After my walk in the last post, I drove around a bit before finding the AirBnB.

This was a good view of the town of Twillingate across the bay.

I drove through the town and out towards the headland in the previous photo. The road ends here where a walking trail goes round the headland. These houses, at a hamlet called Durrell, are well spaced and larger. They were all well kept, so it must be considered more desirable.

This was just back along the road from Durrell towards Twillingate town. It is not uncommon to see seats on the rocks, and they are usually brightly painted like this one.

I had to ignore some ‘Keep Out’ signs to get far enough into the harbour area to photograph some fishing boats. It was a Sunday, so no-one was about anyway. It is quite a sizeable harbour.

The AirBnB was in a very large house in a residential road, and was set in about an acre of grass. I failed to take a photo! I had the whole place to myself for the night, letting myself in with door codes, and never saw a soul. They are very trusting.

Next morning I retraced my journey back to the TCH, which I met at Gander. This has a very small Aviation Museum.

It is just this one shed and some grass around it, with a car park.

There are no railways left now in Newfoundland, but in the 1930s there was a railway that went past Gander, but no road to it. By 1935 there was demand for a refueling stop for the new idea of transatlantic flights. Newfoundland is the nearest part of North America to Europe, so it was chosen. Gander is quite a long way from St John’s and the other sizeable towns, but it has the great advantage of being flat, and the railway line meant workers and requisites could be brought in easily.

This is what it looked like when they had chopped the brush down. Not very promising!

By the beginning of 1937, they had constructed a prefab village for several thousand workers, and built what was then the largest airfield in the world.

The first flight in was made on the spur of the moment in January 1937, and these ‘skis’ were used to land on the snow.

As soon as WW2 started it was taken over by the Canadian Airforce, and became a vital part of the war effort, especially to fly new planes made in Canada to Europe, though they did not really know in advance if the planes could make it across the Atlantic, as they were larger and heavier than any that had previously made the journey.

From 1941, the US Airforce used it as well. This was just as well as the Canadian Airforce was small and struggling to manage the traffic.  They were all still living in the prefabs, several thousand people.

After the war, it was decided to build a proper town for 10,000 or so. It was the first planned town in Canada. Nowadays it is a regional centre, with hospitals, local government etc.

During the Cold War, Communist countries were barred from using the USA, but allowed to use Canadian airspace and airports.  So to get to and from Russia, Fidel Castro went via Gander on several occasions. This photo shows the first time he had ever seen snow, playing in it with his security men.

Most of the museum is filled with different airline uniforms and memorabilia, along with explanatory posters. This is the only plane indoors, but I never found a sign to say what it actually is! Virtually everything else was labelled to death.

This is the recent history they are most proud of. On 9/11  over 40 planes were diverted to Gander, 38 of them landing in a three hour period with over 6,000 passengers and crew on board. Nowadays they only normally deal with local flights, in small planes. Until they knew what was going on, everyone was kept on the tarmac in their seats. Meanwhile a plea for help went to the community, who rallied round, emptying their freezers to find enough food for 6,000+ people, when the local population was only just over 10,000.

They also had to open every possible public space within about 20 miles, and use the school buses to move the people there for the night, not knowing how long they might need to be there.

They managed it, one planeload at a time, and someone had the forethought to video it.

PBY-5a Catalina / Canso

CF-101 Voodoo

These are two of the four planes parked on the grass outside.

The international airfield is very close by, but at no point did I see or hear a plane, nor had I when driving through on my way to Fogo.

The museum provides a job for one person taking the minimal entrance fee. While I was there a grandfather brought a small grandchild in. Other wise it was dead. But it was a Monday morning in late October.

This is just about the best floral display that St John’s can manage.

This is where the TCH was officially opened in 1962, just outside St John’s City Hall. It runs for over 8,000 km (5,000 miles) from St John’s to Vancouver, crosses 6 time zones and links 10 provinces.

It doesn’t actually go along New Gower Street (where City Hall is) but runs a few miles past St John’s (to where some of the industry is).

A slightly scrappy post. Next time I will show you something of St John’s.