Channel Head Port aux Basques & Rose Blanche Lighthouses

Have I motivated anyone to visit our wonderful province? With my posts on the Avalon Peninsula and the Central Region’s lighthouses and their beautiful surroundings, I have shown you enough to keep you busy for about three weeks. Now I am going to highlight the lighthouses of western Newfoundland and Southern Labrador. Maybe you will extend your trip.

During our early years as seasonal Newfoundland residents we would drive from Toronto to Pouch Cove. Since Newfoundland is an island, that drive required a boat ride from North Sydney, Nova Scotia. The year-round option, the “short ferry”, is the ferry to Port aux Basques in the southwest corner of Newfoundland. There are daytime and overnight sailings. It takes about 7 hours. The “long ferry” to Argentia is available from mid-June to mid-September. This ferry takes 17 hours.

The trade off for the longer ferry ride is the time it takes to get to St. John’s once you arrive in Newfoundland. Port aux Basques to St. John’s is a 10-hour ride. Argentia is less than 2 hours away from St. John’s.

During our travels we had no choice since we always travelled outside the summer schedule. But that was okay for us since we wanted to stop off on the way for some sight seeing in our new part time home of Newfoundland.

Our ferry trips ended in 2009 when we decided to leave a car in Newfoundland and fly back and forth. I have always missed the drives out in June but never missed the trips back in September. On the June trip we were quite excited to be returning to Newfoundland, the days were long so no night time driving, and there were the stops en route. The way back was the opposite, sad to be leaving and sometimes driving after dark with the shorter days.

We took the ferry for the first time in June 2007. We passed the Channel Head Lighthouse as the ferry entered Port aux Basques on a foggy and drizzly day.

I would get better photographs of the lighthouse and the town in September 2008 on our way back to Toronto. We spent the night at the St. Christopher’s Hotel. It is a rather basic hotel but has a nice view. We walked to the lighthouse in the afternoon of our arrival. The lighthouse is on its own little island. I talked to a man who said that he would normally offer us a ride but said that he was getting ready to go moose hunting the next day.

I took some more photos that next morning before we caught the ferry.

I took these photos from the ferry.

On that June 2007 trip, we were possibly the only car that turned right after driving off the ferry. All the others seemed to be heading up the main highway, many on their way to St. John’s. Our destination that day was the charming little town of Rose Blanche, a 45-minute drive along the south coast, literally at the end of the road.

The town’s name is a great example of what has happened to the French language in Newfoundland. It is a corruption of roche blanche, white rock.

We checked into our B&B for the night.

From there we walked the short distance to the only stone lighthouse in Newfoundland. The lighthouse was built in 1873 and has been nicely restored. The weather was not the best that night and even worse the next morning, but we did enjoy the lighthouse and the town.