Green Bay & The Beothuk Trail

When you leave the Baie Verte Peninsula, take Route 1 to Indian River Provincial Park. Built next to a salmon river, the park has an educational display on salmon, wheelchair facilities and a playground. The lucky campers who get here early get the few choice spots just a few metres from the river. Those who are later will have a three to five minute walk to the river. There is also a hiking trail and steps that take you to a lookout. the river was once followed by caribou hunters on their way to Birchy lake and is still popular for canoeing.

The Green bay Visitor Information Centre, which houses a craft shop, is located at the intersection of Routes 1 and 390. the staff can also tell you the best sites to spot icebergs, and where to look for shipwrecks.

A side trip along Route 391 to King's Point. There is some farming in this area, and you will see more of that as you proceed east into Notre Dame Bay. Hikers will be interested in the Alexander Murray Trail, a four hour jaunt through some pretty rough country. There is a check in at the start of the trail, which is named for the nineteenth century Newfoundland geologist. At the end of this road is Rattling Brook which has a picnic park with a good view of Green Bay. An unpaved section of Route 391 takes you to Nicky's Nose Cove and Harry's Harbour, with its natural coastal rock formations. Route 392 leads to St. Patricks from where you can catch a ferry ride to Little Bay Islands.

The main service centre in Green Bay is Springdale on Route 390. In George Huxter Municipal Park you'll find a salmon heading up a salmon river are intercepted and transferred to the Black Brook salmon enhancement centre on the Baie Verte Peninsula.

Take Route 390 back to Route 1 and continue on to South Brook and Route 380, continue on to South Brook and Route 380, The Beothuk Trail, so named because this was an area of Newfoundland once occupied by the now extinct tribe. Archaeological discoveries at Beachside in 1966 and in the Beothuk Trail area offer evidence of the presence of these aboriginal people.

Each year, when autumn came, the Beothuks would return to the interior of the island and settle on the shores of the Exploits River and Red Indian Lake to spend the winter. In late summer and fall, they would build deer fences on the banks of the Exploits to capture caribou from the herd as it made its migration. These fences were very similar to those erected by the Maritime Archaic Indians, which has prompted speculation that the Beothuks descended from this tribe. The caribou hide was used for clothing, the bones for tools and the meat was preserved by smoking.

Just past South Brook you'll see what the locals call the upside down tree because of its inverted shape. Then it is along a high wooded plateau and down the northern slopes of the ridge of Crescent Lake, home of the lake monster nicknamed Cressie. Robert's Arm is one of the larger communities in the region. In the town library is a small display of aboriginal artifacts. This is a good base for exploring the outports of Pilley's Island, Triton, and Brighton. By using the car ferry from Pilley's Island you can reach Long Island and the communities of Beaumont and Lushes Bight.

Return to Route 1 and continue on to Catamaran Provincial Park where the lake is surrounded by a sandy beach. After a forest fire some years ago, 14,000 red pine trees were replanted.

At the nearby logging town of Badger you can take Route 370 to Mary March Provincial Park, built amid a stand os silver birch on a ridge overlooking Red Indian Lake. In 1819, one of the last known Beothuks, Demasduit (Mary March), was captured near the lake. She was taken to St. John's, and died the following from tuberculosis.

The area is filled with lakes and rivers making it ideal for canoeing. Ask the park staff about the two and four day canoe trip to the Grand Falls area, guiding services are available and the fishing is excellent.

Nearby is the town of Buchans, which was a copper mining town established in the 1920s. Those operations have ceased and there is a mining museum here and a rock tile plant that produces beautiful finished stone products.

An unpaved woods road runs south from Route 370 into the heart of Newfoundland and eventually connects with Route 480 which in turn runs to Burgeo. As it is a woods road you should ask at the park as to whether it is passable as wash-outs can occur.

Near Buchans Junction is a stone corral built in an area residents call the Laplanders' Bog. It was built by Lapps who along with their reindeer were brought to Newfoundland by Sir Wilfred Grenfell around 1908 in an attempt to introduce the easily domesticated deer. The experiment failed and all that remains is the bog in which they were kept.

From Buchans Junction a short drive will take you to Millertown which was named for the lumber entrepreneur Lewis Miller. There is a Wildlife Exhibit Centre here with displays of all the native wildlife. It also helps educate people on the perils of poaching.

Further east on Route 1 is Aspen Brook Provincial Park with a small picnic area. Then there is Beothuk Provincial Park where a fascinating history of logging in Newfoundland exhibit is on view. Visitors can walk through a 1700s logging camp to get the feel of what it must have been like in those days.

Loggers had a difficult life with their own dialect. A bang belly was a pork and molasses cake made with soda that could be baked, fried or boiled in a stew like dumplings. A peavie was a cart hook for rolling heavy timber. The exhibit includes a barn, a forge, a saw filing shack, a saw pit and a go-devil which is a sled with heavy runners used to haul logs over bare ground.

The highway through this beautiful valley follows the Exploits River which was the main access to the sea for Beothuk bands who travelled far into Notre Dame Bay by canoe to hunt seabirds and fish.

The largest town in the area is Grand Falls-Windsor. Located 456 km west of St. John's and 272 km east of Corner Brook, it is one of the major suppliers of newsprint to world capitals. It is the site of Newfoundland's first pulp and paper mill. Established by Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothermere, it was intended as a source of newsprint for their interests, it is now owned and operated by Abitibi-Price.

In Grand Falls-Windsor is Mary March Regional Museum, located on St. Catherine Street in Grand Falls. The museum traces the 5,000 year human history of central Newfoundland through a variety of exhibits. Just behind the museum is a recreation of a Beothuk Village with winter and summer mamateeks, a sweat lodge and other displays.

The Exploits Valley Salmon Festival is held here every July and features great entertainment and food.

The town has an impressive salmon enhancement project, so visit the Salmonoid Interpretation Centre, which is behind the paper mill off Scott Avenue. Once there you will see a salmon ladder which allows the migrating salmon to bypass the Grand Falls on their way up the Exploits River to spawn.

The centre is open from mid-June to September and has exhibits on the habitat, history, biology and ecology of the Atlantic salmon. Guided tours are available and be sure to visit the glass walled viewing tank to see the salmon close up.

To Scenic Tours: Central Region