While I was away, the big news was that a local warehouse roof had collapsed under the weight of snow.

I thought this could result in exploration opportunities, but an active business roof collapsing only results in opportunities to buy discounted, damaged heating units.

Fast forward a couple months and they had cleaned up the collapsed portion and sealed the rest. Another couple of months later, they would knock down the remaining portion and now there's a big gap between the two buildings here on Brook Street.

This was an especially interesting development because this area of Corner Brook, dubbed Smithtown, is a collection of auto parts stores and seedy bars, separating the two downtowns here which came from two separate former towns that amalgamated to create Corner Brook. Part of the future municipal plan is to encourage businesses to leave Smithtown and go to industrial parks, then creating open space here that links the two downtowns.

That's still really far off as there's many healthy businesses down here, but any place that may go away becomes a place I like to walk around and document. Not to mention that this is the closest thing Corner Brook has to a deserted industrial area where you can ride your bike or walk while (somewhat) being left alone.

If we rewind back, it was only one week after being in Upstate New York/Detroit with brief mentions of Covid, that I was now back in Corner Brook and my work had closed due to the pandemic, while it was highly recommended that we stay in our house and limit trips to public places.

We were getting slammed with snowstorms too, but this was already March and I'd just got back from riding in Hartford and Essex County. Of course I was still salty, but I also had to remind myself that winter was almost over.

And really, it was a relatively good March where we didn't have much of that life inside the snow globe with just day after day after day of onshore flurries from the ocean. Instead we had big storms that would dump snow, but those storms would also clear out the default flurries and cloudy garbage.

It was easy enough to stay on top of it and move out each storm's snow.

I saw the empty toilet paper shelves and deserted downtowns just like you did, but I found the liquor store interesting, where they changed to ordering online or by phone, and then when you went in you were blocked off from the store by a wall of Coors Light and Lambs Rum.

I've heard the saying that 90% of the population here would be fine if the NLC only sold Coors Light, Lambs Rum, and Yellow Tail, so I appreciated their choice of wall boxes, haha.

My favourite sign came from the McDonald's parking lot, although it wasn't really a Covid sign.

One conundrum was the skatepark and whether to clear it and create a space for teens to congregate and exchange disease. It wasn't so bad in early March though, since it takes time for the word to spread that it's clear and open. Sure, it was technically closed due to Covid, but I was the only one trudging out here in snowshoes.

Except, some random afternoon where it was suddenly 7°C/45°F and sunny, I rolled up to find 20-25 teenagers and young men hanging out in this confined space hemmed in with walls of snow.

A few days later we got yet another 8-12" snow storm, where the skatepark was only opening if I put in the work to shovel it. It's then that I decided I didn't want to be responsible for a place where 20-25 people would get together.

(I'd later learn that no one respected the Pasadena skatepark closure and they were just there instead, lol.)

About a month later the city actually put some caution tape up to mark that the skatepark was closed. They're always so on the ball.

I haven't forgotten my roots to the point that I won't go ride street, but springtime is the worst time to ride street in Corner Brook. Sand and dust from a winter's worth of snow clearing, coats the entire town in a layer where you can't do any tricks where you turn around quickly or turn sharply.

I brought my portable Subrosa rail to the high school parking lot, but then washed out after I only swept a 30-ft area. I washed out at the Oceanex docks too. Trying to make the best of mediocre spots, I let out some expletives each time the spring dust layer blew me up and left me face down in a half-inch of silt.

Maybe the solution was to instead go for hikes with the dog up in the high country?

Hey, I mean there is a bus to be explored!

An old cabin conversion, this bus had long ago been ransacked and rendered unsafe for dogs.

Thankfully Kingsley was thwarted by the alders blocking the folding doors.

Covid Spring was quickly turning into Abandoned School Bus Spring.

This was another one down by Stephenville. I've always thought that I could do more old bus exploring here in Newfoundland since there's so many, so I guess that's one good thing about the Covid Spring? That I scratched that itch?

I wasn't getting far enough from home though. I still didn't really want to buy gas and risk an extra stop just for my own need to explore, but Sheffield Lake Road was far enough to satisfy my need to get away, while not needing to buy gas at Baie Verte Junction.

Driving 14 km (~9 mi) down the gravel road, circling around Sheffield Lake and past cabins, I continued on foot through an area with next to no cabins. Finding a ridge after about an hour, I sat atop this old fridge and took it all in. There wasn't much for wildlife, but this was an obscure enough thumbtack on the map to make me happy.

Ah frig, there was another bus back here too. Although this one looked like the local paper mill might've smashed it out of the way while road building.

It was still early in the year to see a ton of birds or flowers, but getting back into the cabin area, a strange black bird flew over and landed in a nearby tree. Quietly creeping up, the Rusty Blackbird, a locally rare lifer, stayed in the tree long enough that I was able to grab some photos against the bright gray sky.

Still on the high of seeing my first Rusty Blackbird, I walked about 20 feet before a guy popped out and asked where I had walked. Before I knew it, he invited me into his cabin where he, his wife, and their daughter were spending the weekend. Explaining that I was simply out walking for a laugh, he instantly told his wife how I was just like Darren, their buddy who does things like, "walk down streams just to check it out and see what's there." This is something I've long thought about doing in Newfoundland's gentle and braided streams, so I could very much go for running into this Darren sometime, lol.

Finishing up my Bud Light, I went on my way and it was only back at my car that I remembered I wasn't supposed to be fraternizing with strangers! It felt so normal that it didn't even occur to me. This was actually when we had "bubbles" and you were only suppose to have two other people in your bubble. Whoops.

A funny aside here is that Isy and I actually struggled to fill our bubble. Once Shelley had picked her father and step mom, I offered, "well Isy, I'm out of options! You can use my bubble spot too!" Haha.

Another weekend and another woods road as I wandered up Glide Lake Road by Deer Lake - enjoying this part where the tiny culverts were overwhelmed and I had to go down into the sandy stream to cross.

Another thing I always wondered about is how I spend a fair amount of time on Newfoundland woods roads, but I find next to no abandoned cabins.

Chalking it up to the fact that cabins are set back from the road and I actually don't see them close enough to size up whether they're really abandoned, here was an abandoned trailer that I found at the start of Glide Lake Road. Truly a gripping explore.

Across the bay, near Rubber Lake, off of Hughes Brook Road.

Now that this pandemic had me exploring woods road every weekend, I was really hitting the abandoned cabin jackpot, haha.

I have to admit that I loved how the only visible helmet on the NFL helmet blanket was the Detroit Lions. Dan Campbell is the man!

Getting away from riding my mountain bike, I was left wondering about other skateparks. Benoit's Cove seemed ideal since it's usually horrible due to all of the kids hanging out in the playground right next to it all day and night long (you become quite the spectacle if you show up to bike or skate).

If I were to clear out this skatepark - as it was apparently not closed like Corner Brook's - it wasn't going to result in a new place to congregate. Except that there was way more snow on the ground than the Benoit's Cove Skatepark is worth.

Bike riders in big cities like Toronto or Los Angeles were hitting paydirt with Covid closing downtown office buildings and courthouses. Meanwhile the best spots in Corner Brook that are usually hard to ride, are actually the places that were deemed essential for a couple months there.

In Corner Brook these were the grocery stores and banks, while the gains of being able to ride the backside of the Glynmill Inn - seen above - weren't too great.

I'd eventually fix things by freeing up this ledge where a building stood long ago (before I even moved here). You might think I must have better street spots than having to ride this flat, dirty ledge everyday, but Corner Brook really is limited for spots you can session at lunchtime.

The college takes security so serious that their guards do deggis. The busy grocery stores are the only places with proper traffic islands because everywhere else builds snowplow-proof tiny islands. Speaking of snowplows, one of them destroyed the two glorious flat rails that used to exist at our old Canadian Tire.

Options are slim.

Boredom continued with being limited to a tank of gas. This led me to finally checking off having a boil up - a fire and tea in the woods - plus I had the hare-brained idea of going to these grasslands across the bay for a picnic in the rolling fields.

It was a little more farmland than grassland on the ground, but thankfully no irate farmers showed up, lol.

The next weekend it was more of a quad trail than a woods road, which was good because my mountain bike chain broke pretty quickly.

At least now we were getting a bit more wildlife to spice up the forest wanderings.

This was a Boreal Long-lipped Tiger Beetle.

And this is a Spruce Grouse that crossed my path on the way back.

Especially in Newfoundland, some things changed quickly. In May, Shelloo visited us while staying out of our bubble, by the three of us sitting on our porch, Shelloo on one end and us on the other. Eventually she went home when she needed to use the washroom and didn't want to go in our house.

By June, Shelloo and I went up to Camp 10 Road in the same vehicle, then birded together for three hours.

No school buses or abandoned cabins this time, but we did hear an Olive-sided Flycatcher amongst these snags¹.

1 - dead or drying trees.

At the same time, some things took forever to change. With how Newfoundland simply isolated itself and didn't allow anyone but truckers and people with dying family members to come here, we usually only had around 5 Covid cases at a time, for months on end.

Despite that, it took forever for parks to open back up, and the same slowness that it took for backwater Corner Brook to close the park, it took them to reopen it.

That wasn't even close to the worst part though, as it took forever for Newfoundland to even consider opening up travel off the island - and hell, since some people don't care about ever leaving the island, you even had some say that it should just stay closed until we are absolutely sure.

Thank God we're surrounded by water?

Frig.