After loading Taffy and Newf on the boat, our southbound trip began. Once again, it’s the summer of 1971. Our VW camper is lashed down to the top of one of two hatch covers on the coastal boat. The trip south was to be fairly quick as she had disgorged most of her mail and freight at the Labrador outports on the trip north. For her return to island of Newfoundland she was basically empty and on board were perhaps forty passengers from all walks of life. Some had boarded with us and others were just taking the cruise. Perhaps they’d got off the boat in Goose Bay for some R&R, but God only knows what they might have found. It would not be apparent to a non citizen of the “The Goose” as it was affectionately called that there might actually be something to do there.
The coastal boats were designed as hybrid ships with limited accommodations for passengers. Their primary function was to deliver freight. At best the staterooms were Spartan, and we as man and wife slept in bunk beds. The bathroom was down the hall.
The trip in and of itself was wonderful. We were in sight of land at all times, and we could see the pristine forests and mountains along the coast as we traveled. Teaching the dogs to do their duty on the deck was a challenge. Dogs accustomed to grass and gravel don’t immediately take to the iron decks. Scooping and dumping the doo doo over the side was a benefit. I hope I did not offend any sea-life by my actions. As their confidence grew, the dogs got the run of the ship. Their favorite place was the galley. The cook delighted in giving Taffy the largest beef bones he’d ever seen or perhaps was likely to see. As we walked the decks the dog would stop at the galley door and wait for the cook to bestow a thoughtful gift. The dogs were in heaven.
The trip south had no memorable moments worth writing about. We arrived at Twillingate two days later with a tan started as we had spent most of the trip outside on the hatch cover with our camper and the dogs.
Our disembarking at Twillingate was also uneventful. The reader needs now to press on to our travels on the island camping …
We disembarked late in the afternoon and needed to wait an hour or so for our camper to be hoisted up and placed on the dock. Fortunately, the dogs traveled the gangplank without incident. Taffy did receive a cheer from those who had watched him boarding the boat a couple of days earlier. I think I detected a sigh of relief from the captain as we left the boat.
The rush was on. We needed a campsite and it was late in the day during tourist season We had not made reservations for the night. With our trusty map we found a private campground and we drove up to the gatehouse.
Those of you who have camped know that campgrounds have many different ways for you to select a campsite. The gatehouse was a small building along the entrance road. I think I overstated building. The gatehouse was about the size of a two-holer outhouse, perhaps three, and in the wall facing the road was a window about two feet high. Sitting at a desk so that only his tousled hair was showing at the bottom of the window was a young man who, when the car approached, stood up, leaned over the small desk, poked his head out the window and told us to go find a site that we liked. We were instructed to come back, let him know which site we chose and pay.
As we were in a VW Camper and essentially driving our tent, we parked it for the night. We were hungry and tired and found a site about a half-mile from the entrance. I helped Cherry lash up a quick tarpaulin lean-to over our picnic table, parked the VW Camper on a flat area, and then walked back to the entrance with our two hundred pound Saint Bernard in tow or perhaps I was in tow, I don’t remember. As I approached the window of the gatehouse and knocked on its sill, the young lad smiled and said “Aren’t you the guy with the big dog that drove in a few minutes ago?” I assured him that I was and that the dog was always making us acquaintances. He asked “Where is he now?” I realized that he could not see the dog from his vantage point behind the desk. I simply tapped the windowsill and said something like, “Taff, jump!” and roughly one or perhaps two seconds later the dog was jumping gracefully through the window and landing on the young man’s desk. Taffy’s huge tongue was washing his face. The lad had nowhere to go. He was pressed against the back of the tiny room with his head in the midst of many little tags with names and numbers on them identifying who was at each campsite.
Somehow we managed to get the dog off the desk and outside the cabin, but not before many of the tags had fallen from the campsite map. The lad and I were crying as we giggled and laughed. This was truly a funny moment. I helped him go through the paper receipts, and I think we got the map and its tags back the way it was. We both learned something from that experience.
I trotted back to the campsite, shared the story with Cheryl, enjoyed a great meal in light rain under our tarpaulin and we nodded off to sleep in our narrow, confined camper with two dogs on the small mattress pad with us. We had a tent with us that clipped to the side of the camper. We learned that it was a good idea to use the tent regardless of the length of stay and the difficulty of pitching the tent. Two dogs and two people in a VW camper is a bit too much.
After breakfast, Cheryl and I went for a walk around the campsite, she with Newf and me with Taff. We stopped and chatted with many of the other campers, compared war stories etc., but at one of the camp-sites we were more than surprised. When the campers at this site happened to see our Saint Bernard, they went on to tell us of a story they’d heard the day before about a couple loading a Saint Bernard onto a coastal boat in Goose Bay. I let them finish their story which was amazingly accurate before letting them know that they were looking at the Saint that caused the challenge. We were to hear that story at least 10 more times before we left the island. Little did we know that some radio announcer had aired a brief newscast telling all of Taffy’s boarding the boat in Goose Bay.
I trotted back to the campsite, shared the story with Cheryl, enjoyed a great meal in light rain under our tarpaulin and we nodded off to sleep in our narrow, confined camper with two dogs on the small mattress pad with us. We had a tent with us that clipped to the side of the camper. We learned that it was a good idea to use the tent regardless of the length of stay and the difficulty of pitching the tent. Two dogs and two people in a VW camper is a bit too much.
After breakfast, Cheryl and I went for a walk around the campsite, she with Newf and me with Taff. We stopped and chatted with many of the other campers, compared war stories etc., but at one of the camp-sites we were more than surprised. When the campers at this site happened to see our Saint Bernard, they went on to tell us of a story they’d heard the day before about a couple loading a Saint Bernard onto a coastal boat in Goose Bay. I let them finish their story which was amazingly accurate before letting them know that they were looking at the Saint that caused the challenge. We were to hear that story at least 10 more times before we left the island. Little did we know that some radio announcer had aired a brief newscast telling all of Taffy’s boarding the boat in Goose Bay.