast, surrounded by ocean, and, as the locals say, next parish America!
    Regattas are run every couple of weeks over the summer in different locations along the coast. Some nice lighthouses, too. I’m really homesick now, looking at your pictures, as it all looks so similar. You should really visit sometime! We’ve lots of knitters over here! :o)

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