Grandmother Brass Eyes

Day 4, June 4th Harrington Harbour, Tete a la Baleine, La Tabatiere.

The fog rolled in very quickly when we were docked in Romaine, upon arriving in Harrington at 1:00am it was so thick I felt as if we were moving through icy molasses. When the boat was going through the passage into Harrington they had their huge fog lights shining on a cliff which was about a stone’s throw away. The lights were barely cutting through the fog and they kept sounding the horn which made me jump about three feet in the air. The whole scene was really eerie, like some horror flick.

I decided to go visit my Grammy; there are two ways to get to her house. The quickest route is to cut across the cove; the other is to go around. Ordinarily I go across the cove but with the fog, darkness and the two abandoned houses at the end of the boardwalk I chose to go around, it was just too ghostly. One of those abandoned houses happens to be my old house which my Dad has started to renovate but it still looks scary. The other house is the home of Grandmother Brass Eyes who I am still to this day afraid of, apparently my Uncle is too. Grandmother Brass Eyes is a tale they tell kids so they’ll stay out of the old house.

I spent about an hour with my Grammy and then had to get back on the boat, it will be nice to spend a few days here; I’m excited for breakfast with my Grandma; homemade bread and bakeapple (cloudberry) jam, yum! My Grandma owns a bed and breakfast and that night she had three boarders who came in on helicopter for the night and one long term boarder who works as a game warden with my Uncle Wilson. They found a fox hole on St Mary’s Bird Sanctuary. The fox had been killing puffins and storing them in little holes around his burrow. Apparently foxes don’t just kill what they need, they just keep hunting and hording so the game wardens have to trap and relocate the fox. My uncle often has to go relocate a fox or a wolf that somehow makes its way to the island. How do they get there, do they swim, float over on a log or iceberg, do they hijack boats or stow away; I don’t know it is beyond me, (turns out they cross the ice in winter). Anyway these predators have to be relocated so that they don’t kill off the bird population. I spent 4 days in Harrington so I will post more another time about this village.

We stopped in Tete a la Baleine at about 5 am but I was feeling sick again and very tired so I didn’t get off. Because the town is about 8km’s from the wharf I wouldn’t have seen much anyway but I will have to commandeer a boat to go there next time and have a car waiting for me. I must also visit Providence Island which has an interpretation center and a beautifully restored church. The church was built in 1895 and is the oldest on the coast. The island is still used by lobster fishermen and their families during the summer, following in the tradition of moving inside for winter and outside for summer.

Whale’s Head (Tete a la Baleine) is home to a predominately French speaking population of 250. There are many attractions in and around the village like: Providence Island and the Interpretation Center as well as the Jos Hebert Museum. Jos Hebert was the first mail carrier to travel along the coast by dog sled. The name of the village comes from a whale shaped island in the Toutes-Iles archipelago.

I finally arrived in La Tabatiere at around 9:30 am and relished in the fact that I was on solid ground for a few days instead of a couple of hours. I went to my Dad’s house; he had to go back to work so I collapsed on the couch and tried to take a nap. If you have ever spent some time on a continually rocking boat when you get off, even hours later, especially when you’re lying down, you still feel like you’re rocking back and forth; it is a very disorienting sensation. I spent 5 days in La Tabatiere and visited Mutton Bay as well, so I have a lot to say and many, many pictures. For now I will leave you with a general overview of these two towns.

La Tabatiere is comprised of three villages known as Red Bay, Old Post, and La Tabatiere and has a population of 499. It is located near the Mecatina River where some of the oldest artifacts are being found from the Basque fisherman of the 15th century. This village is home to a large Hydro Québec dam but many of the jobs were given to people from outside. Instead fishing as in the other villages is the mainstay but only till the quotas are full. La Tabatiere used to be home to the best seal foundry on the LNS. In Tete a la Baleine they still use seal skin to produce crafts and all along the coast people use the seal skin for the warmest mittens you’re likely to ever put on your hands. Tabatiere comes from the Innu word tabaquen which means sorcerer. According to the LNS website “Innu who traded with settlers in La Tabatiere usually consulted a sorcerer-soothsayer before heading on a hunting trip.”

Mutton Bay is a small village of 192 people located about 20 minutes by car from La Tabatiere. It is a very scenic town. The outpost was originally named Baie du Portage but was changed because fishing fleets used to bring sheep there for meat and also to graze. The inhabitants are descended from English and Newfoundlanders who came over during the 19th C.