Watercolour
©2019 Charlene Brown
Our tour of the reconstructed
Colony of Avalon south of St. John’s included a hike around the settled part of the peninsula to see the original home sites, remnants of the water system, newly planted and strongly fenced food gardens, a look at a string of islands across the mouth of the harbour which still accommodate small herds of sheep that spend their summers there - unaccompanied but safe from land predators. We also explored various waterfront buildings dating from
the 1620s, housing a working bakery and a (non-working) alchemist’s operation as
well as furnishings bearing the carved insignia of Elizabeth I.
There is also a large
new building with a museum and a well-equipped archaeological research laboratory
where the many artifacts found at the site are studied. Of particular
significance is an ornate baroque cross believed to have fallen from the
steeple of the Catholic church here. The presence of this artifact in the colony
symbolizes something of a breakthrough. Despite the severe religious conflicts
of the period, when Lord Baltimore launched the colony he secured the right of
Catholics to practice their religion unimpeded, embracing the novel principle
of religious tolerance for the first time in North America. Only 3-D printed
replicas of the cross were available for viewing – see photo on the right – owing to its fragility.The bergy bits in the lower left of the painting are the remnants of stranded icebergs. Hard to believe that this cove, at latitude 47 degrees N is more than a degree further south than Victoria (48.4 degrees N) - where we have palm trees.
