Friday, May 31, 2019
Lockston Path Provincial Park to Dildo Run Provincial Park near Twillingate
Yes, that really is the name of the park. Dildo Run is a narrow inlet separating New World Island and Twillingate from the rest of the north shore of Newfoundland. Close by are the village of Virgin Arm and Main Tickle Bay. I’m not sure what is going on here during the long cold winters.
The TCH is the only east-west highway in Newfoundland. So, to go from the Bonavista Peninsula to the Twillingate Peninsula you go south to the TCH, head west for a ways, and then back north. We turned north off the TCH at Gander. We’ve been interested in Gander ever since we saw Come From Away on Broadway last winter. So we stopped in at the North Atlantic Aviation Museum. The airport (and the town) were first conceived in 1935 as a potential re-fueling stop for trans-Atlantic flights. It was completed in 1938 at a place called Hattie’s Camp. The only thing it had going for it was the railroad and a lot of flat ground. There no roads to the outside world. Almost immediately, Britain (and Canada) entered WWII and the place became an extremely important air base. It was a major refueling stop in the air route to England.
The Ferry Command was in charge of flying bombers like this Hudson made in the US to England, and they all stopped at Gander for fuel. Many of the Ferry Command pilots were women and Jim and Barbara know one of the WACs who lives in Lincoln County.
After the war, the trans-Atlantic passenger service heated up and all these planes stopped at Gander as well. But with the advent of jet aircraft, the need to refuel was diminished. Soon only the Eastern Bloc countries were the customers for fuel since they couldn’t stop in the US on the way from Moscow to Havana. There was a picture of Fidel Castro playing in the snow which he’d never seen before. Even that air traffic dropped off during the 1980s and 1990s so that perhaps only five or six planes landed in a day. Then on September 11, 2001 the Canadian and US airspace was closed and all planes ordered to land. 42 planes (4 military and 38 commercial jetliners) were diverted to Gander.
The population of Gander almost doubled without warning and without any facilities to take care of 7000 travelers who were frightened, confused, and often unable to reach their loved ones. The people of Gander reacted in spectacular fashion opening their homes, and business to these people. Luci asked the young woman receptionist at the museum how old she was on that fateful Sept. 11th. She was six. She remembers being rotted (mad) at her Mom for taking a mac and cheese casserole off to the school for the stranded travelers. She was 16 at the 10 year reunion and celebration when many of the travelers came back to express their gratitude to the people of Gander for their amazing kindness and support. She said that most local people wondered what all the fuss was about. Wouldn’t anyone respond as they did? Yes, Luci said, they certainly would….. but you folks did it in spectacular fashion.
A man Luci talked to later said that he was outside for his grandfather’s funeral and suddenly realized that way too many planes were coming in…..
Luci and I have come full circle since last December when we visited the 911 Memorial in NYC. It is a moving story.
185 miles today.
On the road
Rory and Luci
Blog: https://roryandluci.wordpress.com/
Westward Ho! 