Going Walkabout (British History)

[Ishmael]

What follows is a complete Stream of Consciousness investigation. I've gone round most of the island looking for weird formations. I come up with some thoughts along the way. Feel free to follow along with me but do not expect a coherent argument. Post your thoughts if you wish. I will shortly follow up with some notions I have.

============================

This is in the middle of nowhere!

(There's a lot of "nowhere" in Newfoundland)

A strange structure and two small closed harbors (also nowhere):

Has someone attempted to seal in this river mouth?

Now this massive network of formations is near Burgeo, a place with a long history in Newfoundland.

These are either all natural or all ancient -- because no one has been building roads in Burgeo. The place was inaccessible except by boat until the 1980s!

Perhaps these are all just inundated beaches. Probably. But something does seem a bit odd. They come in patches and do not cover the whole of the coast line.

Need to check out the rest of the world!

Four apparent breakwaters in a place called (Mick will like this) "Hermitage Bay":

Another causeway:

Now there's a whole network of them from Seal Cove all the way up to another place called "Hermitage"!

Extreme Closeup of the causeway south of Hermitage.

That is NOT natural. I don't think so. And I don't think it's modern. There's no fishing village inside the "harbor". Who would have motive to build a breakwater? There are some cabins there now and a couple of little light beacons on the spit but I don't think that's a modern structure. Jeeze I want to go investigate this stuff!

This is a modern causeway, of which there are MANY in Newfoundland.

Of course it is possible that the modern causeway is built over an older one....

Especially possible when we see something like this just to the southeast.

Zoom in and you will see there is no road. No houses. Nothing. This is middle of nowhere Newfoundland.

And both these causeways are found within the larger "Hermitage Bay", which is a triangle of water between Seal Cove, the Burin Peninsula and Saint Pierre (St. Paris?) and Miquelon.

All this Hermitage talk and I never knew Newfoundland to be a place of religious pilgrimage!

Another facinating breakwater of a variant design, just south of the last.

Now this is a thoroughly modern causeway, near the above breakwater. Note how very different it appears from the others we have seen:

But just to the south, the shore is lined with more of these breakwaters.

Also with more causeway features.

There are so many of these within the Hermitage Bay area I could not possibly link to them all! The entire coast is lined with them!

Look at these examples. There's simply nothing here. No roads. No houses. This is the deep wilderness.

Another fine example.

If these places are natural or unnatural, this formation might help explain them.

Another awesome example.

Also seen in Hermitage Bay is a lot of straight beach. Like this.

Modified landscape?

(I think maybe and I think I may know why)

Nice.

A place called Grande le Pierre.

Does Grande le Pierre mean perhaps "Big Pier"? A "Pier" being a long thin thing that juts out into the water?

And of course, Pier = Peter = Penis! (and Pharos, Phalus, Paris etc.)

Now right next door to "The Big Penis" is a place called Terrenceville, which I assume is pronounced "Terrence Ville".

But might this be a corruption of Terra Seville?

Are all of the formations, openings and causeways between Little Bat East and Jaques Fontaine modern or natural?

Is there a fountain or spring at Jaques Fontaine or does the name instead mean "Jack's Fissure" or "Jack's Fijord"?

Or Jack's Fortune?

Two more breakwaters near Jaques Fontaine:

Some cabins out on this one.

Another sealed harbor:

The modern village of Garnish (Garnet? or... forgive me... Gannesh?) appears to built on top of one of these things.

And just to the southwest is Frenchman's Cove.

Then it's Grande Beach, or "Big Beach", which is right next to one.

Followed by Grande Bank and the town of Fortune.

Fortune and Jaque's Fontaine? Related?

Grand Beach and Grand Bank? Related? Same place maybe with English and French/Spanish names?

Beach = Bank.

Remember that.

Who built the causeway to Allan's Island, next to Port a Gaul?

Mooring Cove and Spanish Room, next to a piece of land that looks pretty "fake" to me.

Something interesting in Placentia (placid?) Bay near Jude (Juda?) Island:

Great Bona.

More island causeways in Placentia Bay

Lots of examples from all over the island but it isn't everywhere on the Island. High concentration in Hermitage Bay, so it seems to me. I found just one or two examples in the whole of the north coast (I had to give up my systematic search as I was getting exhausted).

Fact is, the phenomenon is practically unknown to the North (which is what I was hoping to find).

If it's natural, it is selective.

We do start to see it again on the west coast.

This place, Point au Mal (which looks more like a "port" than a "point") is the best of the northwestern examples.

Then check out the old French village of Port a Port. Who built the causeway here, and when?

And what the hell is this?

A giant unfinished causeway??? That's what it looks like to me.

And look what's in the south-west: Lourdes. Who knew? (Lourdes is not far from Seville eh?).

Then the phenomenon disappears again until we round the point to the Port a Basque region.

[Chad]

This one is off the east coast of Nova Scotia:



Even the mainland coast of that part of North America has similar examples.

I found some along the New Brunswick Coast, but not around the coast, off Maine.

[Ishmael]

But do you think they are man made or natural?

If they are man made, I think I know what they are.

Here is a modern example, also found inside Hermitage Bay:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?gbv=2&hl=en&q=Miquelon-
Langlade&ie=UTF8&start=0&t=h&hq=&hnear=Langlade+Island
&ll=47.657074,-55.368551&spn=0.002797,0.00523&z=18

[Chad]

You know... exactly the same thing crossed my mind!

If they are man made, fish farms would seem the most obvious use.

[Chad]

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

Fish trap:

http://www.simplesurvival.net/howtofishtrap.htm

[Ishmael]

Oh my god.

Ancient fish trap:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7948176.stm

Looks very different from our proposed sites but if you watch the video you will hear this line....

"Back then, fish traps were usually owned by monasteries and abbeys".

HERMITAGE BAY has the highest concentration of these features!!!!

[Chad]

[Chad]

I initially assumed that they would be after salmon or sea trout, but now I realise their main quarry was a different type of fish entirely.

We know the Megalithics regarded serpents as sacred and associated them with wisdom. But snakes are not the only serpents... the term is equally applicable to eels.

I did a bit of googling and it turns out that the area outside of the mouth of the St. Lawrence is the richest fishing ground for the migratory American eel Anguilla rostrata... and the biggest and bestest ones are found in... you guessed it... Newfoundland.

So they were trapping migratory eels.

And this is what made all that manpower (needed to build the traps) worthwhile:

Eel = heal(th)

Eels didn.t just bring wisdom.... they were the megalithic equivalent of rhino horn or tiger bone!

[Ishmael]

[Chad]

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

The comedian Dennis Miller hosts a daily radio program.

He often tells the story of a fellow comedian's performance in a community "In Eastern Canada". Apparently, his friend was performing at a comedy club on the Canadian east coast. According to the story, in the middle of his act, someone ran into the club and shouted, "The cod fish are running!" and everyone in the club immediately jumped to their feet and ran for the doors leaving the comedian alone on stage.

Now as soon as I heard this story I knew the setting was Newfoundland. I also knew that the fish in question was not Cod.

[Chad]

What was this very European looking (as opposed to Red Injun) guy doing in North America 9000 years ago?



Fishing for eels?

Stone Age Europeans were the first trans-Atlantic sailors. Columbus and the Vikings were mere ocean-crossing latecomers, according to a leading American anthropologist. Dennis Stanford, of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, says Neolithic fishermen and hunters sailed the Atlantic in tiny boats made of animal skins 18,000 years ago and colonized the eastern United States...

...much of the planet's water was locked in icecaps and glaciers, and sea levels would have been much lower than today's. The edges of the continents would have extended further into the oceans.

"The gap between Europe and America was greatly reduced," Stanford said. "It could have been quite feasible for fishermen and whale and seal hunters to sail around the southern rim of the packs of sea-ice that covered the North Atlantic and reach land around the Banks of Newfoundland."