Almost two weeks ago, we stayed at a geocaching friend’s cabin for the weekend. While the overall goal of the weekend was relaxation, we did manage to throw in some geocaching. On the Saturday of that weekend, we spent the entire day touring the surrounding areas and discovering caches. It was an awesome day filled with many sights. Sunday, however, was supposed to be a relaxing day. Now, you can ask anyone that truly knows me and they will tell you that sitting around doing nothing is not relaxing for me. Relaxation, to me, is being able to do what I want to do, whether the activity seems like work or fun. Therefore, we already had Sunday morning planned out. I wanted to visit the historic town of Brigus. I am a bit of a history buff and I had heard that Brigus was rich in history.
Brigus town logo. (click to enlarge)
Brigus is a small fishing community located on Conception Bay in Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada. No one really knows for sure where Brigus got its name. The most credible theory has its name coming from the town of Brighouse in Yorkshire, England. It is believed that the community was initially settled in 1624 when the Spracklin family purchased half of the harbour from John Guy. The town has survived being almost completely burned down twice by the French. Brigus, like most Newfoundland towns, was a very resilient town.
St. Patrick’s Church, Brigus, NL. (click to enlarge)
There are five geocaches located in Brigus, each one taking you to a special part of this beautiful town, which has somehow held on to its old town charm. The first stop on the geocaching tour of Brigus was a cache called
St. Patrick’s Cache (GC2WAQP), which is near the first Roman Catholic parish church in Brigus. It was built by Dean Mackin in 1825, on land donated by James Hearn. The initial church was located where the current cemetery is now and was destroyed by fire in 1934. Work began on a new church immediately following the fire and was opened on the last Sunday in October, 1935. The cache is one of two placed in the area by
Gilligan and MaryJane and is just a short stroll up a small path.
The beautiful Wilcox Gardens. (click to enlarge)
The next cache on our list is another by
Gilligan and MaryJane. It is called
Blueberry Crisp (GC2WAPT) and is located in the beautiful Wilcox Gardens in the heart of Brigus. The garden is often called “the place of a thousand blooms” and is designated as one of the Peace Parks of Canada. It boasts a beautiful, park-like setting and is a great place to come and just think, relax, or read a book. The cache owners boast about some delicious blueberry crisp, the cache’s namesake, which can be purchased at the
The Country Corner Restaurant and Gift Shop nearby. Unfortuneately, we never had the time to stop and taste some of it.
Home of Captain Robert (Bob) Bartlett. (click to enlarge)
While there is no cache here, I highly recommend checking out the Hawthorne Cottage, the Brigus home of Captain Robert (Bob) Bartlett. Captain Bob commanded more than twenty expeditions to the Arctic region. Many of these voyages were devoted to advancing scientific knowledge of the North. No matter how far north he sailed, Captain Bob seldom returned to his home in New York City without docking in Brigus for a few days. Here he enjoyed time with friends and family at Hawthorne Cottage. Hawthorne Cottage came into the Bartlett family through Bob’s mother, Mary Leamon Bartlett. It was built in 1830 by her grandfather, Brigus merchant John Leamon. The house was moved three years later from its original site in Cochranedale 10 kilometres (six miles) to its current location. The cottage combines features of Newfoundland vernacular architecture enhanced by picturesque architectural details. The architecture of Hawthorne has been recognized by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada as typifying the refined lifestyle of Newfoundland outport merchant families of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For more information on Hawthorne Cottage, check with
Parks Canada.
Tinyseeker in the Brigus Tunnel.
The next stop on our geocaching adventure is the
Brigus Tunnel (GC26KPT). This cache was highlighted as the second star of June in our previous blogpost and was placed by
daboyznus. The Brigus Tunnel was hand blasted in the summer of 1860 by the Cornish miner, John Hoskins, in order to provide unhindered access to Abram Bartlett’s Wharf. It was constructed using steel spikes and black gun powder. Holes formed by steel spikes driven into solid rock and filled with black gun powder was the method employed in the blasting stage of construction. The tunnel represented an early engineering feat which took about four months to complete. Some of the steel spikes used in the building of the tunnel are on display at Ye Olde Stone Barn Museum. The tunnel measures approximately 80 feet long, 8 1/2 feet high and 8 feet wide.
Whelan’s Beach. (click to enlarge)
If you continue down the road from the tunnel, you will be brought across the harbour. From here, you can see the tunnel across the way. The road comes to an end and you must walk the trail for the remaining 100+ meters. Finally you arrive at
Whelan’s Beach (GC2ZFYX). This cache was placed by
houch2 and is located in a beautiful little cove near the mouth of the harbour. If money wasn’t an issue, I would buy this land on the spot for a summer home. From this vantage point, you could see all ships as they enter or leave the harbour.
Landfall – A place designed for seclusion. (click to enlarge)
To get to the final cache of our Brigus adventure, you must drive back past the tunnel and head to the other side of the harbour. The road gains in altitude and comes to an end part of the way up the hill known as the Battery. You must leave your vehicle behind and walk the remaining 500+ meters to the
Brigus View (GC2ZFZ2), another cache by
houch2. The view up here is spectacular. You can look out over the ocean, outside the mouth of the harbour, or look back and see a nice view of the town. There is also a very historic building called Landfall. The Landfall Cottage was constructed around 1786 for the Pomeroy family. The Pomeroy family owned the dwelling for many years but finally abandoned it and used it as a barn. In 1915 Rockwell Kent, an American-born artist and writer, rebuilt the Landfall and added the west addition. The structure became known as Kent Cottage and was featured in some of his paintings. After Kent’s departure from Newfoundland in 1915, engineer and artist Albert Edward Harris purchased and restored the cottage. Harris died in 1933 and the dwelling remained vacant until 1953 when Rupert Bartlett purchased it. The next year Bartlett sold the cottage to its current owner, Bradley J. Folensbee Jr. of Seattle, Washington. The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador declared the Landfall/Kent Cottage in Brigus a Heritage Structure in June 1988. From reading the literature posted at the site and by just standing there, you can easily see that the place was built for the sole purpose of seclusion. For more information on the Landfall (Kent) Cottage, visit
Landfall Trust of Brigus.
Ye Old Stone Barn Museum. (click to enlarge)
Our tour of Brigus was a real enjoyable one with the only drawback being the fact it was too short. Our friend was back in North River cooking us a traditional Newfoundland Jigg’s Dinner, something I’m sure has been cooked in Brigus since its formation. We surely did not want to miss that! Nonetheless, we would highly recommend searching for these five caches, which were not very difficult to find. My only caution is that you do not come here simply for the caches. Take time to savour the old-world charm of this town and, perhaps, taste one of those wonderful blueberry crisps. We will definitely be back to try some, that’s for certain. If you would like more information about the history of Brigus, be sure to visit Ye Old Stone Barn Museum, which has all kinds of relics and information about life back then. Brigus is, indeed, a place worth visiting if you should find yourself traveling near this area. Brigus is, indeed, a cornerstone of Newfoundland Heritage.
Caching Heaven 