Posted On August 1, 2009

Salmon Fishing and Exploring from Gros Morne to St. Anthony

It was my first time traveling to Gros Morne National Park and up to the Great Northern Peninsula. I was tagging along with my father and uncle as they were going to be doing some salmon fishing on all the great rivers on the west coast such as Torrent, Castors, Main Brook and Lomond River.

If you’ve never driven the Trans Canada Highway from St. John’s to the West Coast, you don’t know what you’re missing. Nothing, that’s what. Joking of course, but I must say, aside from Clarenville, Gambo and a couple places in central there isn’t much to look at. Just trees and barrens mostly.

But you deal by making good use of podcasts, books, food, satellite radio, moose, food, laptops, sleeping and of course, food. All of which conspire to keep you occupied for the lengthy drive.

This trip we were driving right from St. John’s in the early hours of the morning to the town of St. Anthony on the GNP. For some reason at 8 in the morning we got on the topic of new truck pricing. General Motors was going through it’s restructuring and in the process of selling trucks for cheap.

Perhaps we shouldn’t of spoken of “new trucks” whilst driving in the old truck…

: This is Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site from the GNP Highway.

: Somewhere around Eddies Cove West we saw this. Essentially it’s a rainbow, but it’s actually visible due to the haze coming off the ground. It was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever seen and pretty much every car that saw it stopped to look. It’s absolutely massive as well, if you click the image to view it larger you’ll see the big structures for the power lines where the dark forest meets the lighter hillside. They’re really tiny in the picture but they’re actually huge structures. That will give you some idea of just how large this ‘hazebow’ really is. Click the image to make it bigger.

: We pulled over near Eddies Cove so I could take this picture and as we were leaving we heard a funny noise come from the underside of the truck. Seemingly a bearing was gone on the front right. Without much choice we drove on to our final stop of St. Anthony about 200kms away.

: Some moose up near St. Anthony somewhere. They’re filthy with ’em. All over the place.

: As you can see from the picture above, the damage to the front right was pretty bad. So bad that the rim itself, made of all kinds of tough metal, was sheered away on the inside where it was rubbing against the brake caliper. It also had a massive case of the negative cambers.

: Unfortunately we had nothing to do but sit around waiting as the boys at the GM dealership fixed the truck the next day and we were on our way.
That will teach us to discuss “new trucks” while still in the old one.

: The next day we woke up early, got the truck and visited the lighthouse at the tip of St. Anthony.

: There were some icebergs and the whales put on a little bit of a show too!

: Dad and Frank did some sight seeing of their own.

: I like this cat. We became friends.

: We also stopped by L’Anse aux Meadows. It was quite impressive and a must do.

: Finally after all of that it was time for some late evening fly fishing on Main Brook River. Here’s my dad casting a line.

: The long road laid ahead. Due to the trucks hickups, we had to cut the St. Anthony portion short so back down south we drove to Port aux Choix area. This old hoouse sat just off the highway with an absolutely huge waterfall in the distance behind it. Just stunning.

: This is near Port Saunders.

: This little house is near the lighthouse at Port au Choix.

: After a good nights sleep and some fly fishing on the Torrent River, we took off to Cow Head and Shallow Bay area. Again, amazing. Sometimes you just never know what Newfoundland is going to offer you.

: I’ve since returned to Shallow Bay to just go swimming. It’s unbelievable how nice it is. The bay really is shallow, surprisingly so in fact. I walked quite a ways out and it barely rose above my kneecaps.

: It’s just like Florida.

: This is in Cow Head.

: We spoke to some of the locals for a little while. They were in the midst of processing a catch.

: Later on that same day we did the boat tour at Western Brook Pond. Holy cow. Simply put, WOW!

: In the next picture you’ll see a boat. I want to advise you that it’s a rather large boat with an upstairs and downstairs level, capable of carrying around 80 people. In this picture it looks like a rubber dingy.

: If you ever come to Newfoundland there is one thing you must surely do (after being properly Screeched In of course) and that is: you MUST do the boat tour at Western Brook Pond. It’s one of those things in life that you’ll never forget. The scale, size and height of the canyon which was carved out by the glaciers is astounding. Doing it justice was hard but I think I managed to give some sense of scale to it all.

: They say the water at Western Brook Pond is so clean and clear that they’re h20 sensors for the water supply at their little chalet sometimes throws errors claiming no water is actually passing through.