St. Anthony -
The eastern tip of the Northern Peninsula was the subject of a documentary film crew's visit to this province recently.
Jeff Eagar, Christopher Eagar and Steve Eagar produce and star in "Which Way To..." on the Outdoor Life Network in Canada and the National Geographic Adventure Channel around the world.
Jeff Eagar spoke to The Western Star by phone from Cape Breton where his parents live now after shooting the episode.
The trip took nine days and Eagar said the weather co-operated really well with a couple of days of bright sunshine to show off the region around St. Anthony. He said most of the time there was a bit of cloud, some wind and occasionally fog to make the shoot even more visually interesting.
This was one of the brothers' few trips to Newfoundland since they left their birthplace of St. John's about 30 years ago.
The brothers filmed the final episode of the second season of the program early in July.
"We saved the best for last," Eagar said. "We wanted to end it on a nice note. We always come back to our roots. Last year we came back to Cape Breton. This year we did Newfoundland."
They stopped in Great Harbour Deep, then it was off to the St. Anthony area.
In addition to the St. Anthony area, the brothers filmed in Nicaragua, Morocco, Nunavut, Nepal, England and Laos for the second season. In the first edition of the show, they went to Japan, the Philippines, Egypt, the Lapland region of Sweden, Lake Titicaca in Peru and the Wagah region of India.
The idea behind "Which Way To..." is to go off the beaten track to get a feel for the culture and beauty of places that aren't put through the tourism filter.
For the Newfoundland show, they took a float plane to the resettled community of Harbour Deep before continuing on to St. Anthony where they started sea kayaking from the lighthouse there up to Quirpon Island lighthouse, taking note of the whales, icebergs and fishing outports along the way.
"It was fantastic," Eagar said. "The rocky coastline up there is incredible, all the coves, bays and outports are so beautiful. The people, all the characters in there. Earl Pilgrim, we sat down with him and he told us a few stories. Bill Bartlett, he's full of local knowledge and colour. We stopped in with him. The ladies that work up at the Quirpon Lighthouse Inn are three wonderful Newfoundland ladies."
The brothers pick a local mode of transportation wherever they go and sea kayaks made sense for Newfoundland.
There were times when the fog rolled in making things interesting. And there were times when they couldn't go out because of the weather, but the Eagars didn't mind because the scenery was great and the people are interesting.
It's that kind of experience that makes Newfoundland really shine.
"That northeast tip of Newfoundland is as beautiful a place as we've ever been," Eagar said.
"It's rough and it's rugged. Even the subtleties of things like the colour of the kelp, the moss and the little flowers in the tundra make it a very beautiful place.
"Then you add in the local colour, the history - the fishing history and outport history and maritime history - and it's going to be as nice as any show we've done in the last two seasons."
