Judy P's Tickle Trunk

or It’s All Uphill From Here.

Twas brillig and the slithy toves…..naw, twas just sunny and warm with a few clouds when I woke up at Grandpa’s old stage. A perfect day for a hike so I donned my ‘adventurer’ costume and headed out with my brother for Beaumont North and the Beothuk Trail. (I’m sure we used to call the community Ward’s Harbour when I was little but was that ever an official name? I just don’t know.)

The Beothuk Trail is 3.7 km. out and back and takes you to a headland where you can look out to the North over Green Bay. Much of the trail has boardwalks because of the bogs. I like how they painted the face of the rise on the boardwalk red. It’s easy to miss your step when you’re looking about at the marvels of nature.

And where there is bog, there are pitcher plants. Did you know that Queen Victoria herself, yes, that Queen Victoria, chose the pitcher plant as the provincial flower of Newfoundland? Did you also know that the pitcher plant is carnivorous? It’s okay, they don’t have much of a taste for humans. You will see lots of pitcher plants on the bogs of the Beothuk trail.

Hmmm, bogs also mean bakeapples (cloudberries to you Nordic folk). I saw no sign at all of bakeapples. I’m not sure if that was because it was late in the season or because they just weren’t there. But there were partridgeberries. Mom always told us not to eat them before they were ripe because they had worms in them until they fully ripened. Fact or folklore? I’ll have to look that up.

We also saw beaver lodges……

…and lots and lots of stairs. So many, in fact, that my brother thought that the entry sign should come with a warning for old fellers who might not be in prime stair-climbing condition.

Just when we thought we were done with steps, more steps appeared. On a couple of occasions I had to pretend to look at scenery to get a rest. I didn’t have to pretend to enjoy the view; it was grand.

The higher we got, the more steps we encountered. When bro’ grumbled I reminded him that completing the hike was a choice, not an obligation. He persevered like any good Parsons would.

The view from the top was worth the effort. Sure you could see all the way to Tilt Cove I think. Not well enough to pick out who was your relatives now, but enough so’s you’d know which way to steer if you planned on rowing there.

As always, the coming down was worth the going up though our knees might have something else to say about that. I stopped to take a photo from the trail parking lot……

……and then it was off to the Long Island Consumers Co-op Store Municipal Heritage Building tea room where we had the best kind of breakfast, the kind that comes on a platter, not a plate. Don’t rush to get the ferry tomorrow to get yours, they are probably closed for the season now.

© Judy Parsons 2023