The Kitchen Party

It all started with the bear...if not for the bear, this party would not have happened. Jenn and I had finished our hiking for the day, a monster trek straight up from the Discovery Centre at Gros Morne and our encounter with the moose. But that is another part of the story. We arrived back at our campground at Trout River around 4:30 pm. Our camp ranger, Sharon, told us there was a black bear in the area and to keep our eyes open for it. We’d already seen bear poop on the road earlier that day and we were good campers with our food out of where a bear might get tempted to help himself.

The kitchen shelter and comfort station was right next to our campsite. Normally we tend to stay farther away from all the activity that a comfort station would provide, but there were only 4 other campsites, out of 43 in the campground, filled that night. The first couple we encountered was Joe and Linda, dropped in to the shelter to introduce themselves. Turns out they are from my home town of Sarnia, Ontario, so we had lots to chat about. Then another Joe dropped in, this one from Saskatoon, along with his 12 year old son, Jacob. They came in to do dishes. Turns out they’d seen the bear the previous night, right across from the comfort station. , Joe, from Saskatoon, is a teacher who is on sabbatical and he and Jacob are on a year long tour of the world.

We’d seen Joe and Jacob out on an escorted hike to the Tablelands, again, another part of our story.

So, Joe and Linda and Joe and Jacob depart our kitchen shelter, well, not ours, but we had the fire in the woodstove, so we were not planning on leaving any time soon. I decided it was time to get the makings of supper, and stepped out of the shelter and was almost face-to-face with the bear. He was no more than 30 paces up the road from our shelter. He looked up at me, stopped for a couple of seconds and then moseyed on his way into campsite 38, just two down from ours. I pushed my chin back up in place from where it had fallen and called for Jenn to come see. We raced on over to the boler and looked out back to see the bear just a couple of sites over, nose down looking for scraps. I tried to get a picture, but the light was poor, so this will be a story sans picture.

We went over to warn Joe and Linda that the bear was in the campground and thought we had better include Joe and Jacob as well. Soon all six of us were in the kitchen shelter, chatting about the experience. By now it was closing in on 7:00 pm and none of us were very worried about the bear...in fact we were all having a beer or some wine and starting to enjoy the evening. About this time the party really got interesting. A Ford Escape pulled up bearing the campers from site 21, way down at the end of the campground. John and Felicia, two native Newfoundlanders, had been enjoying the evening, John cooking a steak on the campfire when the bear appeared out of the woods, apparently seeking an invite to their meal. Well, John ran him off and they finished their supper and came down to our end of the campground to tell us about the bear and found us a few beer ahead of them, although not many because they were also carrying, John a beer and Felicia a beer glass full of white wine!

Now these two may be the friendliest people we have ever met in our lives. We had a round house discussion about the bear...my opinion, about 300+ pounds, John, maybe just a young’un of 200 pounds...we split the difference and decided it was a 250 pound bear!

By the time this discussion was over, with everyone adding their input, we were all fast friends. John pulled a cooler of beer out of the Escape, and the rest of us gathered our various types of alcoholic beverages, as well as snack food, and before you could say “gee wilikers”, a Newfoundland kitchen party broke out. Conversation flowed like fine wine and so did the beer. Turns out John was a student rep for Molson Breweries at Memorial University in St. John’s and seemed to have an unlimited supply on his person.

About a half hour later music was suggested and before you know it, John had a guitar, so did Joe from Saskatoon, and Joe from Sarnia pulled out a harmonica. We kept stoking the wood stove and the party continued into the wee hours of the night. Felicia had a lovely voice and used it to back who ever was singing at the time. John was a good singer both he and Joe, from Saskatoon, good on the guitar. Saskatoon Joe, also writes songs and sang a few of his own! It seems that Sarnia Joe can accompany just about any song on the harmonica.

John and Felicia

This night was a highlight of our vacation and we shall have fond memories of both the evening and the lovely people we met during it. We did get a picture of John and Felicia the next morning before they departed for St. Anthony. Needless to say, the hangover limited our hiking experiences for the next day.