Two images taken just as we entered the small town of Elliston, NL. Originally, in the 1700's, Elliston was named Bird Island Cove. It was probably so named because of two small islands located just off the mainland where every spring and summer large numbers of seabirds would nest and raise their young. Later in the 1700's, the town was renamed after William Ellis, the first Methodist Missionary for the area. Presently, Elliston claims to be The Root Cellar Capital of The World. There are some 135 root cellars in Elliston, some still in use.

For those interested in photographing sea birds, especially Atlantic Puffins, Elliston is the place to go. There the Puffins often come right on to the mainland, thus allowing for full frame shots with 300 - 400 mm lenses. If not on the mainland, the Puffins are not too far off guarding their burrows on one of the nesting islands. About six Km. from Elliston, there is an other seabird colony at Cape Bonavista. At Cape Bonavista, the birds can also be readily photographed right from the mainland. My experience was that a 400mm lens provided adequate reach for photographing the birds on the nesting islands. Longer lenses would of course provide greater detail and perhaps full frame images of single birds.

Top image: My wife posing in front of a root cellar with banners above.


Two adjacent root cellars. The root cellars generally had two rooms, an outer and an inner room. The outer or first room is where frozen foods were kept and the inner room, separated from the outer by a door, is where produce etc was stored.