Adventures

Friday, June 29, 2018

Newfoundland working time

The mercury was rising in Toronto and our sylvan lusts grew stronger as the time for our annual pilgrimage to Newfoundland neared! 

With Christos working for a Newfoundland based mineral exploration company, he decided to combine business with pleasure and went out to St. John's 36 hours ahead of Lisa to meet with other mineral companies active in Western Newfoundland. 

Christos then arrived in Deer Lake about 12 hours before Lisa where Aare picked him up and they drove to Buchans, Newfoundland.

Buchans was once a prosperous mining town but with the closure of the mine in the 1980s, the town has shrunk from around 3000 to somewhere north of 500 residents today. Many of the buildings are abandoned and the town has a run down feel to it. 

Christos spent a couple hours at Buchans meeting, first meeting with Mines and Energy folk with whom he toured the old pits, looked at core and chatted about the history and current affairs of the town. Christos then visited with a geologist from another resource development company currently active in the region and discussed their progress as well as general levels of exploration activity in the region. 

On the way out of town we spotted the local Mining Museum (clearly marked by the Asarco firetruck) and decided to investigate. The place was housed in an old residential home and nobody was there but the door was unlocked so in we went and for the quick tour. 

It was evident that Buchans was once a prosperous place and that hard times had come from the mine closure.

Aare and Christos left Buchans at around 6PM and while we had a three hour drive to the Deer Lake airport to meet Lisa, we still had a few hours to kill so after a quick dinner, we drove to Fleur de Lys at the end of "Iceberg Alley" and Christos saw his first iceberg! It was very exciting! 

We left Fleur de Lys an hour before darkness and drove to Deer Lake where Aare and Christos spent a couple of hours in the "Big Stop" before picking Lisa up at the airport at 1:30AM. Then it was the hour and a bit drive back to Aare's where we enjoyed a nightcap before hitting the hay.