Tuesday, August 30 – Lamaline and the Tsunami

Coast along Burin Peninsula

Lamaline Heritage Museum

 Tsunami!   We had another wicked storm last night, with heavy rain and torrential winds. At 5:00am we gave up on sleeping, pulled the slides in, and spent the morning doing internet, reading, and administrative chores as the wind simply wouldn't let up. Finally around noon everything cleared, so we headed off down the Burin Peninsula to explore the sights. Much different than the terrain we had been seeing-very open, with peat and rocky soil along Fortune and Placentia Bay's. At one point we thought about going to the French island of St. Pierre, but the cost and weather precluded that. Got a good view of the French Islands on the drive, and then passed through some small and very remote villages such as Point May.

Church and graveyard at entrance to Lamaline

 One goal was to visit the town of Lamaline (pronounced "llama-lean"), the center of where a Tsunami came ashore on November 18, 1929. We had never heard of a Tsunami in this part of the world, and were fascinated by the story. Needing stamps, Jim went into the local post office, and enquired where the museum was. The Postmaster, Noella, said it was closed for the season but she ran it! Her assistant said she'd cover the post office, so Noella went home for the keys and met us there! Great lady, she does practically all the work herself with some volunteer help-and is a terrific docent-full of fun and stories!

Becky and Noella talk about the Tsunami of 1929

  But on to the Tsunami story! During that day, a 7.2 on the Richter scale earthquake happened off the Grand Banks, about 160 miles off shore. It raced towards the mainland, and when it hit the coast the first of 3 waves came ashore at nearly 30 feet and 25mph, devastating the small coastal communities, killing 28 people, destroying hundreds of homes and wiping out many fishing boats and tons of cod drying on the beaches. The mainland cables were cut, so the word didn't get out until a packet boat with a radio showed up 3 days later. It took nearly a month before any relief help was able to come from St. John's. The Museum has many stories, articles, and photographs of the devastating event.

Boat hulls locally crafted

Noella & Becky in military room

 We moved on from there to the town of St. Lawrence farther up the coast, where there is an excellent circular Memorial with story boards telling of three heroic/tragic happenings in the area. The first was the industrial occupational health disaster in the Flourspar Mines in St. Lawrence between 1933-1945. Eventually over 200 miners died from the inhalation of silicon dust and radon gas, contracted from working in the largest two mines in the world producing material used in the making of aluminum.

St. Lawrence Memorial

Story of USS Truxton & USS Pollux

Echoes of Valor sculpture

 The second event is the daring rescue off Chambers Cove in November 1942, where during a storm 2 U.S. destroyers sank in frigid waters off the coast of St. Lawrence. The USS Truxton and the USS Pollux went down, and the local miners and townsfolk rescued 186 of the 389 American sailors on board. Almost all were rescued in the height of the storm by pulling the survivors up the cliffs shown here.  The actual stories are incredible, and too long to be told here. 

Chambers Cove Cliffs

The third "event" is really a recognition of the valiant men and women who fought and died in WWII. There is a nearby Miner's Museum that we understand is quite good, but we were simply out of time.

Miner's Museum in St. Lawrence

After driving an hour back towards Fortune, as we drove through the town of Grand Banks we passed another prominent museum for Mariner's that is a branch of "The Rooms" in St John's. But again, we were out of time and couldn't visit!

Mariner's Museum in Grand Banks