St. Anthony - Whales!

St. Anthony is the largest town on the Great Western Peninsula.  There are about 3,100 people who live there on the circumference of a sizeable natural harbour bustling with the comings and goings of large and small ships and boats.  Like many of the settlements up the Viking Trail, we had a sense that the place had seen better days.  For a town of that size that is heavily promoting tourism, it was surprising that a number of the lodgings and restaurants had closed down.  There seemed to be only two choices for dining out, one a fast food chicken place, and the other an upscale place in a lighthouse.

The town seems to be all about a Dr. Grenfell, a physician who tended to the residents of the entire upper peninsula, established a school, and is generally regarded as their best citizen ever.  There is the Grenfell Museum, the Grenfell School, the Grenfell Residence, and the Grenfell Hospital.  The only other thing of note about the town was the fact that they now had a Tim Horton's - something every local was quick to point out.

We stayed at a very nice little place called Fishing Point B&B for three nights while we explored the area.  The B&B is run by a couple of retired school teachers, Donna and Lester, both life-long residents of St. Anthony.  The B&B is a three bedroom house that belonged to Les' father, a fisherman.  Les himself grew up in this fairly small space with his parents and nine brothers and sisters and a couple of uncles.  They are restoring the old fishing stage on a rickety dock out over the water.  Donna's breakfasts were enormous servings of traditional Newfoundland fare - bakeapple muffins, moose sausage, and brewis, a concoction of cod, potato, and onion.  Here are a couple of views, one from the water and the other looking out from our room.

The tourist draw to St. Anthony is not Dr. Grenfell's legacy or their new Tim Horton's, but the icebergs and whales that abound.  The area is known as Iceberg Alley, but we were a little late in the season, so we had to settle for the whales.  And, wow!  Did we see whales!

We went on a half-day whale watching tour with Northland Discovery Boat Tours, led by a marine biologist named Paul Alcock.  He really knew his stuff and how to track the behemoths down.  After about a half-hour on the water without a sighting (it was pretty foggy when we set out), he shut down the engines and listened for them.  And sure enough, no more than five minutes later, he had steered the boat along side this massive humpback.  We saw plenty of whales that morning, either travelling alone or in twos or threes.  But the most impressive was the one that showed us some tail from only a few yards off the starboard side.