On to Thoroughfare

The day dawned bright and sunny at First Pond on the second day of our trip to Ireland's Eye.  We cooked breakfast and broke camp with the day's destination the abandoned community of Thoroughfare.  Dean and I were in our kayaks first and while we waited for the other four we paddled around First Pond to see if there were other options to camp.

There were none.  I don't think the beaver of this lodge would be happy to accommodate us either.

First Pond is connected to the sea by a river that drains into a fjord of about a kilometer.  While we had to walk the kayaks up the shallow part of the river on the way up, the way down could be navigated with only minor rubs on the rocks.

The entrance to the fjord with Hickman Island near the mouth.

Five dots on the sea pass by Hickman Island on our short two kilometer crossing to Haydon Point on Random Island.

With landfall made on Random Island we paddled a further short distance past Flat Island and stopped at Thoroughfare, the abandoned community.  It was abandoned in 1961 but there was still evidence that a community was established here.

Concrete foundations testify to a prolonged occupation.  It was established in the early 1800's and by 1845 a total of 18 souls lived there.

The population peaked in 1921 when 74 people called Thoroughfare home, possibly lured here by work at the E.J. Green Herring Factory.  Some of the family surnames listed in the census of 1935 include Toope, Brown, Cooper, Langer, Loder, Mills and Ivany.  I'm left to wonder which of these families lived in this now dilapidated house.  Maybe it was Moses and Theodosia Brown, the last people out in 1961?

Close by the house I found a small patch of Blue Geraniums.  They are not native so someone liked nice things and took pride in their surroundings.  I always find it moving to think of the people who lived in Newfoundland's abandoned communities.  I wonder what hopes and dreams they had and how hard it must have been to leave them behind, like these geraniums.

We intended to camp at Thoroughfare but didn't set up camp right away.  We decided to cross over to the island of Ireland's Eye to circumnavigate it and in doing so, also visit the community of Ireland's Eye.  We crossed over first to another abandoned community called Ivanhoe that now consists of cabins visited on weekends or holidays.

Paddling clockwise around Ireland's Eye we entered Black Duck Cove that looked like an ideal place to stop for lunch.

And, you can see it was.

Here are the breadcrumbs for our morning paddle from First Pond to Thoroughfare and Black Duck Cove.