Elliston, Newfoundland – puffins and sealers
On Tuesday, June 23rd, Day 26 of our trip and the 19th day in Newfoundland, we returned to the puffin colony out on the point, had a look at the powerful and often tragic stories of seal hunting, then drove 10 km to Bonavista for a two-day stay. In this post I’ll tell you about the Elliston part of the day.
The view from our campsite first thing in the morning was certainly promising.
As planned, we drove up to the parking lot for the puffin viewing early – we arrived at 08:00 to make it more likely we could get a spot in there, as, like pretty much all tourist-related parking lots in Newfoundland, it’s dramatically too small.
There were two old root cellars off in the field behind the parking lot.
Now I could re-do the photos I took of the root cellars along the path to the puffin viewing, in good light.
We could see the main part of Elliston on the other side of the bay.
For there to be a fence, this part of the puffin viewing area must get busy at times, but it was quiet today.
This rock is known as the Puffin King 🙂
Looking back to the cove where the campground is located.
There were people taking photos with all manner of equipment, from phones…
…to armloads of large camera bodies and lenses.
Would you like to finally see some photos of puffins? Of course you would! 🙂
I mentioned yesterday that I had gotten many closeup photos of puffins in Iceland last year. These views of an island with thousands of them, though, was a new experience. While I’m sure that most people wanted them to come close, I was okay with this.
With the little Canon at full zoom (960mm equivalent), I got some “crowd scenes” I’m really happy with.
From the activity down there I thought a puffin may have landed close, but when I walked down there was nothing.
A couple more photos of the scenes visible on the island.
More shooters.
There were also hundreds of puffins on the water below us. I saw a flock of over 100 dive down all at once. It’s tough to see in this small image, but there are about 80 of them this photo.
There was also a man and woman hauling in lobster pots below us – there were three lobsters in this one.
Content with our puffin experience, we drove into Elliston. A friend had suggested that the John C. Crosbie Sealers Interpretation Centre was a must-see, so that was our first stop.
A small church and cemetery was perfectly framed from the small parking lot behind the centre.
Across the road is the Elliston Anglican Church.
The stories told in the Sealers Interpretation Centre are about people, with seals as the background. Whatever your feelings about seal hunting, these stories are about people doing what needed to be done to survive in country that has no mercy. Only the strong or lucky survived and came home from the sea.
There’s a vast amount of information presented in a fairly small space.
We started with a video that showed a large force of hunters walkling across the heaving sea ice. I’ve seen still photos, but seeing a movie put everything into a very different perspective.
We ended our visit in “You Don’t Know Cold,” a powerful larger-than-life series by John MacDonald. It tells the story of two brothers, one of who finally takes the hat from his dead brother’s head so he can survive.
We next went to the Sealer’s Memorial. The main monument lists the names and ages of the 251 sealers who died that tragic year of 1914.
The sculpture, created by Morgan MacDonald, immortalizes Reuben Crewe and his son Albert, who were found together on the ice, frozen to death.
We’ve seen surprisingly few old abandoned buildings, but this one stands in Elliston.
Our final stop in Elliston was a gift shop. This display of puffin chairs may interest people who don’t have to fit their souvenirs into a suitcase 🙂
You can get your photo taken sitting on the world’s largest puffin chair 🙂
Puffins everywhere! We left with a fridge magnet and a jar of their prized bakeapple jam!
That was all the time we had for Elliston – we had spent twice as much time as was on our itinerary. It was now time to move on to Bonavista.
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