Cape Spear – the most
easterly point in North America
Watercolour and oil
pastel
©2019 Charlene Brown
Beginning June 13, a
group of 26 of us embarked on a University of Victoria travel study program, ‘Discover
Newfoundland!’ We were a fairly well-travelled bunch, but more than half of us
had never been to the province of Newfoundland & Labrador (NL).
This is the first of
several pictures I plan to paint of the places that we saw. Built in
1836, the first Cape Spear lighthouse (upper right in the painting) was
designed in the unique architecture of the time – on top of the lightkeeper’s
residence. The ‘new’ lighthouse tower (upper left) was built in 1955.
St. John’s, the
capital of NL, is just over 5000 kilometres by air (almost 8000 kilometres if
you take the TransCanada Highway) from Victoria. It took all day (7 am PDT to 10:30 pm NDT) to
fly there, what with stops in Vancouver and Toronto, and a 4.5 hour time
difference. It is 2000 km closer to Ireland than it is to Victoria.
Needless to say, it
was well worth the effort – I hope I can convey some of my enthusiasm for
this distant province in the paintings I will post over the next few weeks.
