Walking on the Moon -- Newfoundland's Tablelands

Last winter's snow

Gros Morne National Park is a wonderland for geologists and hikers alike. One of its best-known features is a range of flat-topped hills beside Route 431 just outside the town of Woody Point -- a spot known as the Tablelands. The rusty orange tone of the hills comes from the peridotite that is their main component; when it's freshly exposed, this rock is a dark grey-green, but with oxidation it takes on a mellow golden tone. This rock is part of an exposed section of the earth's mantle; further metamorphic activity turns it into a rock called serpentinite, examples of which can be widely found here.

Gros Morne's Tablelands

Earth's mantle? That's right -- this is a section of rock that was once deep below the earth's surface, formed roughly 1.2 billion years ago. The process of continental drift several hundred million years ago forced this mantle rock upward, and subsequent erosion has given the hills their present form. They remain barren because the peridotite is low in life-sustaining nutrients and contains toxic concentrations of heavy metals. What vegetation that is found here is mostly along an old roadbed, on rock that was brought in for the purpose of road building. A well-maintained trail follows this roadbed, crossing Winterhouse Brook, which flows out into Bonne Bay just outside Woody Point.

Round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia)

A walk along this trail reveals a surprising number of small, hardy plants that have developed the survival tactics necessary for such a forbidding environment. Many of them, like pitcher plants, butterwart, and the round-leafed sundew shown at left are insectivorous; instead of obtaining all their nutrients from the soil, they attract insects and through a variety of processes absorb the life-giving substances they need from the insects themselves or from their droppings. It's not an easy life, to say the least.

Winterhouse Brook

Continue along the trail as far as Winterhouse Brook (right), where snowmelt and run-off from the tops of the Tablelands form a swift-running stream. This area has a challenging winter climate, and a heavy snow load on the upper slopes often persists into late summer. If you think this place looks strange and otherworldly you're not alone. In fact, the landscape here is so forbidding that NASA has sent research teams here to investigate the area's similarity to the surface of Mars. On a beautiful summer day, though, it's a beautiful and fascinating little corner of Earth, and well worth a side trip. Woody Point is located on Newfoundland and Labrador Route 431, about 70 km from the town of Deer Lake. It has a motel, bed and breakfast accommodations and campgrounds nearby, and there are shops, restaurants and other services, and is roughly an hour away from Rocky Harbour. Parks Canada's Discovery Centre has high-quality informative displays, park information and a gift shop.

Woody Point and the Tablelands

Exploring Gros Morne

Gros Morne National Park is one of Newfoundland and Labrador's scenic treasures. The second largest of Atlantic Canada's national parks, it lies on the province's west coast, at the base of the Great Northern Peninsula. Gros Morne was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 for its remarkable geological significance, which contributed greatly to current knowledge about plate tectonics.The park takes its name from the highest peak within its boundaries (right). Listen to an audio documentary about the park's geology here to learn more about the park's geological features. Most services for the park are located in the communities of Rocky Harbour and Norris Point on the northern side of Bonne Bay, and Woody Point and Trout River on its

south side.  There are restaurants, shops, accommodations including hotels, inns hostels and cottages, filling stations and police and hospital facilities. The park also provides over 225 camping spaces, some of which are open year-round.  Wildlife in the park includes moose, foxes and bear as well as abundant bird life.  Summer activities in the park include hiking, canoeing and kayaking and several organized boat tours are available. There are interpretive programs about wildlife, geology, plants, and the area's human history and culture.  In winter, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing can be enjoyed by outdoors enthusiasts.  Among the most popular attractions within Gros Morne National Park is the bout tour on Western Brook Pond, accessed by a 40-minute walk to the docking facilities.  The tour operates from June through September, offering a two-hour interpreted trip on this ancient, land-locked fiord, past billion-year-old rocks. Waterfalls pour from the plateau above, and eagles and ravens often soar high overhead.  The human history of the Gros Morne area is explored through park interpretation events held regularly in summer, and also through the Broom Point Interpretation Site, the restored cabin and fish store used by the Mudge family for their summer fishing operation from 1941 until 1975.

Until the construction of the road along the northern side of Bonne Bay, all traffic bound for points north of the present-day park travelled south of the bay, crossing by ferry from Woody Point to Norris Point. The old ferry landings still exist, now used as docking facilities by the boat tours operating on Bonne Bay and the water taxi linking the two communities. To learn more about Gros Morne, visit the Parks Canada website.