Climbing Signal Hill in St. John's and Learning about the Titanic

Hullo! This morning I got up early and headed off on an adventure. I hiked along the waterfront and came to the Terry Fox memorial!

Terry Fox was a young man who lost his right leg to cancer and who then decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.

He started here in St. John's and dipped his foot in the water and started his marathon.

Unfortunately, he had to end his run in Thunder Bay after his cancer came  back. So sad.

Right then... our next stop is Signal Hill... which is up a hill... these cottages look cute!

Yup, we are heading that way.

There was a nice info panel at the bottom of the hill with info on some of the different sights to see on the way up.

And more Jelly Bean houses!!!

This house survived one of the 1890s fires!

It is berry foggy and windy out... with a cold mist...

But I am a sturdy bear... and the lupines are in full bloom... so pretty!

There are so many colours!! Back home we basically have purple... here you can get white to purple and every shade in between.

I learned that before the last ice age, the Grand Banks was a massive offshore island. Cool!

I have to say, these info plaques are beary useful.

I learned that this was an important station during WW2... and I also learned that John Cabot landed on Newfoundland in 1497... that is a beary long time ago!

It's so foggy, I can barely see downtown...

But that's ok, there is lots to see up here.

See... the harbour is beary sheltered, and there's some discussion that it is the world's most sheltered port.

Oooh... the blueberries are in bloom!!! There are tonnes of them, but we would have to come in August if we wanted to eat any. Sigh.

Stop the car (or the walk)!! Newfoundland Chocolate Cafe???? Can we go in!!?

Well, we could... except they are closed. Bummer...

So we continued tour hike through the fog and mist and came to...

The Queen's Battery!

It was a defensive position with cannons for repelling invaders and other nasty folk.

The cannons used big cannon balls! 

Apparently the French fought the English with guns like these. I didn't know this, but the French occupied large portions of Newfoundland before giving most of it at the Treaty of Utrecht (although they kept their fishing rights... and the islands of St. Pierre & Miquelon).

Ahoy!! I see a ship captain!!!

Is it an invader? Man the guns!

Lined up and ready to fire Captain!

Oh... it's just a freigher... ok... stand down!

We saw this poking out of the ground and...

Figured it's an air vent for this old powder magazine.

Right then... onwards to the top of Signal Hill... we will get there eventually!

You can see it in the mist... and yes, I am looking a bit misted myself!

We made it!!

They had some old mortar guns up here... they fired really big rounds!

Can't even see the harbour from up here.

Let's explore up here a bit. The tower itself is not open because we are too early...

We learned that it can be beary windy up here... it can get up to 160 km/h at St. John's Airport and up to 200 km/h up here at Signal Hill! We also found the noon-time gun...

But we never heard it... maybe we were too busy eating at lunch everyday we were here?

They had a pole with signs telling you how far to somewhere else in the world...

And a map that did the same thing... Let's see... we are about 5000 km from home... and London is about 3500 km away from where I am standing... Hah!

Oooh... On 12 December 1901, right here at Signal Hill, Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-atlantic radio signal, with a telephone receiver and a wire antenna held aloft by a kite. The signal came from Poldhu in Cornwall.

Wowzers... we've come a long way from then!! Right... let's head back down... because I saw another place downtown that needs our investigation!

It's just along here... there it is!!!

The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!!

But I am not interested in candied apples... oh no...

A delicious chocolate ice cream is just what this bear need!

And then we decided to check out the Titanic and Iceberg Exhibit...

St. John's was the first harbour to send out ships to aid the survivors... cause they were the closest to the sinking point...

We all know the story of the Titanic and how it was virtually unsinkable...

The captain was a bit cocky... and said he couldn't conceive of anything bad happening to the ship... he definitely had a lack of imagination then!!

I also learned that the Third Class passengers were held below decks, behind gates until the crew were given explicit directions to let them up on deck. By that point, all the lifeboats had already launched. Criminal...

That Captain had ample warning from other ships that icebers were hanging around on his route... hubris...

They had a pretty cool model of what the Titanic looks like today, down on the seafloor...

But even since it was discovered back in 2001... it's changed a lot. Iron-eating bacteria are munching away on it and in a few decades, there probably won't be much left as everything collapses in on itself.

And we're not going to talk about the Titan submersible which also succumbed to hubris... 

Ship vs. Iceberg...

Iceberg definitely won.

When we paid our admission, we got a boarding pass for a passenger who was on the Titanic...

We could then look at the passenger list and see if our passenger survived...

Our guy, Robert Nemagh, embarked at Queenstown...

And did not survive... only the names in bold survived... 

Well, that was sad. But informative.

And we got stickers for our passport!!!

That's a puffin... I'm hoping we are going to see some on this trip!

And when I get home, I'll paste this boarding pass into my passport too! Cool!!

 More next week!