When I was last in Newfoundland in 2017 with my friend Dr Daniel Coit, he had already come along much of the south coast and up the west coast around the northern coast to St John’s. When I asked him about places to visit beyond where we had gone, he said that Grand Bruit was a DO NOT MISS! He said it was quite an experience. Mark and Bev agreed that we should go there.
The town is another one where everyone has been resettled. Of course some folks return to home and in Grand Bruit ( pronounced grand Brit) they still have the option to have electricity. The center of town features a waterfall crossed by a bridge We were met at the dock by Al who is the usual friendly local. He helped us tie up and told us there were 4 people living in town. They are all related in some way.
We tied up to the dock in front of one of our friends boats who had arrived earlier and then another friend tied up to us so that we all for on the dock. We all set off to explore the small town which was resettled in 2020 which is many years after other towns…that were resettled in the 1960’s.
Mark had told us that we had to visit the Cramalot which was a place dedicated to Joe Billard who was a very popular town resident who had passed away in 2019. Mark and Bev had met Joe on a previous visit. The tiny spot had various liquor bottles lined up in tribute for toasting.
We visited the church. It was open but empty except for a mattress and an organ which was missing some keys but still made sound. We signed the guest book. Mark and Bev found their earlier entry from 2017.
We went along down the path to see the rest of the harbor and a few houses. I decided to pick some wild flowers along the way. We discovered a large area of ripe blueberries which we picked giving them to Bev who had the sense to bring a large plastic bag.
When we returned to the dock we had already invited the town residents to join us for cocktails along with the other boats. We had a potluck dinner with the 3 boats. Al joined us for cocktails. He was a bit shy but we were able to find out much about his background and stories about the town. Most people had been in the fishing community until cod fishing was shut down in the early 1990’s. Many families were resettled to Burgeo, a populated spot that has a road off the mainland and a ferry to Ramea. Others continued to come back for summer and fishing season. Al was back for every summer season. In the winter he lived in Halifax. We also met a young woman named Emma , a relative of Al, who had spent every summer in Grand Bruit with her grandparents. She is an engineering student in St John’s. We told her about Moya and gave her the contact information.
The evening was a fun mix of boats and people. We planned a leisurely waffle breakfast with blueberries we had picked.
The Adventures of Anne 