Hopedale

We made Hopedale at 7pm (an hour late), and no one knew when to expect us because of the storm. The captain decided to stay there the night because the storm was still blowing, and the sea was still very choppy (they were expecting even bigger waves). It was bitterly cold, and quite windy.

I had been looking forward to seeing the Moravian Church complex at Hopedale, which is a national historic site. Because it’s a long way from the wharf, and we were originally only due to dock for less than two hours, I hadn’t expected to see much of it. Instead, David (who looks after the site) gave us an extensive tour of the church 

and all of the buildings that are still safe enough to see, which took two and a half hours, and Harry drove us to and from the ship, picking up the stragglers first. I had walked a fair way toward the mission and looked back to the ferry.

The Moravian mission set up the first school for Inuit children in 1802 - before the English children in Labrador were going to school. The Inuit adults asked for classes, so they had evening classes as well. They were taught in the local Inuit language, but later in English. 

The Hudson Bay company came later and had a building for their purposes as well. You can see the concrete remains of the Hudson Bay trading post in front of the mission.

The missionaries stayed in rooms in the mission building, and each room had its own pot belly stove. The buildings were prefabricated in Germany and put together by matching the numbers on the pieces of wood. They also curved the chimney.

One of the buildings has been turned into a museum, and includes spear heads and other items that range from 2500 years ago to the present that have all been found in Hopedale.

At 6am we set sail, without any of the usual announcements. While the sea was a lot calmer than it had been, it was still pretty rough.

When we went back, we had a much shorter time there, but I managed to walk to the mission again and took some more pictures of the town.