Brigus

We decided to go on a mini-roadtrip on Sunday morning since my MIL was in town and the sun was supposed to be shining (it wasn't actually shining, but the forecast told us it should be).

I didn't want to go too far from town since I still wanted to attempt naps at home in the afternoon. I also wanted to find somewhere to use my National Historic Sites of Canada Annual Pass since Shaun has been giving me dirty looks ever since I bought it--I thought of it as a nice charitable contribution towards our wonderful host country, but Shaun just sees all kinds of multiplication, division, and how we'll never visit numerous enough National Parks or National Historic Sites in the course of a year to justify the cost of the annual pass.

I scoured the internet and found what looked like a cute little town called Brigus less than an hour away which also happened to be home of Hawthorne Cottage, National Historic Site. Bingo. Take that, Shaun.

Poor Shaun doesn't realize that scoffing at my purchase of this Annual Pass has just guaranteed that he'll spend the next year being dragged to every flippin' National Park and National Historic Site on the entire island of Newfoundland. He's lucky that a trip to the mainland involves either hundreds of dollars worth of airfare or an hours-long ferry or he'd get to see a lot more of them.

While a small part of me turned the car towards Brigus just out of spite, I was excited to discover that Brigus is a sweet little harbor town with a beautiful church, a cute little tunnel, and Hawthorne Cottage. Hawthorne Cottage, it turns out, was the Newfoundland home of the 'famous Arctic explorer Captain Bob Bartlett.'

I know Bob Bartlett was famous because it said so on the visitor's guide, and there were letters written to Bob from other well-known people of his time hanging all over Hawthorne Cottage. I have to be honest and admit that I don't really recall learning about Bob Bartlett before Sunday, but that really could have been because I wasn't paying attention during a history class.

The house itself was fun to tour, the kids had a great time, and the gardens were small but beautiful. We also took a little walk around Brigus and admired all the tidy little houses nestled together and the amazing view from St. George's Church. Brigus was so cute that I may just have to go back for this weekend's Blueberry Festival.

Check out the pics. And wish me luck finding any and all obscure National Historic Sites!

Hawthorne Cottage

St. George's Church

View of Brigus and Harbor

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad