You know, I’ve lived in Newfoundland my whole life, and I’m still discovering incredible stories hidden in every corner of this island. This week’s adventure took me down to the Burin Peninsula – or as the locals call it, “the Burin” – and let me tell you, I had no idea I was about to step back 300 years into one of the most dangerous pirate havens in North America.
After a quick gas and Big Mary pit stop at Goobies (one of my favorite towns – don’t ask me why, it just is), I made the two-hour trek down to Burin. When I pulled my RV onto this old rustic wharf in the sleepy little town called Mortier, I honestly felt like I’d traveled back in time. Picture this: fishing stages all around, old fishermen heading out to sea in their boats, and me with my cup of tea, completely off the grid with no cell service. Just me, the ocean, and the ghosts of 300 years of history.
“It’s like I’m back in the 1700s,” I thought, looking around at this authentic, beautiful fishing community. “So nice and still and peaceful.” A cup of tea has gotten me through a lot of hardships and good times, and this was definitely one of the good times.
And speaking of history – did you know that Mortier Burin was an absolute pirate haven back in the 1700s? We’re talking Blackbeard, Caribbean pirates, American pirates – every scoundrel with a ship made a stop here to plunder. This peaceful little fishing village was once one of the most dangerous places you could live in the world!
Before diving into pirate history, I had to fuel up. So I fired up the stove in the RV for a special edition of “Cooking with Donnie” and created what I’m calling “On the Burin Pancakes.”
“Just get your flour,” I explained to the camera, “and then you got your baking powder, teaspoon full of that, and then you put in the same amount of milk that you put in for flour.”
I mixed it all up. “I think that’s enough anyway for a couple of pancakes.”
But here’s where it gets good: blueberries, chocolate chips, and an assortment of sprinkles. “You can never have enough chocolat,” I said, tossing in a generous handful.
When it came time to flip them, I got a little nervous. “Oh my god, here’s the flip everyone, let’s do this!” But you know what? “Oh my god, I’m actually getting good at this cooking stuff!”
Then came the toppings – strawberries, whipped cream, more blueberries, marshmallows, Newfoundland’s own Partnerberry sauce, maple syrup, and sprinkles. “So here it is, On the Burin Pancakes. It’ll put a smile on anyone’s face.” After that first bite loaded with all those toppings, all I could say was: “Hmm, just dreamy.”
I met up with Mike Brennen down by the wharf.
“Hey Donny, how’s it going? Good to see you on the Burin! “
“Good to see you Mike! It’s so beautiful down here. It’s hard to believe this place used to be overrun by pirates…Can you fill me in – was it like Blackbeard or what kind of pirates were they?”
Mike told me many stories about pirates like Blackbart, Peter Easton and Captain Burnes out of North Carolina, sailing the Sapphire. These weren’t your friendly neighborhood pirates. They sailed here and anchored just off the coast and rowed ashore in small boats under cover of fog, they pillaged everything from people to food to anything of value. Those were scary days on the Burin Peninsula.
“And you know Donny it was also a hard life for the pirates, many of those swashbucklers had been ripped from their homes and forced to crew the ships in horrible conditions, and with nasty pirate captains.”
“Now if I was a pirate captain,” I said, “everybody would be wanting to be on my ship because I’d take care of them. Make sure the boys got like, you know, massages and manicures or whatever they want. And like they’d have a nice place to sleep, you know, not just a hammock, but something comfortable, right? Happy pirate, happy pirate captain”.
Mike just laughed at my luxury pirate ship idea.
“So let’s take a trip back in time to the 1700s. What would it be like if me and you were pirates and we came into this kind of area? What would we be doing?”
“Well Donny we’d start with kicking in doors, robbing and looting, kidnapping too probably; and taking the loot back out to the mother ship,” Mike explained. “The mother ship will probably just sit outside the narrows here and and by this time, the villages themselves, a lot of them would probably just run in the woods because there’s just so much armament that these guys carried with them and the fear of murder and plunder and everything else. They most likely stole whatever fish, whatever cattle they could get, and then they just burned the place to the ground and leave.”
“Most likely the villagers here in Mortier had established escape routes and little hatches for hiding.Families watching from the forest as their homes burned.”
“Hide your jewelry box,” I said, imagining the terror.”
“Listen here, I promised you an adventure,” Mike said. “Let’s go look at some of the cannons that locals ended up using to fight the pirates off. My buddy Patty is going to meet us out here and he’s on the trail there now,” Mike explained. “He can show us where the cannons are.”
“Is that the guy who said he got Viking blood?” I asked.
“Yep. That’s Paddy.”
When we got up to the cannon site, the view was incredible. “I can understand why they stayed in this place,” I said. “This is amazing because you can see the whole ocean vista from up here.”
“And the narrow range here – I mean those cannons only shoot short distances,” Mike pointed out.
“And that’s the cannon there?” I spotted it. “Oh yeah, big boy! That’s the big boy!”
Patty filled us in: “This particular cannon here, eight feet long, had a velocity about 675 yards. From a distance of 300 yards it could penetrate 40 inches of solid oak.”
“Wow! And what do you think it’d be like here back in the day if you were living out here protecting Burin?”
“Well, I try to think of them like me,” Patty laughed. “I’d be having a nap on the grass because I probably hadn’t seen anybody for two months. And then you see a ship, everybody would be running and trying to get everything in order, probably excited.”
“Yeah, yeah, full of adrenaline!” I could picture it.
“You’d be on the higher land, you’d be protected, you’d have the advantage,” Patty explained.
“This particular cannon was back here about 20 feet and it probably protected the wider approach going into Mortier. The shorter cannons probably would protect the narrow range here. And right down directly behind the cliffs here, there’s three more cannons in the water. The local fishermen say there’s a couple of brass cannons down there. At times they’ve hooked them and brought them up, but with so much weight they had to let them go.”
After getting some insight into the life of the villagers and the village protectors who lived about 20 minutes out on the top of the Bluff with the cannons I had a question to ask the guys.
“What do you think – would you rather be a townsperson or a pirate?” I asked Patty.
“Hmmm, probably a Pirate. I think it was an adventurous life. You’re getting to see the world, you’re coming up with plans on how to attack another ship, living on the edge.”
“You got a bit of Viking blood in, don’t you?” I asked
“Yes.”
“So when you found out you have Viking blood, how did that make you feel?”
“That’s pretty cool. I don’t know, I think most Newfoundlanders must have some Scandinavian blood, Norwegian or Viking. It only makes sense.”
I turned to Patty with a serious question: “So you study the history of pirates and all that stuff – what would be like a day to day? What do you think it would be like to be a pirate and be in with a crew?”
“Hard work every day. Polishing, being with your brothers. You have to depend on that guy to save your life in the next battle. I think it’d be pretty cool, you know, like brotherhood.”
“And I guess you’d have to watch your P’s and Q’s or you’d be walking the plank and all that stuff.”
“Yeah, there you go, we’ll get Mike on the plank!”
“That’s not fair!” Mike protested. “And here I was going to make you my first mate!”
“Never trust a pirate,” I laughed.
After leaving the boys, I headed to Garnish to check out the beaches. “It’s my first day exploring, and I got the Polaris on to go, and the boys tell me there’s a beach up there so I’m gonna go for a ride on the quad and check it out.”
Let me tell you, when I got there – it was amazing! What a beautiful beach this is in our province of Newfoundland and Labrador!
I took the Polaris right through the surf, and before I knew it, I was soaking wet, covered in saltwater.
“Well, I’m soaking wet here, having the time of my life. All the salt water going up your face – I might as well just go for a swim because why not!!”
Oh my god, the water was so cold! But I got used to it and then there I was, in the North Atlantic Ocean having the absolute time of my life. That’s what Adventures Unknown is all about – saying yes to the moment.
Later, Mike took me on this incredible hike up to a peak where they used to set off alarms to warn people when pirate ships were approaching. Imagine the terror of looking out and seeing those Jolly Roger flags flying. There’s nothing jolly about that.
Then the day ended perfectly – Mike and Patty came by the RV for a fire, and Paddy’s wife’s sent over some traditional Newfoundland blueberry grunt.
“Why do they call it blueberry grunt?” I asked
“It’s so delicious that you usually eat a little too much and afterwards you are so full that the only sound you can make is a grunt.” Paddy said.
“That’s amazing! That’s the real Newfoundland dessert, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah.”
After my first bite my taste buds were doing jumping jacks, “Oh my gosh, I remember my Nan used to make something like this, right? Oh yeah, it’s so heavy right?”
“What a day we had today, hey?” Mike said.
“Unbelievable!” I agreed. “I mean now the weather is socked in again with fog. It’s like the Burin Peninsula weather changes every hour. It can be sunny and then foggy and then rainy. But it’s so warm here by the fire – so you don’t really feel the rain.”
We ended the evening around the fire sharing good food, good times, and great laughs as new friends. I pulled out my guitar and made up a song about the adventures I’d had with Mike and Paddy. All hands joined in the singing. What an awesome adventure.
Days like this remind me why I do Adventures Unknown. Here we are in our own backyard, with stories as incredible as anything you’d find in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean. Pirates, cannons, beautiful beaches, authentic Newfoundland culture, and some of the best people you could ever meet.
The Burin Peninsula might have been dangerous 300 years ago, but today it’s just pure magic. If you haven’t been down that way, put it on your list. Drive down to Goobies, gas up, get a Big Mary, and then beat the trail down the road. Two hours later, you’ll be standing where pirates once stood, eating pancakes on an old wharf, and feeling like you’ve stepped right out of your regular life and into an adventure.
And if you see some sheep along the way, maybe don’t try to ride them like I did. They’re faster than they look.
Until the next adventure, Donny
Donny Love
Adventures Unknown
P.S. – If you want to make your own On the Bjorn Pancakes, just remember: you can never have enough chocolate.
