les 18 et 19 juin - Fogo Island


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June 18th
We packed up our wet tent and other equipment and headed off for Fogo Island. The Trans Canada Highway is nice but very little traffic. We stopped off at Grand Falls and discovered that the pulp and paper mill was closed about 10 years ago and it has been totally demolished.
As we approached Fogo Island it started raining, which reinforced or decision to skip the camping for tonight, instead we found a cottage in Stoneville not far from the ferry where we are staying the night.

June 19th


We caught the 8:30 ferry from Farewell to Fogo. We started our exploration of the island while keeping an eye open for a place to spend the night. Our first stop was Deep Bay and Bridge Studio, one of the four residences for invited artists spread around the island. The studio is situated on a pond after a slightly challenging walk up the hills of an almost lunar landscape. All of the studios are in isolated environments and feature striking architecture.

Le chemin vers le studio




Deep Bay



We made our way up to the village of Fogo and were able to find a small house for rent on the edge of the harbour. 




 After installing our stuff we set off to visit the other studios and the famous and expensive Fogo Island Inn. The running-gag amongst tourist is that they are going to Fogo Island to stay at the inn, with rooms for up to $2,000 a night it is not a place for us ordinary folks. At the Inn, which you have to walk a half kilometer to get to, we ran into a couple of women tourists from Montreal that we had seen in Gros Morne and that we would see again before leaving Fogo.
We went into the lobby of the inn and were approached by 2 young women employees who had that ‘what are these people doing in our Inn?’ look on their faces. So as they reached us, I said ‘I know you have been expecting us, but we are a bit late’. They had very confused looks on their faces for a couple of seconds before I started giggling.

From the inn we could see the Long Studio residence across the harbour of Joe Batt’s Arm (the name of the village) and so we made our way around the harbour by car than walked the kilometer or so to the building.



In Tilting just after we started up the path to the Squish Studio, a fog blew in instantly lower the temperature and the visibility.




The fog stayed with us for the drive back to our house in Fogo. On the way back we visited the last residence, Tower Studio, a long walk along a board-walk across the tundra. As we walked back to the car the fog was thickening and soon we couldn’t see the studio.



Le Tower Studio cachée dans le brouillarg.
Tower Studio in the fog.

That evening we ate crab and fish and chips at the local bar and grill. We didn’t have the energy to stay for the dancing later in the evening so got home to bed to catch the ferry back in the morning.


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