My birthday fell midweek but I'd still have to wait a few weeks for the usual big trip. Regardless of that though, I was still going to go somewhere on my actual day of birth.

Setting off for the next town over in Curling, I knew about some German POW rock walls that I wanted to go see.

Long ago I'd narrowed down the section of bush where you find these rock walls, but it isn't a very big plot of land. I'd previously tried to find a place without a house to dive in, but succeeded only in getting tangled in alders and causing a great ruckus with the thousand branches that I broke. I didn't make it very far past people's backyards either, just far enough to be stuck and worried that some local resident thought Curling had a Peeping Tom on the loose.

Today I accepted being seen and simply hurried through someone's yard and onto a wide path into the woods. This well-maintained quad path led to another backyard eventually, but there was a branch going off towards a clearing where someone cuts their firewood.

The shadowed ground remained covered by the overnight flurries, but now the sun was trying to come out and the wind was light up in this thick forest. It was turning into an alright day, especially as I began to stumble upon bits of rock wall.

Over a hundred years ago, World War I was ongoing and Newfoundland remained a self-governing colony of the British Empire. With the British engaging in war with the Germans, the effects of this were felt across the sea by a couple of unfortunate German merchants.

Simply in the Bay of Islands on their schooner to trade fish with the Newfoundlanders, these two German merchants were taken as prisoners of war because of the English-German conflict. The two men were held in the lockup in Curling.

Each day, the main district inspector for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulatory, Isaac Bartlett, would let the Germans out to construct this rock wall on his property in Curling. By the end of things, the wall would span 350 meters (about 1150 feet).

(I'm curious what the Germans did during the five months of winter every year, haha. The police station probably had the best snow clearing in all of Curling, plus a couple of Germans longing for the light winters of Berlin.)

If you're wondering about the purpose of a rock wall like this, and I'm totally speculating here, but you had a lot more cleared property in Newfoundland back then, along with many wandering farm animals. Mr. Bartlett could have been interested in keeping out marauding animals and delineating his property.

Following three years being held as prisoners, the war ended and the Germans were free to go. They returned to their docked schooner and sailed back home.

Although I'm sure there were other things they'd rather be doing than building a rock wall in the woods of Western Newfoundland for 3 years, the Germans were apparently treated pretty good. In fact, they later wrote a letter to the Bartletts thanking them for their hospitality and also specifically thanking Mrs. Bartlett for her delicious rabbit pie.

The entire Bartlett property here stretches from the T'Railway down to the sea. In the last five years, the village of Curling has finally developed the waterfront portion after purchasing the property in 1988. It's now a beautiful park with paths, scenic viewpoints and information boards about the prominent Bartlett home, farm and storage shed. The home is nothing more than a cement foundation today, but you can tell it was an important place by the size of the foundation (plus there are pictures of the old home).

The Bartletts hoped their rock wall property would also be purchased and preserved when city council committed funding to turn the waterfront property into a park. Instead, the city informed the Bartletts that they weren't interested.

In a 2014 article, the Bartletts hoped that a new council would be interested in this property, but by 2017 they simply hoped that a new owner would be interested in preserving the historic wall.

There have been a couple articles about these rock walls and each time it's apparent the pride the Bartletts feel in the history here.

Many of the facebook comments on these articles come from people talking about how they played on these walls over various decades. Impressively, the walls didn't seem too much worse for wear after 100 years of this.

Those damn Germans and their Mercedes/Audi precision!

This was certainly one of those things that's close to where you live that you mean to go check out for years. It was also one of those things that ends up being pretty cool and you wonder why you waited so long (to check it out).

All the best to the Bartletts in getting this place preserved and signed.

Riding the high from a good morning of exploring, I found out that Isy was free and we headed to Stephenville. The Corner Brook ramps were being moved and Stephenville is just a better skatepark, so this was another great addition to the day.

I jump-over grinded the A-frame rail, enjoyed the 3°C/38°F sunshine, then eventually headed back to CB.