Maritimes - Day 16

Today I discovered that all four of my kids love watching fish jump out of water.  This was mostly a travel day, as we left Deer Lake and traveled the TCH (as it is labelled on all the road signs in Newfoundland) to Grand Falls - Windsor, where we stopped for lunch.  Or where we initially tried to stop for lunch, but got turned around a bit due to bad navigation skills.  There was a Salmonid Interpretive Centre that I figured would have a picnic spot, so that's where I thought we should stop for lunch.  I didn't expect that it was on the other side of the river, across two bridges only wide enough for one car, and through a bunch of twisty and windy roads.

We eventually arrived, and it did have some picnic spots, so we stopped for lunch before heading down to the main area.  I had no idea what it was, but it was something to do for an hour or so to get everyone out of the car.  It ended up probably being the highlight of this part of the trip for most of the kids.

Essentially, Grand Falls is a huge waterfall that the salmon cannot jump up.  However, the river system behind the falls is huge and could support lots and lots of salmon, if they could get there.  So they built a way for the salmon to get there.  It is essentially a man-made stepped waterfall that goes up 20m in steps the fish can jump and allows the fish to get further upstream to lay their eggs, as salmon always return to the exact tributary they were born in to lay eggs.  They had to kick start the process by raising a bunch of baby salmon and introducing them into all the upstream areas, but it seems to have worked very well, as they count the fish as they go by.  It was an interesting view of how we can affect the environment for good.

But enough about that.  The interpretive centre had a downstairs area where you could look into the stream system the salmon swim up and watch all the salmon swim by.  There is also a viewing area where you can watch them jump up the waterfalls, and the kids stood there watching and exclaiming until we drug them away so that we could get back on the road.  Definitely something my kids enjoyed.

We then drove to the tiny little town of Port Union, where we are spending the night in three rooms in a small inn.  Tomorrow we go see the puffins, which is on Bradley's to do list.  At the start of the pandemic, when the schools shut down, Sandra made each of they boys research an Atlantic province, as even then, she was thinking of this trip.  Bradley picked Newfoundland and fell in love with the puffins when he saw what they looked like.  There is an observation spot near here, but it is almost 300km from St. John's, so we didn't really want to stay in the city and drive out.  Therefore we are out here and will view the puffins before heading down to the city.

P.S. It's weird that all the TV shows end on the half-hour out here...