From up on the Lookout
Certain cities bost iconic views. Picture postcard views. Like it or not. St. John’s, for example, has this one:
Oops. My bad. Approaching fog banks are iconic, but I was thinking more of this photo:
The Cabot tower, on Signal Hill near the mouth of the harbour. Visible from different corners in the downtown area, it’s not until you are “up there, on the Lookout” that you get a real feeling for the size of the old city.
Here we are. The Rooms. The Cathedral (both of them, I think). The colour scheme. We’ve been left wondering – is there a city office that gets to choose who paints which house with what colour? Is it purely by chance that two houses in a row have the same hue? What if you want to change things up?
Signal Hill is a federal site, so the roads are well-paved and marked, and the signage is bilingual. Truly Canadian, eh. Even the two guys that were charged with replacing a soft plank on one of the boardwalks were properly dressed for the job, with orange jumpers and safety goggles. No, they weren’t escaped felons (at least, I don’t think so).
Across the mouth of the harbour, the Fort Amherst lighthouse and the remains of the coastal battery are a grim reminder of the war status here, seventy odd years ago.
Inside the Tower, there is a lot of content dealing with the Marconi period. I’ll leave you to do your own research, but the letter ‘S’ is important. This is the second amateur radio club station site we’ve visited; the second one with nobody there to animate things. Pity.
The Railway Coastal Museum was also on our itinerary this afternoon, and the displays are complete and professional. I’d like to send someone from a certain neighbouring province over here, to see how things could be done.
Mustn’t forget to mention the police cars that were busily protecting a section of city street near the museum. According to a girl at the museum, who “knows someone that knows someone who works with the Republic of Doyle crew”, they were shooting a sequence that involved someone falling through a window, today. We almost saw famous folk!
