Stories
A Wuss’s Adventure on the Amazing CapeRace
April 25th, 2010
Christine Potter, Travel Writer
I break out in a cold sweat when I think about the fun and friendship I would have missed by cancelling my participation in Newfoundland's Amazing Cape Race.
I was eager to explore this new-to-me province but with wonky knees and dodgy hip, can't do much in the way of jock stuff. The suggested packing list, which arrived after everything was booked, had me in a big panic. Those dreaded words "bring two pairs of hiking boots" stopped me cold. I don't even possess one pair.
"That's it," I thought. "What sort of car rally IS this, that it needs two pairs of boots? I'm outta here." My love of the outdoors, new scenery, and the legendary friendliness of Newfoundlanders won out, and I was persuaded to take my chances.
"We can do the hiking for you. You can drive us around and do the non-jock stuff," urged my team partners. Surprisingly, I discovered a competitive streak that made me want to bring the winning team back to St. John's. And so I did, at the end of the six day event and two nights each in St. John's, Heart's Delight, and Bonavista.
I'm Screeched
Just being in Newfoundland is an adventure, especially when you order cod tongues and scruncheons (surprisingly delicious, especially at Velma's in St. John's) and kiss a long-dead cod in a Screeching ceremony. (Yes, I've been officially Screeched – kissed the cod, eaten the capelin, and downed the throat-searing liquor.)
But I'm getting ahead of myself. All that happened in an honest-to-goodness kitchen party in Heart's Delight. These names … a linguistic adventure in themselves!
We met CapeRace designer Ken Sooley at a first-night launch party in The Crow's Nest, downtown St. John's.
"It's unstructured," he told us, handing out tip sheets and rough (very rough) directions. "It will evolve. It's organic." Yup. You can say that again, Ken.
The launch party was important – it included a quiz and the losing team were to provide dinner for their rivals on the last night in Bonavista. The two teams were made up of three people each. The quiz was probably easy, but my team "B" was so caught up with the friendly types around – and behind – the bar that we stopped looking for answers.
We were having way too much fun yakking and listening to Fergus O'Byrne-times-two – the father-and-son duo playing maritime music. (Fergus Senior was one of the original Ryan's Fancy members, popular through the 70s.) Anyway, we lost. And that loser's dinner on the last night of the race was quite a story … but it has to keep for a bit.
Making up a bed
The rally began, for our team, at Admiral's Adventure B&B, overlooking St. John's harbour. We were so struck by the quirkiness of our B&B, matched only by owner Bruce, that we named our team Bruce's Babes and the Bye.
When someone says "I'll make you up a bed," you think of sheets, pillowcases, a duvet perhaps. Not at Admiral's. Bruce is more likely to hunt around for suitable two-by-fours and a few planks and nail them together to literally make a bed. When a surprise summer storm scuttled his plans to hold a function on the harbourside deck while we were there (this is Newfoundland – weather happens) he moved the boat out of its shelter, found some sheets of plywood, nailed them on to studs, and … voila? "Just like a ballroom," he pronounced proudly, surveying his work. A functional guest room at the pounding of a few nails.
Admiral's Adventure spills down the cliff on St. John's eastern harbour like a series of afterthoughts. Perhaps it began with a little cabin, but like Bruce's ballroom floor, it grew as needed.
Staying in this rustic, cabin-like B&B feels something like being on a boat. Furnishings and fixtures utilize every inch of space. Cupboards close with hooks and eyes. And Bruce himself is a fund of information about St. John's and Newfoundland in general.
So while fellow team members donned their hiking boots to trek the wild headlands around St. John's, I took myself off on a city tour, to gather information for our final presentation six days later.
Super St. John's
What a city! Historical, colourful, and picturesque, St. John's has an amazing array of attractions.
"St. John's produces more art per capita than any other province," Fergus O'Byrne had told me. Looking around town, that's easy to believe, but he was also talking performing arts, among which is the Harbour Symphony.
The symphony happens during the summer festival, performed by whichever ships happen to be in the harbour. It was born in 1983, conceived by Newfoundland architect Joe Carter who enlisted the help of musician Paul Steffler. The goal was to show off St. John's natural amphitheatre. Now, at 12:30 p.m. on festival days, ships' horns let loose in an orchestrated musical salute. "It's rewritten every day," said Fergus. "Depending on which ships are in port."
The Veiled Virgin
Next stop, this time on the advice of Bruce, is to Presentation Convent behind the huge Basilica, where I find Sister Perpetua, archivist and guardian of the Veiled Virgin. If this isn't adventurous for a former convent schoolgirl, nothing is.
Sister Perpetua is about to leave for a wake.
"I'm really sorry," I apologize. "I'll come back." (Sure I will. I'd forego the sculpture – this place brings back too many memories of school. But that was before I saw it.) No … Sister P will give me a quick viewing.
I am stunned by its beauty. Another near miss. How could the artist have possibly created such a beautiful face beneath a transparent veil of marble? This is Canada's equivalent of the Mona Lisa, or the Vatican's La Pieta. It's not especially well known, and yet it's the most moving piece of art I've seen.
The bust of the Madonna was carved in mid-1800s by Giovanni Straza, yet isn't listed among his works. Adding to the mystery: no documentation has survived about its purchase by Bishop Mullock of St. John's, who in 1862, presented it as a gift to Sister Mary Magdellan de Pazzi, the Mother Superior and one of the four founding sisters who came from Ireland in 1833.
Sister Perpetua declines to be photographed beside it, or indeed anywhere. Actually, "decline" isn't strictly true. When you're convent-raised and an elderly nun bites out the words "For what reason?" when you ask to take a photo, you wither, especially when you know she's on her way to a wake, and is already doing you a favour.
A harbour tour
One of the best ways to see a city is from the water, and St. John's is no exception. So I board Shanadithi II for a 2.5 hour tour of the harbour and out to Cape Spear. We pass Fort Amherst. "Someone's trying to turn it into a B&B last I heard," says Cap'n Randy. The boat pulls in to Quidi Vidi, a tiny fishing village (Randy calls it a town) around the bay from St. John's and home to a respectable beer.
"Yuss. Two byes bought the buildings and then wondered what they could do with them, so they turned 'em into a brewery."
What I'm hoping to see is puffins and icebergs. Randy has tracked 180 icebergs so far this year (June 08), and says it's the most he's seen in four years. There's nary a one on our horizons, though.
We cruise around the dramatic lighthouse at Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America.
"At this point we're closer to County Cork in Ireland than we are to Ontario." I detect a smug note in Randy's voice.
The lighthouse was home to six generations of the Campbell family, he tells me, until a decade ago when the government in its wisdom automated Canada's lighthouses.
A Minky whale is playing around beside us. "Typically they're solitary creatures, but this one wants to be friendly," says Randy as the whale circles lazily and rises slowly. We see hundreds of black-legged kittiwakes nesting among the cliffs. "We call them tickle-ace in Newfoundland," I'm told.
We cruise past Freshwater Bay, a fresh-water phenomenon where the river meets the sea. Fishers used to fill their holds from here and the sand has created a natural bluff – on one side salt water, on the other, fresh. Rusty pieces dotting the saltwater side are from a Portuguese trawler that caught fire in 1979. It was towed out to sea to burn out and now only pieces remain.
On shore we see walkers along the East Coast Trail … it's a 26-kilometre section stretching from St. John's to Cape Spear. (Perhaps that's where my jockier team-mates are heading.) A postcard-perfect view of Fort Amherst greets us as we near the harbour, with Signal Hill in the background.
A lovely tour. Well worth the $40 price tag. But I saw neither icebergs nor puffins. So I comfort myself with coffee and a decadent home-made muffin at Coffee Matters. The place seems too trendy after the down-home boat ride, but it's good.
I poke around town visiting Newman's Wine Vault and craft stores – in one, where I'm smitten with the fabulous wool jackets, I get chatting to the owner, and tell her about the Amazing Cape Race.
"Do you know of a Ken Sooley?" I ask, thinking I might get some insight to the rally.
"Know him!" she chortles. "He's my cousin!"
This, I find by the end of the week, is typical. Everyone knows everyone, and they all want to be part of the adventure.
It turned out that each team member had the same goals: to see puffins and icebergs. And so we set off on our quest, with little idea of how to get there, just knowing that Heart's Delight and Bonavista are waiting for us.