Ramea

Tags: Canada, Newfoundland, Ramea, sailing

Date: August 12, 2017

Canada consists of ten provinces and three territories. The major difference between the provinces and territories is that the provinces have received their power as part of the Canadian constitution whereas the territories receive their power from the Canadian parliament. The ten provinces are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan and the three territories are Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. The territories are basically the arctic regions north of 60 degrees north in the middle and western parts of Canada.

We visited two of the provinces: Nova Scotia and the Newfoundland part of Newfoundland and Labrador. Nova Scotia was one of the four founding provinces (Canada founded on July 1 1867) whereas Newfoundland joined Canada as the last province in 1949 and was renamed Newfoundland and Labrador in 2001.

After an overnight trip to Newfoundland, we arrived at an island group called Ramea in the afternoon. These islands are off to the central south coast, which is a very remote area. In the west end of this coast is the city of Port Aux Basques which has a road to the rest of Newfoundland, then it is 100 km east to the town of Burgeo which is the next place with a road. Then another 100 km to the next road.

In fact, the south coast of Newfounland is so remote that it is not even mentioned in the land based guide book that we have which contains 66 pages about Newfoundland. But we were lucky enough that we met some people in Port Hawkesbury that gave us a cruising guide which includes the south coast of Newfoundland. So we did have some information to go on.

There is one town on the Ramea islands and about 650 people live there. This makes it the largest community in the area that is not connected by road to the rest of Newfoundland. There a rather large ferry to Burgeo:

The ferry had a busy schedule and took both walking passengers and cars. Like the rest of this area, Ramea used to be very involved with fishing, both in terms of fishermen living here, but there was also a large fish plant. Like the rest of Atlantic Canada, they had to reinvent themselves and their way of living after they had caught all the fish.

Evening in the harbor (Amanda is on the far side of the dock behind the street light):

The main island has a nice hiking trail. Here is a view of the town:

There are many carnivorous pitcher plants up here:

Since it is a bit soggy sometimes, the trail is built as a boardwalk around the whole island:

Another carnivorous plant:

Some more pictures from our walk:

While we were on the island, the "Rock Island Music Festival" was going on. It attracted people from many of the neighboring communities on the mainland.

Being in Canada, the school of course has an outdoor ice rink. They had put up a large tent over the rink to house the festival. Here is the school on the left next to the tent:

The most popular event at the festival was the bingo: